Geronimo's Medicine Song

Geronimo's
Medicine Song

Geronimo's description of his medicine song....

"The song that I will sing is an old song, so old that none knows who made it. It has been handed down through generations and was taught to me when I was but a little lad. It is now my own song. It belongs to me. This is a holy song (medicine-song), and great is its power. The song tells how, as I sing, I go through the air to a holy place where Yusun (The Supreme Being) will give me power to do wonderful things. I am surrounded by little clouds, and as I go through the air I change, becoming spirit only."

Music Notation

Music collector Natalie Curtis transcribed 2 of Geronimo's songs, his Medicine Song and another known to have been sung by Geronimo.

We have prepared PDF files with basic arrangements of these 2 songs, with guitar chords, a simple keyboard and drum accompaniment.
The Medicine Song arrangement contains the lyrics, in both an English translation and the original Apache words.
The Song Sung by Geronimo is an instrumental arrangement.

These basic arrangements can be used to create your own version of these historic songs.

We have also included a PDF file of a scan of a sheet music arrangement for voice and piano of Geronimo's Medicine Song, prepared by Carlos Troyer, an American composer who was known to work with Native American music. This includes his piano and voice arrangement, with both the Apache words, and the translation into English with the help of an Apache "Chief Eagle Eye", who knew Geronimo.

Also included are MIDI files of the two songs by Geronimo
(note - MIDI files sound different on each system, depending upon your software and sound card. MIDI files are not full audio files. But MIDI files can be opened in various music notation programs if you would like to work with the notation for these songs)

The above PDFs and MIDI files are downloaded as a "zip" file... zip files can be easily extracted on almost all systems.

You can listen to an MP3 example of the Medicine Song melody, and learn more about Geronimo at:

http://www.amaranthpublishing.com/Geronimo'sSong.htm