Cajun music
Encyclopedia
Cajun music, an emblematic music of Louisiana
, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadian
s of Canada
. Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole
-based, Cajun
-influenced zydeco
form, both of Acadiana
origin. These French Louisiana
sounds have influenced American popular music
for many decades, especially country music
, and have influenced pop culture through mass media
, such as television commercials.
can only be played in one key, and since an instrument must match the singer's range, much Cajun singing is sung in the singer's upper range. The accordionist gives the vocal melody greater energy by repeating most notes.
, fiddle
, and triangle
. This form holds firm to a basic rhythm
with staccato
style notes, including lots of fiddle double stops. Each fiddle solo is composed of a major scale
riff, repeated between verses. This form has existed since the early 1900s and the waltz
and two-step
are the most common dances of this Cajun music genre. Many songs that became standards in the Cajun music repertoire were first recorded in this period of the 1920s and 30s. A number of the most prominent traditional Cajun musicians are featured in the 1989 documentary J'Ai Ete Au Bal.
country music
influence and a move away from the traditional accordion. This music has more of a "swing" style popularized by Bob Wills
and the Texas Playboys. Instead of the music being dominated by the accordion, Cajun swing relies heavily on the fiddle and piano
with a swinging tempo. Bands in the 1940s began using the steel guitar, an instrument which also found use in Dancehall Cajun music. Dances such as "the jig
" are common among this genre of Cajun music. Harry Choates
and the Hackberry Ramblers
are early examples of this style, The Red Stick Ramblers and The Lost Bayou Ramblers are contemporary bands playing in this style.
such as the bass guitar
, drum kit
, steel guitar
, and rhythm guitar
, electric or acoustic. The same abrupt, staccato
feel can be felt as in traditional Cajun. This style originated in the post-War era of the late 1940s and continues up until the present in small town dancehalls. Electrification of the dance venues allowed the fiddle to be played in a smoother style, alternating leads with the accordion. The steel guitar also adds remarks. Typically in dancehall Cajun performances the melody is played by the accordion followed by a bridge, a vocal verse, a leading line by the steel guitar, a leading line by the fiddle, then a leading line by the accordion player again followed by a bridge. This is followed by the next vocal verse, and so on. The characteristics of dancehall Cajun can be seen in artists such as Jesse Légé, and The Basin Brothers Band.
, blues, jazz
and swamp pop
, and bluegrass
styles. The fiddle players relax, involving a more legato
feel to the solos. The quick fiddle action and double stops are missing, replaced by dominant blues chords and jazz slides.
Pioneers such as Beausoleil
with Michael Doucet
, Zachary Richard
, Jambalaya Cajun Band, Bruce Daigrepont, and others broke new ground, while other musicians such as Eddie LeJeune, Robert Jardell, Les Frères Michot, The Pine Leaf Boys
, and others brought energy to older, more traditional forms.
, R&B
, blues
, soul
, and zydeco
, producing a less traditional, more contemporary sound. Although led by the accordion, you can find the electric guitar
, Washboard
, and keyboard
present in this form. Since the 1980s, musicians such as Wayne Toups
, Roddie Romero and the Hub City Allstars, Lee Benoit
, Damon Troy, Kevin Naquin
, and Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys
have popularized this modern form of Cajun music.
Doug Kershaw
recorded "Louisiana Man", an autobiographical song that he had written while in the Army. The song sold millions of copies ; over the years it has come to be be considered a standard of modern Cajun music. The song was eventually covered
by more than 800 artists.
The early songs were mixtures of la la, contredanses, reels
and jig
s and other folk influences from black, white and Native American traditions. Early song lyrics were entirely in Cajun French
. Though French language is still common, some Cajun music today is sung in English
with younger singers and audiences.
In earlier years, the fiddle
was the predominant instrument. Usually two fiddles were common, one playing the melody while the other provided the séconde, or back-up part. Twin fiddling traditions represent the music in its purest form, as it was brought to Louisiana with the early immigrants and before popular American tunes mingled with it.
Gradually, the Cajun accordion
emerged to share the limelight.
In the early 1930s, the accordion was pushed into the background by the popular string sounds of the time. Piano and other string instruments joined fiddle to create a jazzy swing beat strongly influenced by Western Swing of neighboring Texas. The Cajun fiddle
was a well established instrument which had been somewhat eclipsed by the German accordion fad, which had similar effect in French Canada. But in the Depression era the tide turned, and, according to Stricklin et al, it had never been eclipsed.
