Lambi conch music
What do we mean by Watabwi-ora? One of the oldest musical instruments in the world, and the oldest on Martinique soil, is part of the Martiniquais' intangible heritage: the lambi conch. The lambi conch is a sound instrument inherited from the first peoples of the West Indies: 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 stood the test of time. Even today, the sound of the conch shell is used by fishermen to summon customers by announcing their arrival at the landing stage. For a long time, it was used to accompany the charivaris(chalbari), which announced the possibility or imminence of a marriage between widowers with a great clash of drums and all kinds of incidental music, making the news known in an ubiquitous way. He would also announce the sad news of Basile's passing - in other words, death - in the neighborhood, since radios were still in their infancy. During the colonial era, he also punctuated extraordinary events in the life of the servile community: death, disaster, insurrection. Its messages essentially fulfilled two functions: to inform of the extraordinary and to bring people together. In the Amerindian language of the island, it's called Watabwi-ora: ora means mollusk, Watabwi means shell.
The instrument. "After piercing a hole in the shell, either at the tip or on one side, the player blows into the shell to produce sounds similar to those produced by the hunting horn or foghorn. This is one of the oldest surviving musical instruments, as attested by the conch from Marsoulas, a French commune in the center of the Haute-Garonne département, which dates back to the Magdalenian (the last archaeological culture of the Upper Paleolithic in Western Europe. It dates from around 17,000 to 14,000 years before present)."
What is watabwi? We'll have to plunge into the past to find the lambi conch, which is the representative symbol of the town of Anses d'Arlet. This symbol refers to the world of fishing, since Anses d'Arlet is a town of fishermen; indeed, today the lambi conch still signals the departure and return of fishermen. The lambi conch is the symbol and reference to an activity that is very characteristic of the economic and cultural life of this commune. The town owes its name to Arlet, a former Kalinago chief and Pilote's brother. It is said that, following a treaty signed between them, they both abandoned their possessions and land to the colonists in the north of Martinique, taking refuge in the south. As a result, Arlet settled in the region to which he gave his name, and his brother Pilote in Rivière-Pilote, the commune that also bears his name. In Martinique, the lambi conch symbolizes everything to do with fishing.
The lambi, "strombus giga" by its scientific name, was called "watabwi" by the Kalinagos, the island's first inhabitants. This shellfish consists of an edible mollusc nestled inside its shell, called a "conch". It can be up to 30 cm wide and weigh 1.5 kg. A reputed detritivore, the mollusk consumes seaweed and various plant debris, and can also feed on dead or living seaweed, sargassum or other debris carried by the current into depressions or certain seabeds.
Found along the coastline of the Caribbean archipelago, it is today mainly used for culinary dishes, in which it is most often eaten in court-bouillon, fricasseed or grilled on skewers or otherwise.
Due to overfishing, the lambi, which is also highly prized for its meat, is in danger of extinction. As a result, it is protected by the Washington Convention (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), its trade is severely restricted, 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 as a musical instrument. The lambi conch itself is a versatile instrument. Fishermen used to tie three or five kòn lanbi together as anchors to hold their boats in place. Even today, conches are used to mark the boundaries of cemetery graves, thanks to their resistance to the elements and their ability to adapt to the ground. This is the Cartesian reason, for they are also believed, and with much greater fervor, to have the magical power to help the soul return to Africa, which explains their indispensable presence around graves. Indeed, even among the Kalinagos, the lambi conch was used to honor the dead by decorating 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 craft products. It was their idea to bring the lambi conch shell into the realm of artistic expression in our Caribbean universe, by turning it into an original musical instrument that produces a singular sound when blown into its opening. It was used to announce major life events from morne to morne, be they births, marriages, deaths or revolts. It was at once a telephone, a radio and a musical instrument. There was an authentic lambi dialect. It introduced an art of living, an imagination, a conception of human relations and life, a way of inhabiting the language, a whole series of values that helped forge the town's identity, giving it what many perceive, whether from Martinique or elsewhere, as an undeniable authenticity.
