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Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Yep...we're all wired differently....no probs, Le P.

....it's just one of my pet issues that, in a fit of literary excess, I just had to get off of my chest..certainly no offense intended.

..but thanx again for reading my post and posting your well structured response....good stuff straight from the heart ....!.

What was that philosopher's saying again.?.." I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it " . Who was that guy?

Darryl.

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Evelyn Beatrice Hall, (1868 - 19??), who wrote under the pseudonym S.G. Tallentyre, was an English writer best known for her biography of Voltaire with the title The Friends of Voltaire, which she completed in 1906. Hall wrote the phrase: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," (which is often misattributed to Voltaire), as an illustration of Voltaire's beliefs in her biography on him. Hall's quote is often cited to describe the principle of freedom of speech.
No harm taken. Is it just me are does all country songs sound alike and all pop songs sound alike and I'll anwser this one all rap crap sounds alike.
I am enjoying the peace and quite on this board.
Le Piquant

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Your comments reminded me of attending LSU in the late 1990's. I asked the LSU student manning the dorm desk where I might hear some Cajun music in Baton Rouge. His response - "I hate that Cajun s**t, it all sounds the same."

Different strokes, I guess. Amazing to me how many Louisiana folks had no clue about Cajun or Creole history and culture. For those keeping it alive and real, thank you!

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

A lot of cajun music DOES sound alike, unless you start trying to play it, and even then, some does. It is focused on a limited set of instruments, and a limited number of dance steps.

South Louisiana is not a united front regarding Cajun music. One part of the revival of cajun popularity, and not just the music, was the migration of many oil companies out of Louisiana to Texas. This left a gaping maw in Louisiana finances, and they needed a cash cow to fill the coffers. All things cajun became the new tourism cash cow.

I can remember in my home town, you'd never see the word cajun on stores (ok, on radio station was KJIN). Now I go there and I see "Cajun Printers", etc, etc.

And you certainly saw very little if any intersection between the words New Orleans and Cajun before the "revival". Now outsiders equate the two, which is very wrong in my book.

I would think that it's a minority of the population down there that enjoys, or even supports cajun music. Most are probably listening to country or rock.

Cajun and zydeco would not have experienced such a revival if not for the adoption of many of the out-of-state supporters. Otherwise, where would the bands be touring? Only so many gigs in La. Who would be buying the cd's?

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

"Cajun and zydeco would not have experienced such a revival if not for the adoption of many of the out-of-state supporters"

I agree. It has amazed me not only the interest in Cajun culture and music from outsiders, but their genuine appreciation for the uniqueness of it, something many living in S. La have definitely taken for granted. The young folks I think are getting interested in the music more than my generation did, and I think that is in large part due to newer bands playing a style that appeals to more youth, but that is a whole nuther discussion.

And I also agree that S. La is not a united front on the music, and surely isnt on the culture in general, and in particular the language, and is probably the biggest reason the language will die. The very independent hard headed nature of Cajuns that has served us well in times of hardship is hurting us now.

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Bryan, are there any cajun french immersion programs down there? And I'm not talking about falling out of my pirogue either!

And HOW IN THE HELL can I learn to sing with a cajun accent? That will ALWAYS be the downfall of non-native cajun speakers in doing recordings. What you may get away with in a live venue, will not fly on recordings.

Though women seem to get away with it a bit better than men.

I can cry, I can wail, but I can't sing through my nose yet!

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

You will never learn to sing with a Cajun accent because you think they sing through their nose.
Le Piquant

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Did you see the smiley face, Jerry? That's a clue to my real purpose with that comment.

But at least I got you to talk to me directly. Woo hoo.

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

I've got a couple of good Cajun vocal methods I use. Dwight is correct, using the nasal passage wisely will in fact improve the authenticity of your song. It's not completely singing through the nose, but it's more like ending each word with a decay through the nose. Think about how guitar players use a wah pedal. It's not as dramatic as that but the principle is the same. Good thread...

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Another method I discovered while walking down the street, trying to sing J'ai Passe, is to extend the lower jaw forward. This seems to do a couple of things. One is it make the elusive pronunciation of words like "veux" come more naturally and sound more authentic. The other is....I'm not sure what it is...more of a vibration that wasn't there before....not quite nasal, but contributes. And I think I'm able to hit higher notes like this, or at least not choke so much when I hit them.

Maybe this only works for me because my jaw already sets back more than normal.

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Darryl
The thing to avoid is becoming a 'Legend in your own Lounge Room.' !!!


Ah lak dat, me.

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

I've got more reasons to play alone than I do to play on the band stand or at jam sessions. I've tried it, but I don't like it too much. All the noise, the mess ups, the forced performance, the lack of corrections by players to make the songs better. It's too much stress for me.

I'd much rather cook a gumbo or a roast with rice and gravy and a sit down (unplugged) with an accordion, a fiddle or two, one guitar and an (on beat, not too loud) triangle. If they weren't so rare, I'd much rather have someone on the upright base instead of the triangle. Dam triangle if not played correctly gives me a headache.