After World War II
, the accordion regained its popularity in Cajun music. Also, in the late 1930s and 1940s, country music
became the dominant influence on Cajun music, and bass
and steel
guitar
s were used.
Modern Cajun music began taking on the influence of jazz and modern country music, resulting in a more polished sound. The acoustic guitar
was added, mostly as a rhythm instrument, and the triangle
provided a traditional percussion. Modern groups sometimes include drums
, electric bass
, electric guitar
s and amplified accordion and fiddles.
music—with or without words. The music was essential for small get-togethers on the front porch
, an all night house dance known as a "bal de maison", or a public dance in a dance hall called a fais do-do
s.
There are several variations of Cajun dance: a Cajun One Step, also called a Cajun Jig
, a Cajun Two Step or related Cajun Jitterbug
, and a Cajun Waltz. In mild contrast, zydeco dancing
is a syncopated
two-step or jitterbug. A Cajun dancer will cover the dance floor while the zydeco dancer will primarily dance in a smaller area.
Cajun music can be found predominantly at Louisiana festivals and dance halls, in addition to weddings in Acadiana.
Academic
Music of Louisiana
The music of Louisiana can be divided into four general regions. Southwest Louisiana, , Southern Louisiana, west of New Orleans the southeast, the region in and around Greater New Orleans has a unique musical heritage tied to Dixieland jazz, blues and Afro-Caribbean rhythms...
, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadian
Acadian
The Acadians are the descendants of the 17th-century French colonists who settled in Acadia . Acadia was a colony of New France...
s of Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole
Louisiana Creole people
Louisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the settlers to refer to those who were born in the colony, as opposed to those born in the Old World...
-based, Cajun
Cajun
Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles...
-influenced zydeco
Zydeco
Zydeco is a form of uniquely American roots or folk music. It evolved in southwest Louisiana in the early 19th century from forms of "la la" Creole music...
form, both of Acadiana
Acadiana
Acadiana, or The Heart of Acadiana, is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that is home to a large Francophone population. Of the 64 parishes that make up Louisiana, 22 named parishes and other parishes of similar cultural environment, make up the intrastate...
origin. These French Louisiana
French Louisiana
The term French Louisiana refers to two distinct regions:* first, to colonial French Louisiana, comprising the massive, middle section of North America claimed by France; and,...
sounds have influenced American popular music
American popular music
American popular music had a profound effect on music across the world. The country has seen the rise of popular styles that have had a significant influence on global culture, including ragtime, blues, jazz, swing, rock, R&B, doo wop, gospel, soul, funk, heavy metal, punk, disco, house, techno,...
for many decades, especially country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, and have influenced pop culture through mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, such as television commercials.
Aural Analysis
Cajun music is relatively harsh with an infectious beat and a lot of forward drive, placing the accordion at the center. Besides the voices, only two melodic instruments are heard, the accordion and fiddle, but usually in the background can also be heard the high, clear tones of a metal triangle. The harmonies of Cajun music are simple, basically I and V, tonic and dominant. The melodic range is just one octave, rising a fifth above the tonic and descending a fourth below. Because the Cajun accordionCajun accordion
A Cajun accordion also known as a squeezebox is single-row diatonic button accordion used for playing Cajun music.-History:Many different accordions were developed in Europe throughout the 19th century, and exported worldwide...
can only be played in one key, and since an instrument must match the singer's range, much Cajun singing is sung in the singer's upper range. The accordionist gives the vocal melody greater energy by repeating most notes.
Traditional Cajun
This style comprises the roots of Cajun dance music, involving only a few instruments such as the Cajun accordionCajun accordion
A Cajun accordion also known as a squeezebox is single-row diatonic button accordion used for playing Cajun music.-History:Many different accordions were developed in Europe throughout the 19th century, and exported worldwide...
, fiddle
Cajun fiddle
Cajun fiddle music is a part of the American fiddle music canon. It is derived from the music of southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas, as well as sharing repertoire from the Quebec and Cape Breton traditions...
, and triangle
Triangle (instrument)
The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
. This form holds firm to a basic rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
with staccato
Staccato
Staccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation it signifies a note of shortened duration and separated from the note that may follow by silence...
style notes, including lots of fiddle double stops. Each fiddle solo is composed of a major scale
Major scale
In music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, ", the "Do" in the parenthesis at...
riff, repeated between verses. This form has existed since the early 1900s and the waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
and two-step
Two-step
Two-step or Two Step may refer to:In dance*Two-step , a dance move used in a wide range of dancing genres*Country-western two-step, also known as the Texas Two-step*Nightclub Two Step, also known as the California Two-step...
are the most common dances of this Cajun music genre. Many songs that became standards in the Cajun music repertoire were first recorded in this period of the 1920s and 30s. A number of the most prominent traditional Cajun musicians are featured in the 1989 documentary J'Ai Ete Au Bal.
