Interview with Barachois
Interview with Barachois Albert Arsenault, Hélène Arsenault-Bergeron, Louise Arsenault, Chuck Arsenault. By Sean McSweeney of Adhoc, Sunday 1 August, 1999. Cambridge Folk Festival, U.K. SM: Let me start by establishing who is who. You've all got the same surname, but you're not all related, am I right? AA: Hélène is my sister. LA: And I am a distant cousin. CA: And I am Carlos. SM: It says Chuck in the programme and Chuck on your Backstage Pass, so I assume you're really called Charles. SM: [to Chuck] But you are not related to the others? CA: No. SM: Anyway, on to your music. That's a very high-energy act you've got there, with a lot of clowning around. Do you do that to keep people's attention, to give them an easier way into the music, or - AA: No, we'd do it anyway. CA: We fool around when learning a tune or rehearsing. We try to put each other off. If something we do makes us laugh we might keep it in the act. AA: You know a lot of it is based on people we know. We have kitchen parties where we come from, that's where a lot of the music is played, and people are always joking and having fun. LA: You know how there's always some character, a friend or a member of the family, who is the clown at these things. AA: That's what I base a lot of my stuff on. Also, we've done a lot of children's shows, and they enjoy that sort of thing. SM: Of course, you did a children's concert this afternoon. HA-B: Very often we play to groups of English-speaking children in mainland Canada to educate them about our culture. We're not supposed to speak English and they can't understand French, so we need a strong visual element. It's something that crosses all boundaries, especially if it's funny. We play to a lot of English-speaking audiences. SM: Do you think that's why the Canadian Government gives you financial help to tour? HA-B: Yes, and you know we won an award for preserving our heritage. SM: What's this story you tell on stage about Acadians dancing while sitting down because it's not as sinful as dancing standing up? CA: It's true. AA: Everything we say is based on truth. CA: Carlos does not lie. LA: And fiddle-playing was frowned upon in the same way. SM: The fiddle has been called the devil's instrument all over the Western world at some time or other, but are you seriously expecting everyone to believe that people used to dance sitting down? CA: Carlos has said so. AA: There are still people alive who remember when this was the case. SM: What do call your style of dancing? HA-B: Just step dancing. SM: And does everyone dance while playing or is that just part of your act? LA: Everyone does. People dance even if there isn't an instrument. HA-B: Someone might just tap a rhythm out on the kitchen table and everyone will dance to it. SM: Are you playing this festival as part of a tour? AA: It's the end of the tour. We've been over here for about 19 days. HA-B: I can't believe it's over. It all seems to have gone so quickly. SM: Have you been playing other countries in Europe? AA: England and Wales, that's all. SM: How has it gone? HA-B: Really well. AA: People really seemed to enjoy our show. SM: You use an extraordinary variety of instruments in your arrangements, presumably producing a sound quite different to the traditional one. HA-B: Very often we might just have the basic tune, with no accompaniment at all. We might have heard someone just sing it. AA: Just the bare bones. HA-B: So we think about the sort of sound we want, and how to arrange it to produce that sound. If we don't have the right sort of instrument we just make one. AA: Or we use something that's in the kitchen. HA-B: Half of my kitchen utensils are on tour with us AA: We do most of our practising in Hélène's kitchen. It's the right size. HA-B: You saw my steamer being used as percussion. SM: Some bands might be accused of taking everything but the kitchen sink on tour, but in your case it seems to be true. AA: Kitchen sink - now there's an idea. HA-B: It's a bit heavy. AA: We'd have to get a steel one. SM: Many people will be wondering exactly where Prince Edward Island is. If I draw a rough map of Canada here - I used to be really good at Canadian geography, I had to sit through it twice. AA: [into tape recorder] Please note, he's talking about himself again. SM: If this is the St. Lawrence Seaway, and this is Nova Scotia on the East coast - AA: It's there, north of Nova Scotia. CA: Your map of North America looks like a horse. SM: Thank you, Senor Carlos. Mentioning Nova Scotia, though, brings Scotland to mind and the influence of Scottish and Irish music on the music brought over from France. Can you detect those individual strains? AA: We don't think about it really, it's just a tune, something we've heard someone else play. All the types are mixed up into one. LA: Sometimes a person will hear a tune once at a party and rush home, pick up the fiddle, and try to remember how it went. AA: So perhaps it will come out slightly different. HA-B: Sometimes it won't even be played on an instrument, it might just be sung as a dance tune and you'll play it later. SM: That technique exists in Ireland and Scotland - certainly in the Scottish islands. Mouth music, they call it. AA: [sings] dee-da-diddle-dee- SM: Yes, to memorize the tunes or teach them to someone. AA: I mean I can always recognize Irish music when I hear it, but I can't pick out what is Irish or Scottish in Acadian music. CA: And everybody plays the fiddle in a slightly different style. LA: I learned from listening to my father. I can't read music so I just have to remember how a tune sounds. AA: It's much more interesting with all these different styles. I prefer it to everyone playing the same way as if they had all had the same teacher. SM: Rather than having a sort of folk academy. AA: Yes, I find that sort of thing strange. SM: Still on influences: Acadian music is said to have formed the basis of Cajun - can you hear great similarities? HA-B: Not so much. AA: After all it's such a different mix. And it was a long migration, taking many years, and not direct at all. Some people stopped off at other places, some went back to France, but then returned to North America, some returned to Acadia but then migrated to Louisiana again. LA: I love playing Cajun music. I always join in if I'm there. SM: You go down to Louisiana? LA: Oh yes. We all do. I just jam with anyone who's playing. HA-B: There is one similarity, called the shuffle. SM: What's that? HA-B: You miss a note out. After a couple of short notes there's a longer one, but you don't play it. But their songs are very different. And there is something in their bowing technique, the way they draw it - SM: Sort of dragging against the beat? HA-B: Yes, I really like that. But it's strange, even though the music is so different, when we're in Louisiana we see people and think: 'He looks like a member of such-and-such family from back home.' You can see the same features, so clearly it's the same gene pool. SM: Do you always stick to the traditional repertoire, or do you ever write your own stuff? AA: Sometimes Louise writes things. LA: Well, not really write, because I can't read music. AA: She sings into a tape recorder. SM: You must be some of the most extrovert performers in folk music. HA-B: You know, it's funny, because in that way we're not typical Acadians at all. Because of the persecution they suffered, Acadians learned not to draw attention to themselves in order to survive. Outside of home Acadians are quiet and keep a low profile - not like the people from Quebec, for example. So we're unusual. SM: The music and language are obviously very tied up with each other. AA: Yes. HA-B: But they say it only takes two generations to lose a language. Our generation is pretty much bilingual; our parents speak English, but it's a little strange, and our grandparents spoke only French. There's a danger that our brand of French might die out. That would be a shame. SM: To my ears your accent is very unusual; I would never have been able to guess where you come from. HA-B: Really? We could easily tell where you come from. SM: I couldn't even begin to imitate your accent. AA: [In very English accent] But we could certainly imitate yours. SM: Well, on that note, I should thank you for your time. AA: Our pleasure. SM: Enjoy the rest of the festival. HA-B: I'm sure we will. |