The Watabwi group is an orchestral group of lambi conch-blowers from the association's section known as LAO: Laboratoire d'Archivage de l'Oralité. This section brings together some fifteen active participants who have been training regularly for over twenty years. Training takes place under the guidance of the latest major referent, Pierre Louis Delbois, who is retired from the building trade, a former fisherman and the son of a fisherman. It is he who passes on the heritage of the instrument's sound capital and explains its main principles.
"Watabwi is a group that plays music with lambi conches. The association's aim is to contribute to the development of Martinique's intangible heritage. Lessons are given to young people, with full explanations of the instrument. They take place on Wednesdays on the Fort-de-France waterfront. "Watabwi" brings to life this sound instrument inherited from the first peoples of the West Indies. It highlights the conch's formidable harmonic potential. Blowing into this shell requires a certain skill to bring out the different musical notes.
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 from the hollow stalk of the bamboo, called thatch, three days after the full moon, i.e. at the right moon, to avoid the proliferation of moths that would reduce the instrument to powder, which must dry to perfection. This condition is also essential, because if the bamboo is too dry, the wood will split, and the quality of the sound will be mediocre if the bamboo is soft.
The toutoun-banbou is a word that has fallen into disuse since the renowned flautist Max Cilla called it the "flute of the Mornes". As a teacher of the late Eugène Mona, he had this French name adopted and, at the same time, unwittingly caused the Creole word toutoun-banbou to regress, while giving this instrument, which he taught at Sermac, all the letters of nobility it deserves in the same way as the steel band.
How to make it. At the risk of running into some very unpleasant encounters in the bamboo forest, because the lanceolated botrops, named without being named, is particularly fond of these places, you have to go and find the object. It should have a regular tubular profile. The thatch is then pierced to release the sound on either side, and on the side to produce the notes. The first " toutoun-banbou " flautists were people in symbiosis with nature, using it to reproduce an object they knew. The first thing to bear in mind is the moon, which can be detrimental if its cycle is not respected. Once the piece has been chosen - a mature bamboo with the right density, texture and shape - the thatch is cut between two knots at least 20 centimetres apart. The long flute's sound-producing capabilities range from low to high pitched. The instrument is carved from bamboo thatch. At the end that will be brought to the mouth - the embouchure - a rectangular slot not very wide lets circulate the air inside. A piece of red-hot cylindrical iron is used to make the holes corresponding to the notes. Diametrically opposite, we place a hole that can be plugged with the thumb, enabling modulation and the creation of a variety of sounds. Six holes will be placed on the thatch at more or less regular intervals to reproduce the notes of the minor or major scales. After numerous trials, the instrument maker will feel his way around several times to find 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 (index, middle and ring fingers); the other three holes will be plugged or unplugged respectively by the three fingers of the right hand: index, middle and ring fingers. The thumbs and little fingers are used to hold 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 identify the principles of manufacture and developing a method for making them in different keys, I succeeded in doing away with the image of the toutoun-banbou as a 'random' instrument. This made it possible to pass on the art of making them, without it being based solely on intuition, which was quite complex. Bamboo is a special wood, with a fibrous texture. What's more, it's not a stem that grows with age: as soon as it buds, bamboo's diameter is already determined. Age does not alter the bamboo's diameter, but it does strengthen its texture. So there are bamboos of different sizes. All this calls for qualities of observation of nature that already demand great attention and the involvement of the flautist in the design of the instrument, through this direct relationship with nature."
Max Cilla, Léon Sainte-Rose and Eugène Mona are among the flautists who have brought the traditional flute to the general public.
The biguine
Abolition had been hard won, and Martinique had barely recovered from slavery when it had to rise from the ashes of the 1902 eruption. At the time, Saint-Pierre was familiar with bèlè, the dance of the Mornes, sung to the accompaniment of tibwa and drums, something that the city's self-righteous condemned and willingly conceded to low-life individuals. According to music researcher Michel Béroard, the word "biguine" itself was never used to designate a town dance in Saint-Pierre. Until 1920, biguine referred to the music and dance of negro bamboulas, in other words, "old negro music", as we still like to say here, for things for which we have little or no consideration. A lot has been said and repeated here and there, but there is no documentary evidence to suggest that blacks and mulattos danced the biguine together in Saint-Pierre. In 1846, the word " biguine" was written for the first time in Marbot's book Les Bambous, and was one of the dances found in "bamboulas de nègres" like the bèlè, otherwise known as bagay vié neg, those nègreries that the bourgeoisie and the masters didn't appreciate too much, and even less in their salons.