Country/Texas Swing Cajun
This style involves heavy elements of TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
influence and a move away from the traditional accordion. This music has more of a "swing" style popularized by Bob Wills
Bob Wills
James Robert Wills , better known as Bob Wills, was an American Western Swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader, considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western Swing and universally known as the pioneering King of Western Swing.Bob Wills' name will forever be associated with...
and the Texas Playboys. Instead of the music being dominated by the accordion, Cajun swing relies heavily on the fiddle and piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
with a swinging tempo. Bands in the 1940s began using the steel guitar, an instrument which also found use in Dancehall Cajun music. Dances such as "the jig
Cajun Jig
Cajun Jig, or pop music is the most traditional music for itCajun One Step, is among the simplest of Cajun dance forms. It has only one basic step. The Cajun Jig was popular in Louisiana in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but remains a mainstay of dancers...
" are common among this genre of Cajun music. Harry Choates
Harry Choates
Harry Choates was an American Cajun music fiddler....
and the Hackberry Ramblers
Hackberry Ramblers
The Hackberry Ramblers , a Grammy Award-nominated Cajun music band based in Hackberry, Louisiana, formed in 1933. Since its heyday in the late 1930s it has become one of the most recognized names and influential groups in Cajun music...
are early examples of this style, The Red Stick Ramblers and The Lost Bayou Ramblers are contemporary bands playing in this style.
Dancehall Cajun
This style is similar to traditional Cajun music with added accompanimentAccompaniment
In music, accompaniment is the art of playing along with an instrumental or vocal soloist or ensemble, often known as the lead, in a supporting manner...
such as the bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, drum kit
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, steel guitar
Steel guitar
Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. Developed in Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a steel guitar is usually positioned horizontally; strings are plucked with one hand, while the other hand changes the pitch of one or more strings with the use...
, and rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
, electric or acoustic. The same abrupt, staccato
Staccato
Staccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation it signifies a note of shortened duration and separated from the note that may follow by silence...
feel can be felt as in traditional Cajun. This style originated in the post-War era of the late 1940s and continues up until the present in small town dancehalls. Electrification of the dance venues allowed the fiddle to be played in a smoother style, alternating leads with the accordion. The steel guitar also adds remarks. Typically in dancehall Cajun performances the melody is played by the accordion followed by a bridge, a vocal verse, a leading line by the steel guitar, a leading line by the fiddle, then a leading line by the accordion player again followed by a bridge. This is followed by the next vocal verse, and so on. The characteristics of dancehall Cajun can be seen in artists such as Jesse Légé, and The Basin Brothers Band.
Cajun "Renaissance"
Drawing on elements of the earlier Traditional, Texas Swing, and Dancehall periods, the Cajun "Renaissance" also incorporates more modern elements of FolkTraditional music
Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...
, blues, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and swamp pop
Swamp pop
Swamp rock is a musical genre indigenous to the Acadiana region of south Louisiana and an adjoining section of southeast Texas. Created in the 1950s and early 1960s by teenaged Cajuns and black Creoles, it combines New Orleans-style rhythm and blues, country and western, and traditional French...
, and bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
styles. The fiddle players relax, involving a more legato
Legato
In musical notation the Italian word legato indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, in transitioning from note to note, there should be no intervening silence...
feel to the solos. The quick fiddle action and double stops are missing, replaced by dominant blues chords and jazz slides.
Pioneers such as Beausoleil
Beausoleil
BeauSoleil is an American musical group specializing in Cajun music. Based in Lafayette, Louisiana, the group members are brothers Michael Doucet and David Doucet , Jimmy Breaux , Billy Ware , Tommy Alesi , and Mitchell Reed .-Band history:Founded in 1975, BeauSoleil BeauSoleil (French, beautiful...
with Michael Doucet
Michael Doucet
Michael Doucet is a Cajun fiddler, singer and songwriter who founded the Cajun band BeauSoleil from Lafayette, Louisiana.In 2005 Doucet was one of 12 recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA award, which recognizes artistic excellence, cultural...
