Back in the 1950’s, I took piano lessons from a book called " Michael Aaron Piano Course Lessons Grade 1" - the first in a series of several. It’s still in print.
One of my favorites was called “Indian War Dance” - I find myself still humming it when crossing through reservations. However - I find that later editions of the piano book now title the tune “Rockin’ On” - the rest of the book is identical to the one I had 60 years ago - same tunes, same titles - except this one.
In the first example, you can look at the book and see a picture of dancing Indians. I can’t find a clear example of the corresponding picture in the newer edition.
While doing a search for the two titles - I got a double hit from an issue of “Arizona Thoroughbred” magazine. Two of the horses listed in the “2013 Arizona Thoroughbred Stallion Registry” are named “Indian War Dance” and “Rockin On”.
I wonder if there’s an anthology of stereotypical incidental music like that. It’s weird that the featured instrument is rarely very specific to the culture like banjo for Japan, accordion for France, or piano for Native Americans.
Just posting to say that book was the first piano book I learned from (on my piano teacher’s recommendation/instruction) when I was a kid in the early 90s. I think my copy might be in our basement - I’ll try to remember to take a look and see what the piece is titled in my edition. I strongly suspect/vaguely remember it will be the older ‘non-PC’ one.
I still remember my favourite piece from the book was called “My New Horn” - I think that was the first piece I learned to play that had both hands playing together, and I think it was also the first piece I learned by heart - since forgotten. I’m 35 now and still play regularly - just well enough to make a reasonable tune, just badly enough not to want to do it in public too often. But my repertoire has moved on slightly .
Right, political correctness. Isn’t it a bummer that we can’t stereotype or make fun of native Americans any more. It’s even affected piano books for children.
Political correctness has gotten a bad rap over the past 4 or 5 years. I can’t imagine why. I think of political correctness, like changing the name of a sports franchise, is showing you are sensitive to the feelings of others. It didn’t bother me that there was football team called the “Redskins”, but then again I’m not Native American. I certainly understand why it bothered a lot of people. Cultural sensitivity is not a bad thing, although like anything, it can be taken to the extreme. If people complained about “Indian War Dance” I have no problem changing the title to something non-offensive. It’s not “Cancel Culture” to be culturally sensitive.
To be fair to the OP, nowhere do they say or imply that changing the name and imagery for that song is a bad thing. I think ‘political correctness’ is a fair term for this, we just have to read it neutrally, rather than assign the common negative connotations to it. It is correct to make these changes in this day and age. I read the OP as simply commenting on an interesting discovery, as well as 2 horses that were presumably named by someone who had made the same discovery as them, previously.
Having said that, I’m not sure the original was ‘making fun of native Americans’ - at least in terms of the title, I can’t see the imagery. Then again, I’m not native American either, so my opinion on that isn’t relevant.
As you yourself have noted, it is not a neutral term in common usage. It is generally shorthand to cover “all the things we’re not supposed to say any more” without any acknowledgement of why it is better not to say them. It’s quite true we don’t know OP’s state of mind on this issue, but using this term is not neutral, not in this culture.
Which brings up the question: is there a different, neutral term that OP might have used instead? It could be “courtesy” I suppose, or something like that. It’s a little hard to come up with a snappy term for not being a jerk.
We need to start a new movement: “AntiJerk”. Trying now to think what cool colors and signature catchphrases or hand signals we could use.
The nice thing about being AntiJerk is if we did get infiltrated by those other people, they’d have to act AntiJerky to blend in. As soon as they broke character they’d be outed.
In one of my seed catalogues, they’ve taken it upon themselves to change the name of an offending listing to something they invented.
Dahlia “Redskin”* is now Dahlia “Red Road”.
Which is OK, except you’d think they could’ve picked a better substitute name.
*it’s a mixture of flower colors, with all plants having dark reddish-purple foliage, derived from a variety called “Bishop of Llandaff”, which may or may not be offensive to Anglicans.
Thank you. I was trying my best to make sense of the new name, and that comes of do it. I just heard the piece with a minor key chant and drone, which didn’t fit what I normally think of with rock.
Hearing something similar with distorted guitars, though, it fits pretty nicely.
.