In my theater piece Custer and Sitting Bull I quote what was purported to be the personal song of Sitting Bull, transcribed into notation, which was recorded in the 1920s by Frances Densmore. It was sung by a Sioux named Used-as-a-Shield, who had known him, and said, "Sitting Bull used to go around the camp every evening, just before sunset on his favorite horse, singing this song." (Source: "Folk Music of the United States / Songs of the Sioux," Library of Congress Division of Music Recording Laboratory AAFS L23.) I always wanted to do something with the original recording, and in 2007 I spent a lot of time trying to make a musique concrete piece enveloping it in other sounds. I felt like I didn't know what I was doing, and abandoned it. In August 2024 I ran across the materials, realized that not knowing what I was doing could be a good thing, deleted an overcomplicated first draft, and tried again. A background chord in just intonation is tuned to the notes in Sitting Bull's melody. I imagined him still singing in the elysian fields, getting slower and slower, surrounded by birds (including crows, which I also used in the Sitting Bull movement of the original piece). So this little tone poem is truly a footnote to Custer and Sitting Bull.

Kyle Gann

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