, Zachary Richard
Zachary Richard
Zachary Richard is a Cajun singer/songwriter and poet. His music is an innovative combination of Cajun and Zydeco musical styles.-Biography:...
, Jambalaya Cajun Band, Bruce Daigrepont, and others broke new ground, while other musicians such as Eddie LeJeune, Robert Jardell, Les Frères Michot, The Pine Leaf Boys
Pine Leaf Boys
The Pine Leaf Boys is a Cajun and Creole band from South Louisiana. Members include Wilson Savoy , Courtney Granger , Drew Simon , Jon Bertrand , and Thomas David .-Career:...
, and others brought energy to older, more traditional forms.
Contemporary Cajun Music
This style involves Cajun music with a heavy influence of rockRock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
, and zydeco
Zydeco
Zydeco is a form of uniquely American roots or folk music. It evolved in southwest Louisiana in the early 19th century from forms of "la la" Creole music...
, producing a less traditional, more contemporary sound. Although led by the accordion, you can find the electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
, Washboard
Washboard
A washboard is a tool designed for hand washing clothing. With mechanized cleaning of clothing becoming more common by the end of the 20th century, the washboard has become better known for its originally subsidiary use as a musical instrument....
, and keyboard
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
present in this form. Since the 1980s, musicians such as Wayne Toups
Wayne Toups
Wayne Toups is one of the most commercially successful American Cajun singers. He is also a songwriter.-Biography:...
, Roddie Romero and the Hub City Allstars, Lee Benoit
Lee Benoit
-Early life:Lee was born in Louisiana, USA in 1959. At the age of five, he was given an electric organ by his grandmother, who raised him. He started to play Christmas songs on it, by ear....
, Damon Troy, Kevin Naquin
Kevin Naquin
Kevin Naquin is a Cajun accordion player in south Louisiana from Ossun, Louisiana. Naquin is the lead singer and accordion player in the Cajun band Kevin Naquin and the Ossun Playboys. In 2000, he won the CFMA - 2000 Album of the Year with his album "Pour La Premiere Fois" and CFMA - 2000 Song of...
, and Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys
Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys
Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys are a Grammy Award-nominated Cajun band from southern Louisiana. The band formed in 1988 and has since recorded 10 albums, nine of which are on Rounder Records....
have popularized this modern form of Cajun music.
Doug Kershaw
Doug Kershaw
Doug Kershaw, born January 24, 1936, is an American fiddle player, singer and songwriter from Louisiana. Active since 1949, Kershaw has recorded fifteen albums and charted on the Hot Country Songs charts.- Early life :...
recorded "Louisiana Man", an autobiographical song that he had written while in the Army. The song sold millions of copies ; over the years it has come to be be considered a standard of modern Cajun music. The song was eventually covered
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by more than 800 artists.
Lyrics
The unaccompanied ballad was the earliest form of Cajun music. The narrative songs often had passionate themes of death, solitude or ill-fated love — a reaction to their harsh exile and rough frontier experience, as well as celebrations of love and humorous tales. Ballads were ritually sung at weddings and funerals, and sung informally for small groups of people at house parties as the food cooked and young children played.The early songs were mixtures of la la, contredanses, reels
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
and jig
Jig
The Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the 16th century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s and other folk influences from black, white and Native American traditions. Early song lyrics were entirely in Cajun French
Cajun French
Cajun French is a variety or dialects of the French language spoken primarily in Louisiana, specifically in the southern and southwestern parishes....
. Though French language is still common, some Cajun music today is sung in English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
with younger singers and audiences.
Instruments
Cajun fiddle
Cajun fiddle music is a part of the American fiddle music canon. It is derived from the music of southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas, as well as sharing repertoire from the Quebec and Cape Breton traditions...
was the predominant instrument. Usually two fiddles were common, one playing the melody while the other provided the séconde, or back-up part. Twin fiddling traditions represent the music in its purest form, as it was brought to Louisiana with the early immigrants and before popular American tunes mingled with it.
Gradually, the Cajun accordion
Cajun accordion
A Cajun accordion also known as a squeezebox is single-row diatonic button accordion used for playing Cajun music.-History:Many different accordions were developed in Europe throughout the 19th century, and exported worldwide...
emerged to share the limelight.
