How do you define Quebecois music

[Dick Dery]

Cajun music has certain characteristics, and Eastern European music has certain characteristics.
Can someone describe the characteristics of Quebecois music?

[Jim Garber]

There is a characteristic syncopation of the notes and there are many tunes that have extra beats in some parts. Best to listen to lots. I am not sure that even the players can describe in words what make it Quebecois.

Here are a few:

[Pete Summers]

Wow. Thanks for those links. That's some fiddling, whatever it's called. I love the way they use their feet as rhythmic accompaniment in this music. Anybody know of any mandolin versions of this stuff?

[walt33]

AFAIK, the mandolin versions are pretty much the same as the fiddle versions, if you overlook the mechanics. Here's the mother lode website of Quebecois music, with notation and midis:

http://www.mustrad.udenap.org/lerepertoire.html

Bonne chance!
Walt L.

[Ravenwood]

I am not sure that even the players can describe in words what make it Quebecois.

I would definitely agree with that. Though I currently split my time between Michigan and Ontario I grew up in St. Anne-de-Madawaska NB, which is a French speaking area that is culturally more closely related to Quebec than the rest of NB. For me, this is the music of my childhood so it is in my blood so to speak. Though much of the Quebecois repertoire comes from Irish and Scottish traditional music carried to Canada in the 1800's, there is something in the "lilt" of the reels and jigs that is different from both, and is really hard to describe in words. Its a little like putting a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Canadian, and an American in the same room and listening to them converse. They are all speaking English, all using the same words, but they all sound different. All you can do is listen and try to emulate ....

I can't see the Youtube links that Jim posted from work, so I may be redundant here. Apologies if so, but give a listen to Pascal Gemme and to the early recordings from La Bottine Souriante.

[Jim Garber]

The videos I posted are two from Jean Carignan and one from Louis Boudreault. There are lost more online.

Pascal Gemme is also wonderful and has a blog with lots of notated tunes and recordings.

[Paul Kotapish]

There are quite a few mandolinists who play tunes from Quebec. My favorite is Michele Bordeleau, former member of the aforementioned La Bottine Souriante.

Here's a link to a thread with some more info on the subject:

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...ight=bordeleau

And here's Michele holding forth on mandolin in a fine session/rehearsal:



More of the same band:

[Vigee]

What I think distinguishes Quebecois traditional music:

1. The amalgam of American and European music traditions that many Quebecois musicians learned in the logging camps.
2. The kitchen parties whereat the village's sole fiddler sat on a chair, upon a table, not just providing the melody with his fiddle, but also percussion with his feet.
3. The parity of fiddle and button box that started to emerge with the first recordings of Montmarquette.
4. A preference for trills over turns.
5. Adaptation of Jazz harmonies to support the mode over the usual folk chords.

The roots of Quebecois music run deep, but as a cohesive product it was really a child of the age of radio and recording. The music lacks a strict canon as appears in Irish and Scottish music. And as much as it bears the influence of Irish and Scottish music, Quebecois music truly belongs to North America.

[walt33]

There are quite a few mandolinists who play tunes from Quebec. My favorite is Michele Bordeleau, former member of the aforementioned La Bottine Souriante.

Thanks for posting the rehearsal video again. I never get tired of it! However, Michele is the feminine name. Michel is the masculine. But you knew that! ;-)

Other prominent mando players from Quebec include Eric Beaudry (De temps antan, La bottine souriante, Norouet, Ni sarpe ni branche), Stephane Poirier (La part du queteux), Gaston Bernard (Matapat), and Antoine Gauthier (Les chauffeurs a pieds). And Colin Savoie-Levac of Dent-de-lion is a very talented young mandolin and guitar player.

Walt L.

[MikeEdgerton]

Heck, I just love the pronunciation of the word Quebecois.

