The vocal style is similar to other Plains Indigenous nations with: "high-pitched beginnings, pulsations, vocal narrowness. nasality." (p. 67) "Pulsations on longer tones, the audible effects of tension, nasality, substantial rasp, and some ornamentation are characteristic." (p. 43) Though this may have become "exaggerated" through influence from Plains Indigenous music and pan-Indigenous music,Blackfoot singing is "more intense and uses a higher tessitura", than most Plains Indigenous music. From comparison of recordings one would agree with older consultants in the latter 1900s: "These younger fellows, they sing higher and louder than we used to." (pg.67) Experimentation with European influenced instrumentation and harmony happen but are rare, and the vocal style is the element least tampered with it being considered essential to sound like traditional Indigenous music. (pg. 68) Though the European influenced concept of meter may be inapplicable to Blackfoot music as it is characterized by the relationships between phrases usually of irregular length, the beat level generally equals the rate at which vocal pulsations occur (p. 44). (Nettl, 1989)