In the early 1930s, the accordion was pushed into the background by the popular string sounds of the time. Piano and other string instruments joined fiddle to create a jazzy swing beat strongly influenced by Western Swing of neighboring Texas. The Cajun fiddle
Cajun fiddle
Cajun fiddle music is a part of the American fiddle music canon. It is derived from the music of southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas, as well as sharing repertoire from the Quebec and Cape Breton traditions...
was a well established instrument which had been somewhat eclipsed by the German accordion fad, which had similar effect in French Canada. But in the Depression era the tide turned, and, according to Stricklin et al, it had never been eclipsed.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the accordion regained its popularity in Cajun music. Also, in the late 1930s and 1940s, country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
became the dominant influence on Cajun music, and bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
and steel
Steel guitar
Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. Developed in Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a steel guitar is usually positioned horizontally; strings are plucked with one hand, while the other hand changes the pitch of one or more strings with the use...
guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
s were used.
Modern Cajun music began taking on the influence of jazz and modern country music, resulting in a more polished sound. The acoustic guitar
Steel-string acoustic guitar
A steel-string acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar descended from the classical guitar, but strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound...
was added, mostly as a rhythm instrument, and the triangle
Triangle (instrument)
The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
provided a traditional percussion. Modern groups sometimes include drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, electric bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
s and amplified accordion and fiddles.
Dance and festivals
Cajun music, born from ballads, has transformed to danceDance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...
music—with or without words. The music was essential for small get-togethers on the front porch
Porch
A porch is external to the walls of the main building proper, but may be enclosed by screen, latticework, broad windows, or other light frame walls extending from the main structure.There are various styles of porches, all of which depend on the architectural tradition of its location...
, an all night house dance known as a "bal de maison", or a public dance in a dance hall called a fais do-do
Fais do-do
Fais do-do is a name for a Cajun dance party, originating before World War II. According to Mark Humphrey the parties were named for "the gentle command young mothers offered bawling infants." He quotes early Cajun musician Edwin Duhon of the Hackberry Ramblers, "She'd go to the cry room, give...
s.
There are several variations of Cajun dance: a Cajun One Step, also called a Cajun Jig
Cajun Jig
Cajun Jig, or pop music is the most traditional music for itCajun One Step, is among the simplest of Cajun dance forms. It has only one basic step. The Cajun Jig was popular in Louisiana in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but remains a mainstay of dancers...
, a Cajun Two Step or related Cajun Jitterbug
Cajun Jitterbug
Cajun Jitterbug is a style of Cajun dancing with two variations. The main style is a classic two-step form of a six-count East Coast Swing, which is differentiated from the one-step Cajun Jig...
, and a Cajun Waltz. In mild contrast, zydeco dancing
Zydeco (dance)
Zydeco as a dance style has its roots in a form of folk dance that corresponds to the heavily syncopated zydeco music, originated in the beginning of the 20th century among the Francophone Creole peoples of Acadiana...
is a syncopated
Syncopation
In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
two-step or jitterbug. A Cajun dancer will cover the dance floor while the zydeco dancer will primarily dance in a smaller area.
Cajun music can be found predominantly at Louisiana festivals and dance halls, in addition to weddings in Acadiana.
See also
- Cajun French Music AssociationCajun French Music AssociationThe Cajun French Music Association is an association dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Cajun music and culture.-History:The Cajun French Music Association is a non-profit organization of Cajuns and non-Cajuns whose purpose is to promote and preserve, not only Cajun music, but also...
- List of festivals in Louisiana
- List of Notable People Related to Cajun Music
- History of Cajun MusicHistory of Cajun musicCajun music has its roots based in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada and Country music.-Early years:The first form of traditional cajun music began before the 20th century in south Louisiana. When the Acadians came from New Brunswick & Nova Scotia to Louisiana in 1764, they...
- Swamp pop music
- TintamarreTintamarreTintamarre is an Acadian tradition of marching through one's community making noise with improvised instruments and other noisemakers, usually in celebration of National Acadian Day. The term originates from the Acadian French word meaning "clangour" or "din"...
, an Acadian folk music and sound celebration
External links
- Field Recorders Collective CDs of Dewey Balfa, Dennis McGee and Sady Courville from private collections now made public
- Cajun Music essays
- Cajun Music Hall of Fame and Museum
- The Cajun French Music Association
- CajunZydeco Net
- Radio Louisiane
- Cajun Music mp3: samples of Cajun music: "Hadacol it Something"
- Jolie Blonde : Lyrics and song history of the traditional Cajun waltz, often referred to as "the Cajun National Anthem".
- A Brief History of Cajun, Creole, and Zydeco Music
- NPR story about a band named Feufollet
- Cajunlyrics.com - Cajun, Swamp-Pop & Zydeco Lyrics
Academic