In Trente ans de Saint-Pierre, a 1910 document by Salavina, a pseudonym of writer and journalist Virgile Savane, he recounts how, in a brothel, a prostitute declared to her client: " sé sulon lajan ou ni, ou a bat makak la jik jou!" all biguine in the rum room to the sonorous blasts of brass instruments. ("It's according to your money that you'll get the favors you expect!"). Unbridled behavior was the order of the day. On mulatto soil and in the home of the master, the word biguine, which is also used by other authors, doesn't seem to refer to a dance, but rather to a kind of unbridled behavior, an unspeakable hubbub made in a room that these people call the bamboula, particularly in the rue des Bons enfants, where the men of wars gave rise to the Creole word manawa, which designates the women of lesser virtue who frequented the place. For country folk, however, biguine was a dance in the same way as bèlè, and there was such a thing as biguine-bèlè.
It was only after 1929, when Fructueux Alexandre dit Stellio and Ernest Léardé were obliged to declare the pieces used in their repertoire to the SACEM, that they registered the name biguine.
Composition of the orchestras (interview with Michel Béroard). In 1929, biguine orchestras featured the following instruments: clarinet, trombone, violin, cello and vocals. In 1930, clarinet and vocals were added, along with banjo, piano and drums. Nowadays, musical composition can change.
Biguine as a musical style. Biguine, which has become city music, is a sanitized musical style played on European-made instruments. It gave rise to the dance of the same name. It is said to have had its heyday in Paris. It was in Paris that the biguine first hummed its first notes and took its first steps. Until 1930, the biguine had no drums in the first orchestras. Since then, it has become an essential part of Martinique's musical heritage, and one that set the tone for the career of singer Léona Gabriel-Soïme, who was born in Rivière-Pilote in 1891, died in Fort-de-France in 1971 and went by the pseudonym Estrella. The biguine was a Parisian success at the Colonial Exhibition and at the Bal Blomet.
The mazurka
The classical mazurka. A traditional society dance of Polish origin, the mazurka is a highly rhythmic three-beat dance. According to Maja Trochimczyk(Polish dances Archiv), "its name comes from mazur and mazurek (little mazur) in the 18th century, but it is thought to have originated with the Mazur people, who lived in the Mazovian plains around Warsaw" This Polish dance arrived in European countries in 1830, when Poles were expelled from their homeland. Frédéric Chopin, Polish by birth, settled in France. He drew inspiration from the traditional Polish music he knew so well to influence the Romantic repertoire, and, thanks to his original mazurka compositions, helped to give this dance the fame that would make it famous in European salons in the 19th century.
The Creole mazurka was added to the many other variants, adding its own personal touch to the original mazurka.
Piano teacher Roland Loiseau explains that around the 1830s, this musical form merged with a popular dance known in Martinique as the béliya, which is a ternary form of bèlè (ternary means three beats). This is known as the mazurka créole. These are two distinct figures, one called le piqué, which has a fast rhythm, with the pas glissés followed by a piqué, and the other called la nuit, a slow figure in which the embracing dancers are in complete fusion. It was the mazurka that introduced close dancing to Martinique.
The Creole waltz
To talk about the Creole waltz, we need to look for its origins, the waltz itself, and go back in time to find out where it comes from. The German word walzer , meaning "to go round in circles", is thought to be the origin of the word. "They are thought to have originated from popular dances in Germany, Austria and Upper Bavaria," says Rémi Hess(La Valse, un romantisme révolutionnaire, Paris, Éditions Métailié, collection "Sciences humaines", April 2003). It was the waltzes of Vienna, and in particular those of Johann Strauss, that contributed most to their development. They contrasted with the usual "pas sauté" dances in vogue at Versailles, strictly codified court dances and Baroque music, such as the minuet, sarabande, gigue and gavotte, known as "proper" dances. There is no physical contact between dancers. The French Revolution brought about the decline of these court dances, with the introduction of the waltz, a popular social dance danced by closed couples. Dances evolved from skipped steps to glided steps on parquet floors. Long considered inappropriate, the waltz is a dance generally written in 3 beats.
