(playful music) - Hi, friends.

Welcome to "Live from the City Opera House, It's Storytime!".

I'm your host Ben Whiting, and every week on this show we're gonna have a great story read by a special guest and then have a fun activity that you can participate in right from home using objects and materials that you can find in your home or classroom.

We'll always be learning about science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and local culture.

Now, for today's book.

(playful music) Today's book is called "Bowwow Powwow".

Do you know what a powwow is?

A powwow is a gathering of families for celebration in the Ojibwe culture.

Maybe you and your family have attended a powwow and seen it's various types and styles of dance, regalia, and traditional dress.

- [Man] Can I get everybody to rise?

- [Man] Our elders would tell us that when we (speaks in foreign language) When we're bending at the knees when we're dancing, and when we're celebrating this beautiful gift of life, we're actually healing ourselves.

- For me anyways, it's very spiritual to be able to be out in a circle, to be able to pray.

To be able to see friends that you haven't seen in a while.

- It makes me feel good inside.

It makes me feel like I can be myself out there when I'm dancing, and it feels like you can be yourself and breathe.

- The powwow, it promotes that next generation.

It gives them something to go, you know what?

I am unique, I am important, I have the opportunity to be.

- [Woman] It's about being spiritual.

It's about learning your old ways to learning the ways of their ancestors.

- This powwow is like a giant family reunion.

A lot of people that come down from up North or to come up from the South meet their families here for the weekend, camp, hang out.

They don't see them in other places.

So we all get together.

We all do everything for the weekend.

- I meet new people.

I get to talk about what I do.

I get to know who they are, visit with them.

- Decades of fry bread makers.

And we're one of the oldest food stands in the state of Michigan.

- [Man] It's two days of reunion time.

(people singing) - When you look in that Grand Entry, all those dancers, they line up as the oldest to youngest.

Those little ones that are dancing behind all of those older individuals and they get to look ahead.

Gives them an idea of where it is that they're heading in their lives.

But a really is significant and importance of this time of the gentle market is that the spirit of the ancestors are here.

We're still here and we're still picking up the implements of our culture and of our life ways.

And that we're still interacting with those things that make us whole and complete.

- Well, the heroine of today's book is a young girl with a big imagination and she is going to take us to a powwow in her mind.

We'll be learning about values, such as gratitude, sharing and longtime traditions for powwows.

And the dancers in her mind are actually going to be dogs.

Now for today's activity, we're gonna be learning a little bit more about the Ojibwe culture by creating our very own bandoliers.

Here's the materials you'll need for today's activity.

(playful music) A paper lunch bag, a paper grocery bag, some markers, crayons, some glue, and some beads, if you have some.

(playful music) Now, if you don't have these materials readily available, that's okay, go ahead and watch today's episode and you can come back later and re-watch it when you have all the supplies so you can participate in the activity.

Since today's episode features the book, "Bowwow Powwow", we are honored to have Doris Winslow, the Executive Assistant to the Tribal Manager and a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.

She's also the mother of today's activity leader.

And with that, take it away, Ms. Winslow.

(playful music) - (speaks in foreign language), hello, I'm Doris Winslow and I'm a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.

And this book is being read with permission from the Minnesota Historical Society.

"Bowwow Powwow" by Brenda J.

Child.

(tribal music) Bowwow!

Bowwow!

When Windy Girl saw lively puppy barking at a painted turtle down by the lake, she knew she had found a dog that could make her laugh.

Itchy Boy was a good dog, curious and brave but never quiet.

He barked at rabbits, he barked at raccoons and he barked at porcupines.

He even barked at mosquitoes.

(tribal music) Itchy Boy always barked loudest when Uncle's green pickup rolled into the yard.

When they went ice fishing, he barked at the flathead minnows Windy put on her line.

(tribal music) Windy Girl and Itchy Boy knew that Uncle's pickup truck was the best place for stories.

Windy especially liked to hear about the powwow.

Sometimes Uncle remembered things from when he was a boy.

(tribal music) Uncle told Windy a long time ago, right before the powwow dancers went from house to house singing.

They always sang the same songs.

"We are like dogs.

We are like dogs".

People laughed and smiled and handed out gifts of food, maple sugar, candy and beads.

(tribal music) For Windy Girl and Itchy Boy, the best days of summer ended at the powwow.