What I'm getting at is, I want to be able to discuss the "Traditional Cajun Music" about to be played. I want things at a slow pace where you can stop the song and start over if there are too many mess ups or someone is not understanding where the song is going or the idea behind it. I want to be able to try a song in a different/better way than the usual memorized version or most played version on the radio or youtube. In other words, time to master the music as a group without interruption. A group that don't mind never playing on the band stand for money, but just studying,perfecting, and enjoying the music over a few cold beers or even wine straight out of a shared bottle, then presenting it to others that want to hear it or learn it, but only when the time is right.

I used to sit and watch my Grandpa and his old Cajun pod-nahs do this back in the 70's. Their wives sat off in another room next to the kitchen. The music was played by the men in another sitting room while the food was cooking. I'm sure they wouldn't have minded too much if a strange woman or two, or three was there and wanted to and knew how to play an instrument, but it never happened. Everyone playing an instrument except for me and my young cousin was how I remember it. I remember hearing them talk and bicker in coonass French for a while, then stop talking and play a song. After the song, they'd talk about the song, or shoot the bull, or get ready for the next song. Sometimes, when it wasn't going right, they'd stop mid song and make it right. As for me and my cousin, they paid no attention to us except for when they needed us to go get another beer or when my Grandpa would push his accordion toward me to see if I wanted to make a fool out of myself for the first time or not. LOL. Man, it relaxes me just to remember that and then it ties me in knots at the same time. Coulda, shoulda, woulda.

If you get where I'm coming from. The Cajun music I grew up to "later" appreciate wasn't one of forced pressure playing or band stand glory or selling music CD's, or who made the best accordion, or who had the best accordion, or how expensive or cheap instruments where. I guess if I'd have taken that accordion from my Grandpa's hands a few times I might've learned it sooner and better than I know it today. The man might have given me his, or if he were still living, drove us down to Marc Savoy's, Jr. Martins, or Randy Falcon's, or even Greg Mouton's and said "WTF?! You expect us to buy an accordion for $2,500. You must be out of your fu@#ing minds people!"
He might have also said "Come on boy, let's go home! I'll teach you how to play a cheap triangle instead and maybe later, the fiddle, if you show me some promise. For now, catch me an be-aaaarrr".(translation-would you please bring me(1)one beer, I'm thirsty and ****** off) for you non-cajuns.

Oh yeah, it was all from the heart back then. That, and alot of alcohol.

Oh, did I mention that my Grandpa and all his "pod-nahs" farmed rice or had a job that dealt with rice farming? Not a one of them a professor or a doctor or the like. Some pretty independent,poor, and simple coon-asses they were, but they played their Cajun music good enough to have people from other states and other countries reveering them like they were GODs and trying to learn their secrets some 20 years later. Take from my story what you will. I hope the meaning of it is not lost on those who read it.

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

You're misunderstanding the point about playing under stress. It improves your playing. Not about grandstand glory. It's one way of moving forward, getting past the nerves.

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

I guess I'm not understanding why you can't have those kind of get togethers, they are still going on. Cook a gravy, fill an ice chest, invite a few friends, and whammo, fun filled low pressure night of music and memories.

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Milking a thread?

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Hebert, I don't know if you're having trouble playing from the heart, but you're sure not having any trouble writing from the heart.

After all these posts, I understand what you're looking for now: that way you felt as a little boy in your Grandpa's sitting room when him and his buddies were making music. That's pure magic, my friend, that's what you got to shoot for, and don't stop until you get it.

Forget all that other stuff: commercialization, the price of accordions (which ain't any more than in your Grandpa's day), lost opportunities, your shoelace just broke, whatever. You think your Grandpa had it easy? Think anybody does? Cowboy up and make it happen, Captain.

I walked into an empty classroom one time and saw something written on the chalkboard I'll never forget:

"Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off your goal."

You've got a beautiful dream, and your Grandpa blessed you and showed you how good it could be. That's more than most people have.

So get to work.

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Thank you friend.


Another mystery for you that might provoke thought Jamey. It is valuable if you know what to "listen" for. Bon Chance!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5BDgDh0RHk

As for as for you "picquant"(hot stuff). I'm starting to wonder what you're all about. Do you enjoy wearing tight, short, pink hot pants when nobody's looking or what?

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

I think we have a troll in our midst folks.

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Thanks for the video, Hebert, it doesn't get any better than that. There's magic in the old music.

It brings to mind a thought: maybe you ought to have a conversation with Marc Savoy about what's on your mind, if you can. Like a lot of Cajuns I've met, he's a very intelligent man, a very thoughtful man, and he might have some good advice for you. Seems to me he could relate to what it is you want. I'd leave out the part about the high price of accordions though!

As far as listening goes, I do. Constantly. It's the only music I listen to (with a little old-time country thrown in), and has been for a couple of years now. Before that, it was the main music I listened to for 30 years. I've listened to it so much that I'm forgetting the lyrics to country songs I've know for a long time. But it's not enough. It's just not. It's not the same as being there and hearing it. All the CD's, DVD's, YouTubes, instructional videos, and so on will never be a fingernail next to being on the dance floor while Jesse or Marc or Chris or Octa (yeah, I've gotten to dance to Octa and Hector a couple of times, years ago) plays. There's been times when family and work and such have kept me out of Louisiana for years at a time. Then when I got down there and heard that accordion for the first few notes, it hit me so hard I could cry and laugh at the same time. Is there a word for that? It's how I felt the very first time I heard it. As I write this, it occurs to me what the feeling is called: homecoming.

