The easiest mistake in the act of singing songs in the Lakota language is singing to the beat of the drum. We are taught in school to clap to time with a song. In most drumming systems of Indigenous cultures and even our modern culture, we use an off beat. While clapping, most of us use an on beat rather than an off beat. An on beat is the opposite of an off beat.
Usually, when clapping one would start a song with the clap and the clapping would happen at each syllable, that’s the on beat. What you want is the drum beat between each syllable, starting the song after the clap and the syllables of the lyrics occurring between the beats.
Lets use an example, the song “
Mary had a little lamb”, what you want is to hear the drum beat * between the syllables.
Ma*ry* had* a *li*ttle* lamb*. Like that.
A good way to get it right is to practice drumming with a heart beat (thunder beat), that’s a two beat.
One two, one two, one two, the “
one” being the loud beat and the “
two” being the more quiet of the heart beat. Practice starting the song on the “
two”. If you were clapping you would start the song when your hands are furthest apart and each syllable would occur when your hands are apart (the off beat).
Another point of consideration is distinguishing between vocables and lyrics.
Vocables are sounds and are not written among the lyrics. Usually the syllables and melody of the vocables match the lyrical part of the song. Vocables can be compared to the European equivalent:
Fa La La La La, La La La La (deck the halls). Usually songs containing vocables, begin with vocables. Very rarely are the vocables after the lyrics or between the words.