[Jim Garber]

5. Adaptation of Jazz harmonies to support the mode over the usual folk chords.

Please elaborate on this point. It is one that escapes me, at least in the older traditional music that I am familiar with. Is this a more recent development. Even listening to the videos above I do not hear that.

[Vigee]

"Jazz harmonies" isn't terribly precise, I should apologize. Rather, around the 1960s, perhaps starting with the recordings of Jos Bouchard, there is an effort among guitar players to use chord substitutions more aggressively. This meant that the accompaniment was constantly moving, reflecting the mode of the overall tune rather than the notes being played in the melody. Where the typical trad tune might be harmonized with I IV V, a Quebecois guitarist might chromatically walk up from one chord to another across several measures, perhaps from the first inversion to the third (D D#dim Em Fdim D/F). Another strategy would be to hold a single extend chord over an entire phrase, letting go only at the end with a good ole' tonic. Unfortunately, I can't find the groups or musicians who would be illustrate this on Youtube. I can only recommend finding some samples of Bouchard, Andre Marchand (particularly with pre-horn section Bottine) and Éritage.

[Jim Garber]

Vigee: Do you mean like the piano accompaniment here on this Bouchard recording?

Reel St-Siméon

BTW Virtual Gramophone is an amazing archive of free downloadable recordings of Canadian music including some rare 78s of old Quebecois music.

[Paul Kotapish]

Thanks for posting the rehearsal video again. However, Michele is the feminine name. Michel is the masculine. But you knew that! ;-)

Sorry--sloppy typing and bad French. Michel--e or no e--is a killer mandolinist, fiddler, guitarist, foot percussionist, and singer in any language (or gender).

I think the characteristic feature of Quebec fiddle and accordion music is the rhythmic accents and ornaments supplied by the bow and the bellows.

The bones of the melodies are quite similar to those found in other traditions--New England, Ireland, Scotland, et al--but although there are some similarities in the bowing found in some Scottish and Northern Irish playing, the primary and secondary rhythmic figures in Quebec fiddling are pretty distinctive. Some of these characteristics have been codified by Lisa Ornstein, Guy Bouchard, Laurie Hart, and others, but you'll know it when you hear it!

In terms of repertoire, the repertoire of crooked tunes (airs tordus) found in some regions of Quebec is absolutely unique.

[delsbrother]

More of the same band:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ0Gvup6eDA

Does anyone know the story behind the song in this video?

[Vigee]

Vigee: Do you mean like the piano accompaniment here on this Bouchard recording?

Reel St-Siméon

I can hear some of it in this recording, but Bouchard's 60s records show it more clearly.

Virtual Gramophone has wonderful source material, but I found it led me astray a few times. Many Quebecoises did not learn from these records, rather they learned from more modern musicians, whose versions were different. I always play the more jaunty version of Montmarquette's Clog de Pariseau, which clashed a little with the smoothed out version that is generally known.

[Fran]

Hey, nice to see that québécois music has its followers outside of Québec!

@Vigee:
The "rumba" song is from Gilles Vigneault, titled "Une branche à la fenêtre", and is a recent song:
http://www.frmusique.ru/texts/v/vign...alafenetre.htm

It's a poem about keeping our hearts open in order to have all sorts of nice things happening to us.

The chorus says that the flowers of the loving times do not grow in closed hearts, and we need to sleep with an open heart.

[delsbrother]

Merci, Fran!

[Bren]

Antoine Gauthier (Les chauffeurs a pieds)

There's a great recording of Les chauffeurs a pieds doing "Le petit prince charles" in the mp3 section on this site, with some blistering mandolin by Antoine Gauthier

[TWINGDAE]

Merçi...à vous tous !

[Charlieshafer]

If you stick all of the French Canadian music in one bag, which would include P.E.I., and a few other areas, I think the essential ingredient over Scots and irish is that the Quebecois are simply having more fun.

[walt33]

I think the essential ingredient over Scots and irish is that the Quebecois are simply having more fun.

Yep, they've got that "joie de vivre" thing down pat!