But how can this be? I'm not Cajun. I don't even want to be a Cajun. Not that I don't love them and their ways, but because I don't want to give up who I am and where I'm from. I'm an Arkansas redneck/Ozark hillbilly, and I love my people. You'll never meet kinder and more down-home, welcoming people. Now, if I'd married a Cajun girl or gotten a job and moved down there, I expect I would of jumped into the culture with both feet, and they'd have to run me off to be rid of me. But I married a sweet Arkansas girl and I'll never leave the Ozark Hills unless someone makes me.

So why do I feel such a strong connection to the Cajuns' music? I've wondered that for a while. It ain't like we don't have good music here: old-time, honky-tonk, bluegrass, and blues. I grew up with it and I love it. I'm thinking the land has something to do with it. I grew up on a rice farm, hunting in river-bottoms, frog-hunting on bayous and slews, fishing around cypress trees, slapping mosquito's, walking levee's, shooting cottonmouths, getting my pick-up stuck in buckshot mud,the kind that cakes up around the bottom of your waders like snowshoes after just a minute or two of walking out to a duck blind. When I first drove around Ville Platte and Mamou and Eunice, I was surprised to see that the land looked and felt exactly like where I grew up. From all the marketing hype from outside Cajun culture, I thought they all lived in swamps.

So that's gotta be it! Or at least a fundamental part of it. *The land comes through the people, and the people come through the music*. And me and the Cajuns come from the same kind of land. And that's also why you and I don't like the feel of today's music compared to Cajun (or country or blues) compared to 50 years ago: *the people who make it don't have the same connection to the land*. I think an Arkansas garden tomato will always taste better than a hydroponic one, and a farmer will *always* make better music than a computer programmer. It's also why most people these days can't tell the difference, and listen to a lot BS music. Or what my Grandpa called "a bunch of gawddam ya-ya!" (you and me also have that in common: I think the sun rose and set in my Grandpa)

Whew! A short reply turned into an exploration, and pulled some things together in my mind that have been niggling around for years. Thanks for your indulgence. You gotta love this board . . .

And one more thing: If he by God felt like wearing tight, short, pink hotpants, Jerry Moody would not only do it, he's one of the few people I know who could pull it off, all the while looking you square in the eye and daring you to say a GD word about it!

Peace, Jamey Hall

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Wow...Good stuff from most everyone, here.

Hebert....you still have not given some clues to who you are. Age and past personal (with your own instruments) experiences. I think that would enable some of us to share some of our own personal hurdles and what we have done or are doing to overcome.

I must say though, I am picking up on some vibes from you that I have picked up from the likes of Bryan L. Jamey H. Pat O. and most strongly from Jerry Moody (he is from just outside of Scott now in Thibodeaux running exactly the kind of Cajun jam session you are searching for). All of us are coming to the Cajun music banquet table later in life with the goal of recapturing some of that old time stuff that you have in your memories.

I have done much to capture those things. Heck all the guys I have mentioned have spent many many hours traveling, listening, purchasing, practicing anguishing over those elusive moments where we can actually make a moment of our own. It is frustrating, expensive and most assuredly time consuming. Heck, it can even get downright lonely!

If you can find some like minded family and or friends you are in great shape. If not, after a few short years of searching, you will find some folks with the same goals as you and then, you will become your Grandfather...only you will be in the position to pass on your experiences on to your offspring.

More thoughts from Tennessee.....(and i just played my accordion for 2 of my grand kids....something I could not do 2 years ago!)

cb

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

This the kind of thing you thinking of?

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Nice old video, Hebert. Back in those days, if you wanted to be in that library, I think you would have to have traveled out of the Kaplan area.....like out of the state too! Chicago?? It is good to know that 3 of the 4 musicians in that video are alive and very close to your neck of the woods.

DL still lives in Erath/Delcambre area....Le Piquant has just recently recorded a few songs with him at his home.

cb

Re: Playing Accordion from your Heart

Awesome input everybody.

All in the name of "Elevated Conciousness". I am now aware that there are people out there that actually have a heart!

Se la vi

Thanks,

Re: I hate to change the subject Bryan

I hate to change the subject but,Bryan how does Cory do that cool lick at about 222 on your video.Man that is so smooth

Re: I hate to change the subject Bryan

Leading off with the ring finger on the 9 pull, then that 7/10 pull blend. You never even have to move your fingers positions. Now some of the other licks he's doing.....

One thing I have learned from watching Cory play is how neat it sounds to be mixing the top and bottom of the keyboard up, I used to only play either at the top or at the bottom, but mix it up sounds cool, at least when he does it.



Jamey Hall's most excellent Cajun Accordion Music Theory

Brett's all new Cajun Accordion Music Theory for all keys!

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