Windy ate popcorn and blueberry, snow cones.

Listened to the singers and watch the dancers.

Itchy boy and the other dogs roamed around the grounds.

(tribal music) When a powwow is very good, people are happy to be together singing and dancing.

It sometimes lasts until late at night.

Fortunately, all children and dogs love to fall asleep under the northern lights while listening to the steady heartbeat of a drum.

One night, Windy had a weird and wonderful dream about a special powwow.

(tribal music) Windy dreamed about the elders who taught her to offer tobacco to express gratitude and to dance for those unable to dance.

(tribal music) She dreamed about the veterans in the Grand Entry, bearing flags and wounds from wars.

(tribal music) She dreamed about a drum group visiting from out west.

(tribal music) She dreamed about the traditional dancers, dancing their style.

(tribal music) She dreamed about the grass dancers, treading the northern earth.

(tribal music) She dreamed about the jingle-dress dancers, stepping softly on the ground.

(tribal music) She dreamed about the fancy dancers, twirling bodies of color.

(tribal music) She dreamed about the tiny tots, learning to move in tempo.

(tribal music) She even dreamed about the powwow stands selling Indian fast food.

(tribal music) Bowwow!

Bowwow!

Itchy Boy's bark and the powwow announcer's voice stirred Windy awake.

"Let's dance tonight, folks.

"Everyone come out into the arena".

(tribal music) That night Windy Girl understood the powwow is always in motion, part old and part new, glittering and playing but still wonderful, almost like a dream.

(tribal music) In conclusion, powwows are for everyone, community, full of fun, exciting and a pleasure to be a part of.

Join one, if you can.

All are invited.

(speaks in foreign language) Bye.

(playful music) - Thank you so much, Ms. Winslow.

Now it's time to take what we read and put it into action.

And to do that, we have Ms.Cindy Winslow, the TCAPS Indigenous Education Cultural Program director.

Ms. Winslow, how about you introduce yourself and get us started on today's activity?

(playful music) - Hi, my name is Cindy Winslow and I'm here with Alex Paddock, my son.

And today we're gonna show you how to make a bandolier bag out of a paper bags.

So this is the example of what it's gonna look like at the end.

And basically for this, you are going to need a paper lunch bag, a grocery bag, markers, glue and scissors.

And so what you're first going to do is you're going to get your lunch bag like this and you're gonna take it and you're gonna fold it over, like that.

and take your scissors and cut fringe.

(paper crinkling) However you wanna do it.

So this is gonna be the front of your bandolier bag now.

And so what you're gonna do is you're just gonna decorate that first of all.

I have examples here of some styles of bandolier bags that you can choose from or you can come up with your own design.

Our woodland themes are very floral.

They have a lot of flowers and leaves and other kinds of like berries and things like that.

So any kind of design or anything that you'd like to come up with, you can go ahead and put on your bag.

So if you wanna grab a color here and you can make a design of anything that you'd like.

You can also do geometric shapes if you'd like.

I'm just gonna do a couple of quick flowers and leaves.

And then you can color and decorate it however you want.

And once you get your bag all colored and decorated how you want it, we're gonna make the straps.

So once you're done with your bag, you put that off to the side and you're gonna take your paper grocery bag and your scissors, and you wanna cut a strip.

I fold it in half first, makes it easier.

And you wanna cut a strip of paper about that wide.

(scissors snipping) Go ahead and cut.

And so you have a nice long strip like that.

So, when you got your grocery bag, you wanna make it so that it's flat.

We'll just make it so it's flat like that then we'll cut it a nice wide strip.

(scissors snipping) And I like to make it so that they're like a little curve right there.

So you've got these two long strips like that, okay?

I'll let you have that one.

And now what you're gonna to take your bag, glue on the ends.

And then you take it and you stick your bag right on there.

Now stand up.

And put it.

And there you got your bandolier bag.

So, just like that.

See?

All right, so, and here's your finished project.

It's the bandolier bag.

And typically these bags were just worn as decoration.

They actually were stylized kind of after European contact when they noticed that a lot of the European were wearing bags that held their various items and stuff.

And so they would fully bead these whole fronts of these bags and use it as part of their regalia, which is our ceremonial dress.

You can layer these with more than one bag too if you'd like.

