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le vent du nord

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Quebecois tunes roundup post!

I’ve been chatting a lot with Dreamwidth user fluterbev lately, and we’ve started swapping pointers to each other’s favorite tunes! I promised her I’d do a post with some pointers to various Quebec tunes I’ve been working on learning lately, not only for her but for anybody else out there who might be interested in learning these tunes too!

I more or less can play seven tunes at this point and six of those are available in sheet music form on the Net, so I commend to your attention the following:

  • Ciel d’Automne, by André Brunet! This is arguably the first Quebec tune I ever fell in love with, and it’s extremely friendly to the flute. It’s available on the La Bottine Souriante album Xième, which was released as Rock and Reel in the States. First Quebec album I ever bought and I highly recommend it, in no small part because of that very instrumental. (Fair warning if you get hold of the recording and try to play along–it DOES change keys, from D up to E, which is a bitch to follow if you’re playing on a keyless flute. Or um, so I’ve heard. *^_^*;;)
  • La Fée des Dents, another of André Brunet’s, over which I totally swoon. <3 Recorded by De Temps Antan on their album Les habits de papier.
  • Maison de Glace, because apparently I’m learning All The Tunes By Guys Named Brunet. This one is by André’s brother Réjean, who is of course the accordion player and bassist for Le Vent du Nord!
  • 6/8 d’André Alain, taught to me by Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand of Genticorum! Loverly little jig in D.
  • Gigue du Père Mathias, the other tune Alexandre taught me! Again, in D, and so far the only thing I’ve been kinda halfway able to do a little podorythmie to while I’m playing on the flute. SLOWLY.
  • Valse de Poeles, which is yet another tune with a tie to Genticorum! Recorded by them on their last studio album, Nagez Rameurs.

Enjoy! 😀

May 30, 2013 by
Music

To the person who just hit my site looking for Le Vent du Nord sheet music

Google Analytics informs me that you just hit my site three different times looking for sheet music for the Le Vent du Nord instrumental “Petit rêve III”!

First of all, hello to someone who’s clearly a fellow fan, as well as being musically inclined!

Second, sorry I have no leads on such a thing, though I’m right there with you: it’s a beautiful tune and it’s high on the list of Le Vent things I want to learn to play myself! I’m having to amuse myself with trying to transcribe Le Vent tunes by ear. The only Le Vent instrumental I’m aware of that has sheet music available online is “Gigue à trois”.

Third, hey, drop me a line, I’d love to hear from a fellow musically inclined Le Vent du Nord fan! And I MAY be able to help you out if you want to learn to play “Petit rêve III”. I can sort of play it by ear, and I could probably transcribe it!

And for the rest of you, I’ll just take this opportunity to be amused at how it’s an indicator of how much I post about Quebec music AND about Le Vent du Nord that apparently people have started hitting my site pretty frequently looking for data! *waves cheerily to all her fellow Anglophone Quebec music fans out there*

May 24, 2013 by
Music

That squeal of delight you just heard was me

Because, O Internets, I just more or less figured out the rest of “Manteau d’hiver”!

Which, for those of you who may just be joining in, is my very favorite instrumental by Le Vent du Nord, off of their current album Tromper le temps. I adore it to bits, as I have fangirlishly squealed about in previous posts. It’s lovely and evocative and upbeat and makes me think of snow showers and snowball fights and drinking hot chocolate by the fire after you come in from being outside.

I’ve been practicing trying to figure out tunes by ear and this was one of the ones I wanted to try, since having the awesome recording of it on hand is a fantastic motivator. I threw it through Tempo Slow on my iPhone, pulling the tempo down REALLY hard–we’re talking 40-50 percent of actual speed here–so that I could try to work out what the melody line was actually doing. And it WORKED.

The piece is deceptively simple in structure. There’s some opening ornamentation as an intro, and then the main tune kicks in with an A part and a B part. And that’s really all there is to it, except that as the piece progresses, they bring in the podorythmie on the second time through. And on the repetitions after that, they vary up the melody to make it more interesting. Harmony comes in, and rhythmic variations as well. And then at last you get the outro to wind it down.

I just focused on working out the basic melody, what appears in the first couple of repetitions. I’ve been trying to transcribe it using Finale Songwriter, but that’s proven to be surprisingly challenging–because it’s a crooked tune, and the time signature does some wacky things I haven’t figured out yet! So I’m not entirely sure how to notate it correctly.

I’ve been trying to get as close as I can by just writing it out in 4/4 and getting the notes in the right order and rhythm as best I can. But partway through the B part I flailed out on that hard, and tonight I opted instead to just try to listen very hard to the slowed-down track and see if I could get into the appropriate zen space of letting my fingers tell me where they needed to go.

I got the notes I was missing and ZOMG you guys, I think I can play this thing. 😀 Slowly, with some fumbling, but I can play it! And now that I have down the basic melody line, I can work on seriously practicing it so I can take it to session! This is going to be EIGHTY KINDS OF AWESOME.

