Lasotè : songs and accompanying instruments

The song: the criers take turns declaiming their song, which is always related to current events as in the bèlè (traditional song).

The drum: the traditional bèlè drum is a specialized instrument whose particularity is to be used to play the bèlè, the music that accompanies the traditional dance of the same name. The drum can be constructed from a small wooden barrel (quite rare nowadays). The whole top is covered with goat skin, preferably for its quality. The bottom, which lets the sound out, is not closed. Because of the difficulties to find small drums on the market, the drum is more and more completely made by a specialist. The drummer lays it down to ride it. He hits the skin that covers the top of the instrument with his hands, putting rhythm to it, sometimes he slips his heel without sock on it, in order to make it snore. Alas, beliefs are very hard: just as for the Ancients a woman is not allowed to climb a tree so as not to transform the fruit that she will make sour, it is also for them a "sacrilege" to let a woman ride a drum; she would be impure. Yes!

The tibwa: made of a long bamboo of 2 to 3 meters placed on two stakes in the shape of a fork, one needs two sticks called tibwa to give the rhythm. They are made with small branches of Indian wood, for the solidity of this wood, or in mahogany.

The lambi conches: these are the same as those used by fishermen to attract customers, but they were chosen to be small so that the sound of the drum would not cover them

The granson. Thegranson is the music used for plowing and making dèyè (back) furrows, that is to say when the sloping ground is worked from the bottom to the top, with the help of hoes and the furrows made are thus placed behind the group of bourè (plowmen) . It is played with criers who take turns singing and beating the tibwa, drums and one or more lambi conches. Synchronization had to be perfect between the musicians and the bourè who placed their hoe strokes on the sound of the conch so that all the hoes went up and down at the same time

The mazonn. The mazonn is the music used to make the douvan (front) furrows. The earth is then worked from top to bottom and the furrows made are placed in front of the bourè who progress backwards down the slope. It is a very syncopated rhythm. The criers sing in turn without tibwa. The bourè do not work in rhythm because the task at hand requires large and/or small hoe strokes. The virgin field is siyoné (to make furrows) by bourè. If you lacked strength and slowed down your pace, the one who followed you, carried away by his efforts, risked unintentionally injuring your heel with the edge of his hoe. The place of the youngest and the oldest was preferably reserved for finishing work: ends of furrows, or channels and false furrows. The effort required was intense

A lasotè usually ends with a danmié , which is a martial dance on freshly plowed land

The lavwa bef, a song of incitement

Very little known to young Martiniqueans, the traditional rhythm Lavwa bef is part of the heritage. It reveals a part of the Martinican identity rather ignored by the general public. In Trinité, the Galion farm has chosen to take into account this ancestral contribution and to revitalize it in order to transmit this knowledge to future generations. It is especially about the dwelling Spourtoune.

The Lavwa Bef, literally means "the voice that incites the ox", it is an a capella singing on the place of work. Towards the end of the 19th century and up to the middle of the 20th century, it was a song for plowing and accompanying the agricultural sector, a period before mechanization, which saw the advent of the "Ferguson", tractors whose proper name became common in Creole to designate the machine that was to replace the oxen.

The voice of the farmer-singer leads the oxen in the task of plowing with a special tremolo. The requested ox acts and responds as if conditioned by the tone. Man and animal work in symbiosis and nature is also spared from the harmful effects of mechanical machinery.

With several partners, the Galion farm plans to revive the tradition of Lavwa bef in the North Atlantic, particularly in light of the know-how of Samaritan Benoît Rastocle, one of the last survivors, now 88 years old. A bèlè singer in his youth, he made the oxen in the fields work to the rhythm of his voice according to tradition. He initiates young people to this know-how in order to perpetuate it, but also in the perspective of preserving nature from the effects of carbon dioxide. Lavwa bef is an ecological way to work the field while protecting the environment

The steel pan

The team of the Office Municipal de la Culture, which later became the Sermac (Service Municipal d'Action Culturelle), has been training Martiniqueans to learn steel pan for over 30 years. He proposes to his students the teaching. This is how the pan, considered as an acoustic instrument, was gradually introduced in different musical groups of the Caribbean archipelago. The pioneers of the instrument in Martinique are Gabriel Desroc, Guy Louiset, Mano Limier, Raymond Mardayé, around the decade 60-70

