French Canadian Flute?

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John Driscoll
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French Canadian Flute?

Post by John Driscoll »

I'm interested in learning about about French Canadian music. Can anyone point me to some resources to check out?
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bradhurley
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Re: French Canadian Flute?

Post by bradhurley »

I'm not aware of a long tradition of flute playing in French-Canadian music, at least not in Québec. There are of course some modern examples of flute players playing French-Canadian music (e.g., Jean Duval, Grey Larsen, Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand, Nicholas Williams, Christine Fortin, Marie Marceau), but I think of Québecois music as primarily a fiddle and accordion tradition. There are other kinds of French-Canadian music of course (there are Francophone communities all over Canada).

If you just want some resources for learning tunes, try http://espacetrad.org/ressources/, which has links to some sites (mainly in French) that have tune transcriptions and other info.
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Re: French Canadian Flute?

Post by crickett »

Genticorum is a great band with a fair amount of flute playing. http://www.genticorum.com/
(The flute player is Nicholas Williams. mentioned in Brad Hurley's response.)
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Re: French Canadian Flute?

Post by vermichou »

Genticorum is one of the best IMHO.

You may also listen to Vishten (http://vishten.net/) or Vent Du Nord (https://leventdunord.com/le-groupe/). Not much (not at all) flute playing, but still worth listening to. I don't know many resources, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had tunebooks and resources for sale (as they would call it, "livre de tounes"). Fun how tunes translated in French Canadian to tounes which doesn't translate here in France :)

Hope that helps,

Michel
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Re: French Canadian Flute?

Post by kenny »

Chris Norman - "The Beauty Of The North" [ 50%]
"There's fast music and there's lively music. People don't always know the difference"
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bradhurley
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Qu

Post by bradhurley »

vermichou wrote:Genticorum is one of the best IMHO.
Their original flute player was Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand, who now plays in the "electro-trad" band Mélisande. He plays flute with them, sings, and plays electric bass and keyboards. Nicholas Williams replaced Alexandre in Genticorum.

The incredible fiddler with Genticorum, Pascale Gemme, has a blog with transcriptions and recordings of traditional Québecois tunes and his own compositions: http://pascalgemme.com/tradquebec/

That's a good way to learn some of this music. It's really important to listen to the recordings and not just learn off the sheet, so you get the proper swing. Quite a few Québecois tunes were originally Irish and you can recognize the melody right away, but they've got a different rhythm. Some Québecois tunes may have crossed the Atlantic as well; I'm pretty sure Sainte Anne's Reel is an example, and have heard claims that the Traveller (aka Walker Street) was originally a Québecois tune as well; see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tb-J4sj4pg for an example of how it's played here. Sophie Lavoie is one of the fiddlers in that video; her husband Fiachra O'Regan is an All-Ireland champion uilleann piper from Connemara and he plays Québecois tunes with her on the pipes, not something you hear every day.

Sainte-Anne was the mother of Mary, and is the patron saint of sailors in Brittany, and is said to bring luck to travelers in general; she is revered here in Québec as well and even by the Micmacs in New Brunswick.

One of my favorite recordings of Québecois music is "Un Air de Famille," by the Billette family -- fiddlers, a flute player, and the brilliant piano player and stepdancer Martine Billette. See http://www.quebecfolklore.qc.ca/produit ... e-famille/. This is the real thing, ensemble family playing for the pure joy of it. You'll hear a few of those Irish-origin tunes on there, including a Québecois version of Miss Thornton's. If you go on youtube and search for "Maurice Billette" you'll see an example or two of his fiddling, accompanied by Martine on piano (and there are loads of videos of Martine accompanying various fiddlers and/or stepdancing herself in the Ottawa River Valley style.
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Re: French Canadian Flute?

Post by Mr.Gumby »

Sainte-Anne was the mother of Mary, and is the patron saint of sailors in Brittany, and is said to bring luck to travelers in general; she is revered here in Québec as well and even by the Micmacs in New Brunswick.
I thought she was usually seen as the patron saint of unmarried women.
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bradhurley
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Re: French Canadian Flute?

Post by bradhurley »

Mr.Gumby wrote:
Sainte-Anne was the mother of Mary, and is the patron saint of sailors in Brittany, and is said to bring luck to travelers in general; she is revered here in Québec as well and even by the Micmacs in New Brunswick.
I thought she was usually seen as the patron saint of unmarried women.
Probably that too. ;-) But it's still fairly common to see little figurines of St.-Anne in boats in Brittany. My girlfriend is from Brittany and she put a little Ste-Anne statue over our front door for good luck.
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Re: French Canadian Flute?

Post by StevieJ »

Jean Duval's flute playing can be heard on these relatively recent CDs:

Pièces sur pièces with fiddler David Boulanger

Compos trad à saveur locale with multi-instrumentalist Nicolas Babineau (compositions)
John Driscoll
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Re: French Canadian Flute?

Post by John Driscoll »

Thanks for the many great replies! Looks like I've got my work cut out for me pouring over these excellent resources. I LOVE Beauty of the North, btw.
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Re: Qu

Post by colomon »

bradhurley wrote:Their original flute player was Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand, who now plays in the "electro-trad" band Mélisande. He plays flute with them, sings, and plays electric bass and keyboards. Nicholas Williams replaced Alexandre in Genticorum.
Perhaps worth noting here that Nicholas Williams has an old solo album, The Crooked River, which (at a glance at the track listing) looks to be about 1/3rd Quebecois tunes. (I admit the tracks I've listened to the most are "Foxhunter / Frank's" and especially the lovely set of Brian Pickell waltzes.)
One of my favorite recordings of Québecois music is "Un Air de Famille," by the Billette family -- fiddlers, a flute player, and the brilliant piano player and stepdancer Martine Billette. See http://www.quebecfolklore.qc.ca/produit ... e-famille/. This is the real thing, ensemble family playing for the pure joy of it. You'll hear a few of those Irish-origin tunes on there, including a Québecois version of Miss Thornton's. If you go on youtube and search for "Maurice Billette" you'll see an example or two of his fiddling, accompanied by Martine on piano (and there are loads of videos of Martine accompanying various fiddlers and/or stepdancing herself in the Ottawa River Valley style.
In the mid-naughts there was a period of a couple years where I kept running into Martine -- each time in a different state/provenience and her in a different band. "Certainly didn't expect to see you in Newfoundland with Pierre Schryer!" (May not actually have been with Pierre, don't remember now who all I saw her with and where it happened.)
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colomon
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Re: French Canadian Flute?

Post by colomon »

PS When I went to order the Billette family album just now, I checked on and then also ordered the new Genticorum album, "Avant l’orage", which I believe is the first of theirs with Nicholas Williams.
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bradhurley
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Re: Qu

Post by bradhurley »

colomon wrote:Perhaps worth noting here that Nicholas Williams has an old solo album, The Crooked River, which (at a glance at the track listing) looks to be about 1/3rd Quebecois tunes.
He borrowed my Wilkes Bb flute for one of the tracks on that album!

I highly recommend the Jean Duval albums that StevieJ linked to above. Jean is not only a great flute player but a prolific composer of tunes; his most well-known is The Caucus Reel (aka "The Caucus at Secaucus"), but he has composed many, many other fine melodies, some of which are played pretty regularly in sessions. He also did a CD some years back of tunes he composed to played on the whistle with one hand.
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