Annotation:Reel de l'enfant

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X:1 T:Reel de l'enfant (Le) L:1/8 M:C| D:Victor 263548b (78 RPM), Joseph Allard (1928) F:http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/m2/f7/12576.mp3 Z:Transcribed by Andrew Kuntz K:G df||:{a}gfgb afdf|e~c3 BAAf|{a}gfgb afdf|egfa g2d2| gfgb afdf|e~c3 BcAa|bgaf gedB|1ceAc BGBd:|2ceAc BGG>G|| GDB,D DGBG|cGBG AGAB|GDB,D DGBG|ceA>c BGG>G| GDB,D DGBG|cGBG AGAB|GDB,D DGBG|ceA>c BGBd||

REEL DE L'ENFANT. AKA and see "Reel des chasseurs." French-Canadian, Reel. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Cranford, Cuillerier): AA'B (Joyal). Similar to "Lord MacDonald (4)." The reel was recorded twice by Montreal fiddler Joseph Allard (1873-1947): first, in 1928 as "Reel de l'enfant," and again in 1927 as "Reel des chasseurs," although on the record label he was given the pseudonym 'Maxime Toupin'.

Louis 'Pitou' Boudreault, a fiddler from Saguenay, Quebec, used to play a tune called "Le bobelo," which was the accompaniment for a kind of children's dance (often played before children's bed-time curfew at at a dance, 9pm), with leap-frog movements, that also involved adults and invariably ended in chaos. It was frowned upon by the clergy who tried to suppress it, notes Boudreault. One wonders if Allard did not have something like this in mind when naming the tune.

Additional notes

Source for notated version: - Learned by Jerry Holland (Inverness, Cape Breton) from fiddler Arthur Muise (Cheticamp, Cape Breton) who had learned it from a tape of Montreal fiddler Jean Carignan [Cranford].

Printed sources : - Cranford (Jerry Holland's Collection), 1995; No. 186, p. 53 (as "Reel des enfants). Cuillerier (Joseph Allard), 1992; p. 15. Joyal (Danses d'ici: Musique Traditionnelle du Québec), 1994; pp. 15 & 85.

Recorded sources: -Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ‎LM470, Eddie Poirier - "Atlantic Fiddling" (1979). Totem ‎TO-9221, "Ti-Jean Carignan Le Violoneux" (1977). Victor 263548-b (78 RPM), Joseph Allard (1928). "Ti-Jean Carignan, vol. 1" (2006). Ashley MacIsaac - "Close to the Floor" (1992).

See also listing at:
Hear Joseph Allard's 1928 recording at the Virtual Gramophone [1] and at youtube.com [2]
Hear Jean Carignan's recording on youtube.com [3]

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