And, amusingly enough, I’m working this out on Silver tonight–and realizing that for once, actually, the flute with the keys is striking me as the right instrument. Because Silver is metal, and tone-wise, that’s actually striking me kind of right for a piece whose title translates to “Winter coat”.

Want to actually hear what I’m babbling about? Behold, Bandcamp streaming goodness! (ETA: Adding in the direct link since LJ apparently eats the Bandcamp embed code. Sorry, LJ users who see this post!)

Or, here, here’s a live version!

For the record: I CAN’T do it that fast yet. But that will be coming. Oh my yes. It’s going to HAPPEN. 😀

May 10, 2013 by
Music

A bit of musical squee!

And now, several moments of musical squee from last night!

In a move that should surprise absolutely NOBODY who pays attention to what I post for more than five minutes running, a little part of my brain demanded last night, “YOU NEED TO FIGURE OUT THE CHORDS TO VIVE L’AMOUR NOW.”

Because y’all knew this was coming, right? I mean, what with all the delighted slurping up I’ve done of chords for Great Big Sea songs, working on Le Vent songs was pretty much inevitable. I’d already futzed around a bit with “Lanlaire”, but “Vive l’amour” is pretty much the other major song of theirs that’s prone to grabbing my guitar-based attention. So it’s the easy and obvious candidate for me to play with.

So I did! And there I am last night with Ti-Jéan in my lap, and I’ve got my piccolo too to try to twiddle out the melody line and make sure the key is actually what I think it is–which, for general reference, is G. And the first moment of squee is when I’m hitting note on the piccolo and the guitar strings start echoing them back at me, in this strange, lovely resonance that sounds a lot like a wet fingertip running around a wineglass. Very, very cool.

Second moment of musical squee: realizing that the chords to the song are in fact dead simple. Dara and I like to make cracks about GBS’ “Goin’ Up” being subtitled “Four Chords No Brain”, and really, “Vive l’amour” is pretty much the exact same chords in a different order (G, C, Em, and D) with occasional bonus A minor thrown in in places. What I haven’t quite gotten down yet is the strum pattern, since I keep wanting to play GBS-style and that doesn’t work with the flow of the song. But I broke out the original studio recording, the one Bernard Simard sings lead on, and it’s easier to follow that one on guitar than it is the Symphonique version. I foresee several more spins through this as I get it down. And possibly transposing into D, or maybe capoing up a fret or two, so I can get it into a better range for me to sing. 😀

Third moment of musical squee: realizing that in the huge pile of sheet music transcriptions of various Quebec tunes I’ve slurped down from a couple of places, I do in fact have the reel that serves as the outro for this song! “Reel à Ti-Zoune”! WOO! Much fun to be had there as well!

And the final moment of musical squee for the evening was in fact unrelated to any of the above, but it’s also goddamned awesome so I’ve gotta squeal about it here too. Dara came downstairs with the mandolin last night and plucked out for me, I kid you not, a swing arrangement of “Road to Lisdoonvarna”. Y’know, the most basic of basic jigs in the Irish tune repertoire. She’s got a PROJECT in mind for this. And she’s jazzing this tune the hell up. She played it for me and I instantly had the swing band sound she’s envisioning pop into my head, complete with a full rocking horn section. I wanted to be able to play trumpet JUST so I could actually play that lovely thing myself. I cannot WAIT to see how her project progresses. Because this, ladies and gentlemen, is how Dara rolls.

May 2, 2013 by
About Me

The entire Victoria trip, part 1: Friday

I already went on at considerable length about the general awesomeness of seeing Le Vent du Nord perform at Hermann’s Jazz Club. And of course, y’all also know about my newly christened mammoth!

But I’ve been reminded that I did not in fact give you a proper writeup of the weekend as a whole. And it’s worth talking about that, just because Dara and I never had been to Victoria before, and Victoria in general was absolutely worth the visit.

So behold, my recounting of my and Dara’s Victoria Adventure! This post’s going to focus on what we did on Friday the 5th, with as many pictures as look decent enough to share. I’ll do other posts for the non-Le-Vent portion of Saturday the 6th, and for Sunday the 7th!

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April 24, 2013 by
Quebecois Music

Le Vent du Nord at Hermann’s Jazz Club, Victoria BC, 4/6/2013

I made absolutely no secret of how crushed I was, Internets, when I missed Le Vent du Nord’s Oregon show this past November. And I was quite disappointed as well when the symphony show in Vancouver was cancelled.

But tonight, I am thrilled to report that the show at Hermann’s Jazz Club in Victoria, BC, completely and utterly made up for both of these things. It was short but tight, and a truly intimate little show. And OMG YOU GUYS, Dara and I managed to snag a table right smack in front of the stage!

Clickie for the in-depth show report goodness!

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April 8, 2013 by