The document Le Guido Reggazoni (Massimo Angelo Rossi, Piero Sfragano, Guide des danses de salon, Editions SOLAR, 1998) explains that to dance the waltz, "the couple moves, and pivots, entwined on the dance floor, turning on themselves. The couple dances in a clockwise rotation. We waltz to the right or to the left. You could also say that you turn right and then left
The Creole waltz. The Creole waltz, with its binary rhythm, represents a successful adaptation of the Vienna waltz. It has crossed space and travelled back in time to the West Indies. The Creole waltz has, however, considerably slowed down the usual waltz rhythm, which has undergone many transformations, and its appropriation in the Caribbean basin, notably in Cuba and Panama, has given rise to the Pasillo waltz found throughout Latin America. The Pasillo waltz is fast-paced, and its transmission can be understood through exchanges born of the history of Martinique and Panama. It is the cousin of the Creole waltz, which has conquered the Martiniquais to the point where it is customary for the bride to open the ball with the Creole waltz on her father's arm.
The three-movement form has often been respected. Ancestral traditions and modern contributions have done the rest, giving rise to physical variations in the dance and rhythmic variations in the music. Both brought the essence of their diversification to the table, to the delight of dancers and music lovers alike.
Zouk
Zouk. In the 1960s, the word zouk, which has now become part of everyday language as a musical movement, was used to designate popular dance venues that were rather indelicate, not too recommendable, and with a rather dubious clientele. These were places where safety was a word unknown to the public who went there. Towards the last third of the twentiethcentury , the trend was reversed, and zouk came to mean something different. It's still a ballroom, but its reputation has improved, and even today, people still call private dances zouk.
At the end of the 1970s, zouk, the precise name of the musical movement, was born in Guadeloupe with the group Kassav (in reference to the manioc cake known as cassave). The lyrics are in Creole. The basis is a Guadeloupean gwo ka rhythm, ti bwa and mendé, a Guadeloupean drum rhythm of Congolese origin, with a desire to reappropriate traditional rhythms from gwo ka(mende, graj) and carnival " tanbou mas a senjan ". In 1980, Pierre-Edouard Décimus conceived a new musical approach with Freddy Marshall, Georges Décimus and then Jacob Desvarieux, adapting it to modern musical techniques. Early 1981 saw the release of Kassav's first album: the birth of a new musical genre that would serve as the basis for today's zouk. It's a highly rhythmic composition danced in tight couples.
A host of artists have contributed to the popularity of this musical style, enriching it with their distinctive voices, notably singer Patrick Saint-Éloi with his high tessitura and vibratos. Other singers and musicians from Martinique and Guadeloupe have also contributed: Jocelyne Béroard, Jean-Philippe Marthély, Zouk Machine, Gilles Floro, Joëlle Ursull, Frédéric Caracas, Tanya Saint-Val, Tony Chasseur, Akoustik zouk, Taxi kréyol and the Kwak group, etc.
Zouk love. Zouk love is characterized by a slower rhythm. The closeness between the two dancing partners is total. These songs are often about love and sentimental problems. One example is the song Kolé séré, sung as a duet by Jocelyne Béroard and singer Philippe Lavil, who is originally from Béké . The lyrics invite melancholy and reconciliation. This song has the merit of highlighting the Creole structure, which, contrary to certain easy beliefs, is not a copy of the French language. In the Creole sentence " si nou té pran tan pou nou té kozé, kolé séré nou té ké ka dansé", the particles "té ", "ké" and "ka" indicate the conditional. In the beginning of the Creole sentence, the past tense marker " té " is preceded by the hypothetical " si ", which is followed by " pran tan", which completes the sentence by indicating the reason for the kozé and introduces a sentence in which the future tense marker " ké " is followed by the durative "ka". However, while the " ka " retains its durative function, the other two particles " té" and " ké" placed side by side indicate that the action is unrealized, and whereas in French the conditional marker "ions" is inscribed in the verb danserions (first person plural): " Si nous avions pris le temps de nous comprendre, nous en danserions."