The steel pan originates from the island of Trinidad, where it has become the national instrument and logo of the country. The traditional object is made from barrels; we work on the sheet metal of the barrel itself. It is a metal container of 216 liters, with a thickness between 0.8 and 1.5 mm. It can be said that the musical instrument is made from recycled objects, since the metal barrel was originally intended for storing and transporting gasoline, petroleum or oil... The island of Trinidad has oil, and the first drilling took place in 1870. From 1902 to 1905, the production of oil takes a lot of momentum. The pan(steel pan) was born at the end of the 1930s, and in 1945 it became the emblematic instrument of the island.

The steel drums or steel pans are made from drums and various other recycled objects such as cookie tins or used garbage cans. Depending on its size, the object is cut and the lower face is stamped and then hammered to make a set of facets intended to emit a sound that resonates like a bell. The different facets are tuned to a tempered scale

The repertoire. The repertoire of the steel band is vast. Calypso is a world-renowned style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad in the mid-19th century. The arrival of the French planters and their slaves in the 18th century was the reason for the expatriation of these rhythms to Barbados, St. Lucia, Dominica and beyond. The Trinidad carnival has a tradition of reinterpreting the calypsos of the current year. The banning of drums during these events would have led to the use of steel pans, or steel drums, as a replacement instrument

What is the steel pan? Nowadays the steel pan, or steel band, stilbann in Creole, is taught by Jean-Michel Calmo at SERMAC, Chantal Rémion at CHAM classes (Classes à Horaires Aménagés en Musique), Michel Laurol at Lakou Sanblé Matinik in Schoelcher. But recently of the Martinican purists who prefer the word steel pan, pan means pan in English.

The names are numerous one can also say the steel drum of the English word which means steel drum. It is an idiophone or melodic self-tone percussion instrument whose sound is produced by the material that is the instrument itself, during an impact caused by an external accessory, the mallet. The musician, by striking the internal facets of the instrument with small mallets, plays the pan. A mallet is composed of two parts: the neck made of wood or other materials, and the head, which is generally round and covered with skin. The sound is produced when the mallet strikes the resonant material made of metal only. The music has harmonious tones that promote a beautiful melody and the tuning of the instruments allows for a symphonic type of arrangement. The pan can be used to play all parts of a musical work or piece of music. It has spread in so-called steel bands, typically composed of several of these different instruments. It should not be confused with the xylophone, which has wooden blades

The many types of pans. According to the Steel drum/musical instrument archive, Encyclopedia Britannica, "there are many types of pans, from low to high to midrange, the traditional, pan around the neck, one per musician, or the conventional, each chromatic section, so several drums per musician. In conventional orchestras, the treble sections, called " frontline ", have about thirty notes on one or two cans, the mids have twenty to thirty notes on two to four cans, the basses about twenty notes on four to twelve cans. The midrange and bass sections are called " background " Nowadays, some manufacturers do not use cans as they used to. They make the instruments with flat metal sheets which they transform into a bowl, moulding and tuning the surfaces

The bamboo flute known as toutoun banbou

The name "toutoune-bambou"(toutoun-banbou) comes from the Creole language and designates a bamboo flute. It must be cut in the hollow stem of the bamboo, called thatch, three days after the full moon, at the right moon, to avoid the proliferation of moths that would reduce the instrument to powder, which must dry . This condition is also essential because if the bamboo is too dry, the wood will crack, and the quality of the sound will be poor if the bamboo is soft

The toutoun-banbou is a word that has fallen into disuse since the renowned flutist Max Cilla named it "flute of the morasses". As a teacher of the late Eugène Mona, he had this French name adopted and at the same time unwittingly regressed the Creole word toutoun-banbou, while giving this instrument that he taught at the Sermac all the letters of nobility that are due to it in the same way as the steel band

