Reel Des Voyageurs reel

I got this tune by ear off a sharon shannon cd. This is the second tune on the track and I don’t know the real name for it.

This is _not_ the French-Canadian tune widely known as Woodchopper’s Reel (or Hornpipe) here in the northeastern US and in Canada.

I’m sure this has been recorded by both “La Bottine Souriante”, and “Shooglenifty” (who probably got it from LBS ). Someone must have one of these recordings and could look it up.

It could be “Reel des Voyageurs” - the Traveller’s reel, if my Higher French is still any good after all these years.

This is a French Canadian tune I picked up from Shooglenifty’s ‘Venus in Tweeds’ https://thesession.org/recordings/136 . I’ve been playing it recently, but it’s some 20 years since I last heard the source recording, so I might have changed a few notes here and there. But I am quite sure that the structure - complete with ‘crooked’ B-part - is as it appears on the album.

My main reason for submiting this tune is that, on reading the comments to the common Irish reel, The Traveller https://thesession.org/tunes/5614 , I see that the said Shooglenifty recording is incorrectly referenced there. That one is *not* the tune on the album; this one is.

It seems that the title ‘Reel des Voyageurs’ (… du Voyageur etc.) is used in the French Canadian tradition to refer several different tunes, including The Traveller and The Arkansaw Traveller. In fact, as someone points out in the comments to The Traveller, Shooglenifty refer to this tune, ungrammatically, as ‘*Les* Reel Des Voyageurs’

Here’s another (probably more authentic) version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYMkX_0TwCg

play video

^^(Starting at 2.23)

Setting #2 is from the La Bottine Souriante recording above.

Having just listened to a live performance by Shooglenifty (starting 2.06)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNWMwmwmz3U

play video

they play it pretty much the same way as La Bottine Souriante. So setting#1 is just a product of my amnesia. I could correct it, but then the comments wouldn’t make sense 🙂

Hi, there two mainly known reel of voyageur here in québec.

One is in the key of A like la Bottine souriante and came from the repertoire of a fiddler André Alain.

The second one is on the key of C and was played by Jean Carignan

Transcription from Liette Remon et Guy Bouchard’s book“Airs Tordus - Crooked Tunes”
As played by Andre Alain (often played in open A tuning A-E-A-E)
https://lietteremon.bandcamp.com/merch/airs-tordus-crooked-tunes
(bowing added)

Transcription from book written by Laurie Hart. The name of the book is:

Dance ce soir - Fiddle and Accordion Music of Quebec.

This reel is under the section dedicated to the fiddler André Alain and has a note that says “La Bottine Souriante: Chic & swell, En spectacle”.

I don’t have this book, but I saw it for sale in Internet and it had a few sample pages, this tune was in those pages. I give you the link, I suppose It won’t always be there:

https://books.google.es/books?id=wJOT1Gg_o6UC&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=andre+alain+fiddler&source=bl&ots=QvAICoBwCP&sig=ACfU3U3Mh7eQTUAyiRr8VixXxZOiHCWShA&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjKwbi185rsAhWFxIUKHX5jDs0Q6AEwFXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=andre%20alain%20fiddler&f=false

I found this recording that plays the tune very clearly, only with the fiddle and a lower speed:

https://youtu.be/3X4-b24Llp0

play video

Very interesting to see the different ways to do the music score of the “crooked” part.