song now than in the past. Often drumming over repeated sections that comprise a song begins with players softly striking the rim of the bass drum. The tempo increases as the drumming moves further to the center of the drum skin. At some point "hard beats", loud strokes off the rhythm by an individual, sometimes the leader, and beats may be omitted. Drumming may pause for a phrase or two in the last stanza of the last repetition and finish loudly. When playing the stick game, players drum upon a plank, and the drumming is more likely to coincide with vocal beats, but less accurate unison playing. Rattles are no longer used. (Nettl, 1989, p. 157) Drumming has increased in prominence since 1900, now being virtually required, possibly because of the influence of pan-tribal culture, the decreased use of rattles and other percussion, or the decrease in frequency of songs texts. The use of the term "drumming" for musician/singer also increased between the 1960s and the 1980s. (Nettl, 1989) Song composition Traditionally, songs are considered to be given, completed, to individual Blackfoot people in visions or dreams. Though it is now accepted that music, especially white music, may be composed in the European influenced sense, the traditional view still greatly affects how songs and their creation or origin are considered. Songs are considered somewhat like objects, in that they may be created of components, but once finished become a unity. They may also be "given" or even sold. Some songs belong to everyone, some songs to just one person but may be sung by others, and some songs individuals save until times of great need. Two songs which may be aurally identical may considered different songs if they have different origins, i.e., came from different visions. (Nettl, 1989) Most songs, except gambling songs which simply repeat "litany-like" one or two phrases, are characterized by an "incomplete repetition" formal pattern, "many of them can ultimately be reduced to a binary form in which the section is a variation and/or reduction of the first." (p. 43) However, there was more formal variation in the past (p. 100). Songs sung with medicine basket openings and gamblings songs often use isometric and isorhythmic rhythmic structures or lesser note-length values (p. 44). Typically songs begin in falsetto before singers move to their head voices. Octave equivalence appears to be used, as transposition down by an