How to make it. At the risk of making very bad encounters in the bamboo forest, because the lanceolated botrops, named without being named, is particularly fond of the places, it is necessary to go and find the object. It should have a regular tubular profile. The thatch will then be pierced to release the sound on both sides and on the side to allow the notes to be produced. The first flute players of the " toutoun-banbou " were people in symbiosis with nature, they used it to reproduce without doubt an object of their knowledge. First of all, one must take into account the moon which, if one does not respect its cycle, can be detrimental. After choosing the piece, a mature bamboo that has the right density, texture and shape, the thatch must be cut between two nodes of at least 20 centimeters. The long flute has a range of sound production from low to high. The instrument will be carved from the bamboo thatch. At the end that will be brought to the mouth - the mouthpiece - a rectangular slot not very wide circulate the air inside. With a piece of red-hot cylindrical iron we will make the holes corresponding to the notes. Diametrically opposite, a hole will be placed which will be plugged with the thumb, thus allowing modulation and the realization of various sounds. Six holes will be placed on the thatch at more or less regular spaces to reproduce notes of the minor or major scales. After having made multiple tests the instrument maker will grope several times to know the most appropriate position for all the notes. The holes closest to the mouthpiece correspond to those that will be plugged or unplugged by the fingers of the left hand (the index, middle and ring fingers) the other three holes will be respectively plugged or unplugged by the three fingers of the right hand the index, middle and ring fingers. The thumbs and the little fingers are used to maintain the instrument in a stable position

Nowadays, the electric drill does the job better and faster. The flute is then tuned with scissor blades.

Max Cilla explains that "by undertaking more scientific work to determine the principles of manufacture and by developing a method for making them in different keys, I succeeded in removing the image of the toutoun-banbou as a 'random' instrument. This allowed me to ensure a transmission in the art of making them, without it being based solely on intuition, which was quite complex. It is important to know that bamboo is a special wood because of its fibrous texture. Moreover, it is not a stem that grows with age: as soon as it buds, the diameter of the bamboo is already determined. Age does not change the diameter of the bamboo, but it strengthens its texture. Therefore, there are bamboos of different sizes. All this calls for qualities of observation of nature that already require great attention and involvement of the flutist in the design of the instrument, by this direct relationship with nature."

Max Cilla, Léon Sainte-Rose, Eugène Mona are flutists who have brought the traditional flute to the general public.

Lambi conch music

What do we mean by Watabwi-ora? In the intangible heritage of the Martiniquais, it is necessary to place one of the oldest musical instruments in the world and the oldest on the Martiniquais soil, the one that remains the conch of lambi. The lambi conch is a sound instrument inherited from the first peoples of the Antilles: the Arawaks and the Kalinagos. Kalinago is the real name of the people named Caribbean by the Europeans. The sound produced by this object which comes from the sea has known how to cross the time. Nowadays, fishermen still use the sound of their conch shells to announce their arrival at the landing stage. For a long time, it contributed to accompany the charivaris(chalbari) which announced in great clatter of drum and all other kinds of accessory music, which informed of the possibility or the imminence of a marriage between widowers, by making take note of the news in an ubuesque way. It also announced by way of sound conch the sad news of the passage of Basile, in other words the death, in the district since the radios were still in their infancy. During the colonial period, he also knew how to punctuate the extraordinary events of the life of the servile community: death, catastrophe, insurrection. His messages essentially had two functions: to inform of the extraordinary and to bring people together. In the Amerindian island language, it is called Watabwi-ora: ora means mollusk, Watabwi means shell

The excavations. A document entitled "Grotte de Marsoulas, carte IGN interactive [archive]" reports on Géoportail, that "in 1931, excavating the entrance slope of the cave called Grotte des Fées in Marsoulas - a French commune located in the center of the department of Haute-Garonne, in the Occitan region - two prehistoric archaeologists Henri Begouën and Townsend Russel found a large quantity of prehistoric material, and in particular a conch that can be seen in the Toulon Museum. This shell is actually the Mediterranean tritonis nodifera, also called charonia lampas, one of the 5 types of newt. The shell is 31 cm long with traces of ochre. This 18,000 year old shell is described as a "water vessel", but closer examination suggests that it is a wind instrument whose function remains hypothetical. It is not clear whether it is a liturgical, calling, or pleasure instrument. According to research, the Carbon-14 revealed that it was the first wind instrument of this type."