In addition to such a beautiful, grammatically correct Creole construction, we share here the joy of exchange and reconciliation.
Zouk-béton. In contrast to zouk love, zouk-béton has a much faster tempo and tackles saucier, more mocking themes. The lyrics often tell a social chronicle, as in the song Kay manman latè ké tranblé, Doméyis mako. It's a more accelerated form of zouk, danced in a freer, more twirling way. This rhythm is particularly popular in carnival songs.
The steel pan
The team at the Office Municipal de la Culture, which later became Sermac (Service Municipal d'Action Culturelle), has been training Martiniquans in steel pan for over 30 years. He offers his students the opportunity to teach. Little by little, the pan, considered an acoustic instrument, was introduced into various musical groups in the Caribbean archipelago. The instrument's pioneers in Martinique were Gabriel Desroc, Guy Louiset, Mano Limier and Raymond Mardayé in the 1960s.
The steel pan originated on the island of Trinidad, where it has become the country's national instrument and logo. The traditional object is made from barrels; the metal sheet is worked on. It is a metal container. You could say that the musical instrument is made from recycled objects, since barrels were originally designed to store and transport petrol, oil or gasoline... The island of Trinidad possessed oil, and the first well was drilled in 1870. From 1902 to 1905, oil production took off. The pan(steel pan) was born in the late 1930s, and in 1945 became the island's emblematic instrument.
Steel drums or steel pans are made from cans and various other salvaged objects. Depending on its size, the object is sectioned, the underside stamped and then hammered to create a set of facets designed to produce a bell-like sound. The various facets are tuned to a tempered scale.
The repertoire. The steel band's repertoire is vast. The world-famous calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad in the mid-19thcentury . It was the arrival of the French planters and their slaves in the 18th century that led to the expatriation of these rhythms, initially to Barbados, Saint Lucia, Dominica and further afield. Trinidad's carnival tradition is to reinterpret the calypsos of the current year. In response to the ban on drums at carnival events, steel pans, or steel drums, were introduced as a replacement instrument.
What is a steel pan? Today, the steel pan, or steel band ( stilbann in Creole), is taught by Jean-Michel Calmo at SERMAC, Chantal Rémion in CHAM classes (Classes à Horaires Aménagés en Musique) and Michel Laurol at Lakou Sanblé Matinik in Schoelcher. There are, however, some recent Martinican purists who prefer the word steel pan, pan meaning saucepan in English.
There are many names for it, but you could also call it a steel drum. It's an idiophone or melodic self-tone percussion instrument whose sound is produced by the instrument itself, on impact with an external accessory, the mallet. The musician strikes the inner facets of the instrument with small mallets to play the pan. A mallet consists of two parts: the neck, made of wood or other materials, and the head, usually round and covered with skin. The sound is produced when the mallet strikes the resonant, all-metal material. The music has harmonious tones that promote a beautiful melody, and the tuning of the instruments enables a symphonic-type arrangement. The pan can be used to play all parts of a musical work or piece. It has become widespread in so-called steelband orchestras, typically made up of several of these different instruments. Not to be confused with the xylophone, which has wooden blades.
The many types of pans. According to the Steel drum/musical instrument Archives, Encyclopedia Britannica, "there are many types of pan, from low to high to medium, from the traditional, pan around the neck, one per musician, to the conventional, each chromatic section with several drums per musician. In conventional orchestras, the treble sections, known as the frontline, comprise some thirty notes on one or two cans, the mids have twenty to thirty notes on two to four cans, and the basses some twenty notes on four to twelve cans. The midrange and bass sections are called background Nowadays, instruments are made from flat sheet metal transformed into bowls whose surfaces are shaped, molded and tuned.
