Here we are playing Gwendal, a tune we heard from an album by the House Band.
The tune is from the Rockall album from 1996, and featured the great Chris Parkinson, who I wrote about here.
Category: Video
Video: D’r Maia (Alsatian tune)
Hey there. This is a tune I learned in 1998 (I think … it was so long ago!) from Steve Gruverman and Marie Wendt shortly after I moved to Maine. The dance is a slow, peaceful line … although I play it with a bit of drama, here.
Holiday Tunes
I am not a big holiday tune kind of guy, but I’ve been asked twice by people I respect to post something along those lines. I have been playing like mad since acquiring the Mory, but haven’t been gigging, or recording. It’s the woodshed for me. Perhaps, as the sun is reborn, so shall my accordeonaire-ing.
French Polkas!
From our gig at Jay’s Last Church on the Left, in Portland, Maine. The second tune is from the Bal Folk Tune Book (#186).
Le Lundi Accordéonaire IV
Every Monday, I will be posting a new or newly discovered (newly by me, anyway) video of French accordionistics. If you would like to draw my attention to something out there that should be posted, or want to submit one of yourself playing some French tune (including Breton) on accordion, email me here.
Presented here is a French Scottish (not a reel), performed by Serge Carrier on a three-stop one row. I love that one row sound, and continue to obsess about it.
Le Lundi Accordéonaire III
Every Monday, I will be posting a new or newly discovered (newly by me, anyway) video of French accordionistics. If you would like to draw my attention to something out there that should be posted, or want to submit one of yourself playing some French tune (including Breton) on accordion, email me here. This one features Patrick Lefebvre on CBA. He’s one of my heroes. I wrote a tribute to him in 2011.
Baffetti Factory Video
This video of from the Dino Baffetti factory has been posted on Facebook by the Dino Baffetti Portuguese branch. Really very charming and interesting look at the building of the objects of my obsession.
Mazurka Return
Feels like it’s been a very long time since I’ve posted. It hasn’t been very long, but it feels that way just because so much else has been going on. With the divorce, and moving, and my brother being ill … after the end of “Folk Dance Season” in New England, I put down the box for a few months and just didn’t think about it. But now I am in the new place. There is space and light, and the Shadows seem to have fled from the land. Let’s hear it for new beginnings, which, as usually, I celebrate by playing old songs.
The mazurka in this video is one of the old ones, untitled, collected by Mel Stevens, and available in the Mallinson’s Bal Folk book. As is my wont with untitled tunes, while teaching it to a student, I gave it the title, “Hannibal’s Mazurka.” I do love my Roman/Carthaginian history, and who are we to deny elephant’s in the alps their right to mazurka? For some reason, that landing on the IV chord at the beginning of the B part seems especially touching. Hits you right in the feels.
UPDATE: Yes, I have shaved my head. And, no, I did not realize my legs looked like THAT.
More Dance Videos
Gregory Dyke, on his dance blog Movement Creates Connection has posted an amazing set of videos of French dance and music, along with a great essay on the state of tradFrench music today. I urge you to check it out here. If you scroll further down, you’ll see an entry for a post called, Expression (in Dance and Music), also worth reading!
Breton Dance Field Recordings (and other places)
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| The An Dro snakes through! Pic by Chris Ryall |
UPDATE: I’ve gotten some push back on this post from folks (great stuff in the comment section), essentially saying that some of these videos are not exemplars of their regional styles, but are just examples of dances done at the Big Bal. I think that’s fair, but still think it’s interesting to see these as documentations of what’s going on at the Big Bal, especially for those of us who would have a hard time ever making it there.
Following up from the post of French Dance Field Recordings, here is the second half of Chris Ryall’s amazing collection of videos, or dance as he found it in the wild. Chris writes, “Breton dance is often done in lines, traditionally snaking around the floor intertwining and ‘meeting people.'” Here is the repository:
Breton
Rond St. Vincent – a very simple village dance that has become a standard
An Dro (An Dro = “the turn”)
Another An Dro – Wild at the end!
Tricot (mixed An Dro and Hanter Dro)
Plinn (Simple, very peasant, gets wild improv from musicians)
Another Plinn
Suite Plinn (Same rhythm. Couples dance with fast and slow parts)
“Standard” Gavotte” (Danced as a suite with varying speeds)
Gavotte de l’Aven (small valley in the Cornouaille with it’s own “dreamy sway” style – this is just part of a “suite gavotte”
Le Ridée (aka Laridé)
Other Regional Dances from France
Auvergne (and other mountain areas): Rigaudon
Basque Country: Fandango
Basque Country: La Saute
Flanders: Scottiche a Guarré
Gascony: Gascon Rondo – done in pairs in a big circle
Alsace: asymmetric waltzes (5/8, 8/8, 11/8)
And two imports
Swedish Polska
Another Swedish Polska
Untold quantities of gratitude to Chris for this work and for permission to put this together here. Thank you, sir!
L'Accordeonaire 