Ideas for Collecting Songs, Aqausiit, Pisiit, Drumming, and Qiarvaaq or Katajjaq (Throat Singing)

• Collect Inuktitut traditional music, create a recording and print the words to the songs so people can follow along.
• Collect aqausiit that people in your literacy group sing to their own children or aqausiit that their family members made up for them when they were small. Record these on a tape or CD with dedications to family members.
• Record Elders drumming and singing pisiit. Take pictures of the Elders and include the words to their pisiq, with their photograph, in the CD package.
• Make a video of people singing and drumming or throat singing.
• Collect traditional songs that people sing to children or used to sing to children and are now not so well known. Record these songs and include the words and an explanation of the purpose of each song in the tape or CD package. Find out about the stories of the songs – who composed them and for what purpose? Who was around when the song was composed?
• Hold a community event, a festival or a concert, where people sing traditional songs. Record the performers on video, collect the words to their songs and make the video tape and words available for people to borrow from the library or Community Learning Centre.
• The literacy group could learn the words for traditional songs and sing and record them themselves. Create a recording which includes the words of each song and photographs of the performers.