The instrument. "After having pierced the shell of a hole, on the point or on a side, the instrumentalist blew there to produce sounds according to the same principle as the hunting horn or the foghorn in particular. It is one of the oldest musical instruments that have come down to us, as evidenced by the Marsoulas conch, which dates from the Magdalenian (last archaeological culture of the Upper Paleolithic in Western Europe. It extends between approximately 17,000 and 14,000 years before the present)."

What is Watabwi called? We will have to dive into the past to meet the lambi conch which is the representative symbol of the city of Anses d'Arlet. This symbol refers to the world of fishing since Anses d'Arlet is a city of fishermen; moreover nowadays the conch of lambi still signals the departure and the return of the fishermen. The conch of lambi is the symbol and refers to an activity very characteristic of the economic and cultural life of this town. This town owes its name to Arlet, a former Kalinago chief and brother of Pilote. Both of them would have given up their goods and their lands to the colonists of the North of Martinique to take refuge in the South, following a treaty signed between them. As a result, Arlet settled in the region to which he left his name, and his brother Pilote in Rivière-Pilote, the township that also bears his name. In Martinique, the lambi conch symbolizes all that is related to fishing

The Lambi, "strombus giga" of its scientific name, was called "watabwi" by the first inhabitants of the island. This shellfish is composed of an edible mollusc nestled inside its shell called "conch". It can reach 30 cm in width and weigh 1.5 kg. Known as a detritivore, the mollusk consumes algae and various plant debris, it can also feed on dead or living algae, sargassum or other debris brought by the current in depressions or certain sea beds.

It is found along the coast of the Caribbean archipelago and is used mainly today for culinary dishes, in which it is most often consumed in court-bouillon, in fricassee or grilled on skewers or not.

Due to overfishing, the lambi, which is also highly valued for its meat, is endangered. Consequently, it is protected by the Washington Convention (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). Its trade is strongly limited and it is placed under customs control in the French West Indies. It is classified as an endangered species and is partially protected.

The lambi conch is a musical instrument. The lambi conch itself, has multiple assets. Fishermen used to attach three or five kòn lanbi that they grouped together to serve as anchors to hold their boats. Even today, conches are still used to delimit the graves in cemeteries because of their resistance to bad weather and their ability to hug the ground. This is the Cartesian reason, because they are also believed to have the magical power to help the soul return to Africa, which explains their indispensable presence around the graves. Indeed, already among the Kalinagos, the Lambi conch was used to honor the dead through the decoration of graves

According to the LAO (Laboratoire d'Archivage de l'Oralité), they also used the conch as a decorative element and as a material for making handicrafts. It is to them that belongs the idea of having registered in our Caribbean universe the conch of lambi in the field of the artistic expression, by making an original musical instrument which produces a singular sound when one blows in its opening. It was used to announce from morne to morne the great events of life, whether births, marriages, deaths or revolts. It was at the same time, a telephone, a radio and a musical instrument. There was an authentic dialect of lambi. It introduced an art of living, an imaginary world, a conception of human relations and of life, a way of living the language, a whole series of values that contributed to forge the identity of the city, to give it what many perceive, whether they are from Martinique or elsewhere, as an undeniable authenticity

The Watabwi group is an orchestral group of lambi conch blowers from the section of the association called LAO: Laboratoire d'Archivage de l'Oralité. This section gathers about fifteen active participants who train regularly for more than twenty years. The trainings take place under the guidance of the last major referent, Pierre Louis Delbois, who is retired from the building industry, former fisherman, son of a fisherman. He is the one who transmits the heritage of the sound capital around this instrument and explains its major principles.

"Watabwi is a group that has the particularity of playing music with the conches of lambi. This association has set itself the goal of contributing to the development of Martinique's intangible heritage. Courses are given to young people with all the explanation on the instrument. They take place on Wednesdays on the seafront of Fort-de-France. "Watabwi" brings to life this sound instrument inherited from the first peoples of the Antilles. It highlights the formidable harmonic potential of the conch. Blowing into this shell requires a certain knowledge to bring out the different musical notes.