But mainly they were were made out of trade cloth and beads and sometimes shells and things to decorate the front of it with as well.

(playful music) (man snaps fingers) - Hi, I'm Mark Peters.

I'm a piano tuner, refinisher and restorer of pianos.

And we're here today with a Mason & Hamlin piano, grand piano, and we're getting it ready for the next 10, 20 years of its life by changing the strings out.

I've already done that with the bass strings here which you see there are there copper strings.

We're putting in all new metal strings.

And so this is a process that happens every 10, 20 years on a piano that gets used a lot, like this does in a concert hall.

And a grand piano, each string has 160 pounds of force applied to it when it's tuned.

And that means over the whole piano that's about 30 tons of force.

And that's why they have to have this really strong harp here.

This is made out of cast iron and is a cast in a facility where they pour the hot metal into a mold and then this comes out and that's the strength of the piano.

If it was just wood, it would fold up under 30 tons of pressure.

That's what causes the piano to have it's strength and why it can be as loud as it is.

If this was a piano that was just made out of wood, it wouldn't be able to project it all the way to the back of a big theater like this.

So these are the bass strings, they're metal string on the inside and their wound with copper.

And that compensates for the fact that we can't have a 32 foot long piano.

If we could have a 32 foot long piano, we would have all these strings playing wire all the way to the bottom.

But in order to make the strings lower, they have to be thicker to have more mass so that they can play a lower sound.

Well, we're putting on the new treble wire, it's called.

And those are made of really high quality metal and they're stretched over this thing that's called a bridge.

And the bridge is connected to this thing that's called the soundboard.

And the soundboard is a little bit like a drum where it's low on the sides and it's high in the middle.

So as these strings put pressure down on the bridge here, that causes the soundboard to be pushed down further.

And that creates tension which creates louder sounds and creates the piano sound that we know, that we hear when we play a piano.

These are all the strings for the whole piano, all different sizes with the tuning pins.

Those are the pins on the end here, these metal pins.

It has really, really fine threads on there so when you turn it, it goes down into the piano.

But the way we put them in the pianos with a sledgehammer.

There's people when I go to their house with a sledgehammer and I start restringing their piano, they get a little concerned.

We bring it over here and we stick it in, next available hole and then... (hammer pounding) Pound it in like that.

And then this gets guided through this.

That's where the hammer's are gonna hit them, right here, right after this bar and then it goes through here like that, goes around the pin like that.

And then back through the hole.

And there's three strings per note, and they're spaced apart so the next door neighbor hammer doesn't hit the strings that are tuned to do different note.

Then you have this little hole in there and you stick that through there, wind it up.

Just like that and then one more time.

(hammer pounding) Like that and you just go down the line like that.

There's about 250 strings on a piano.

They're varied from the plain wire strings to the copper strings.

The tuning process is interesting and I won't be able to show it to you on this piano, but you start from the bottom and go up string by string and you tune it.

I tune it using an app on my phone.

And that starts from here.

You go along string by string until you get to the ones that have two strings per note.

You tune the first string to the app on my phone and then you tune the second string to match that string.

So you want those two strings to sound like they don't have a beat at all.

And you can go down the line and do that for the whole piano.

We've already replaced lots of parts of the piano including this action over here, which is the, it's the part that gets used by your hands.

And so these are all brand new parts and those get a lot of wear and tear from the piano players that play them.

But these are the parts, the hammers that make the sound of the piano.

So when a piano player plays a key, it goes up, the string is here and it hits the string like that.

But if you push it down, just really gently it won't even hit the string.

But every once in a while you have to replace those parts because they wear out and it doesn't play right and the concert piano player can tell.

So you have to have those really, really well regulated and adjusted so that they know when they come to play a concert, a tuned grand that it's ready to go.

(playful music) - Great work everyone.

Well, that is it for today's episode of "Live from the City Opera House, It's Storytime!"

brought to you from the beautiful Historic City Opera House in downtown Trevor City.

If you wanna watch future episodes or check out episodes from the past, you can do so by visiting TCAPS247.com, michiganlearning.org or tune into your local PBS station.

Thank you so much for being our wonderful audience.

My name is Ben Whiting, and until next time, stay safe, have fun and keep learning, take care.

(playful music) - [Narrator] This program possible in part by Michigan Department of Education, the state of Michigan and by viewers like you.

(playful music)