Indifference by Tony Murena and musette

[maugein96]

This tune was mentioned as being exceptionally difficult to play in the "Elementary French Musette" post.

Firstly, to iron out a few anomalies, the term "French musette" is used to describe a style of accordion playing, and does not directly correspond to the tuning of the accordion used to play it. Musette is played by various types of accordion, some of which do not have the facility to play the three voice French musette tuning associated with "Paris accordion". In earlier times the three voice musette accordion tuning was deemed necessary to "cut through" the background noise made at dance halls and guingettes, as their outdoor version was to be named. In the days before electric amplification the dancers were dependent on the accordion and drums, if there were any, in order to keep time.

The musette is actually a type of bagpipe used in French folk music, and is a term also used in the French language to refer to a small rucksack, usually worn by military personnel.

When people from the Auvergne area of France began to settle in Paris in numbers they brought their musette bagpipes with them. They tended to remain in family groups in Paris, and a feature of their leisure activities was to attend dances in what were named "bals musette". About the same time as the Auvergnats were beginning to adapt to life in the big city the Italians were also arriving in numbers and brought their accordions with them. Now, there is some debate in France as to whether the accordion was actually invented in the Auvergne or in Italy.

In any case the accordion began to become involved in the "bal musette" scene, which at first comprised diatonic accordions with very strong three voice musette tuning, probably as sharp as present day Scottish and Irish tuning. The tunes were rather slow and mechanical in keeping with the primitive diatonic instruments. The foremost player of that genre who progressed into the recording world was Emile Vacher, who composed a large number of early musette tunes along with the pianist Jean Peyronnin.

After World War 1 the chromatic accordion gradually began to oust the diatonic box from the bal musette, with its greater versatility. However, we are still in pre-amplification days and a strong musette tuning was to continue for some time. In the years immediately preceding World War 2 several musette accordionists had already taken the chromatic instrument to another level and were beginning to incorporate other styles into the music. The most notable of these intrusions were American jazz/swing and French gypsy (manouche) influences.

By the end of World War 2 some accordionists had grown tired of the traditional coarse musette accordions and began to specify a drier tuning for their instruments. Then, as electronic amplification became available, some of them discarded the musette tuning altogether and played and recorded with single reeds only. The results were often rather weird, but the full musette tuning or "musette pur" started to decline quite rapidly. One or two of the top players, most notably Aimable and Verchuren, persisted very successfully with the pure musette sound for many years, but the writing was on the wall for musette tuning in France. These days most French instruments are of 3 voice construction with a set of bassoon reeds and the other two flute reeds will typically be tuned americain (swing), which is the most popular, or celeste (vibrato or two voice musette).

Tony Murena, Italian by birth, was a pioneer of electronic amplification. He always played in the Italian style with frequent use of his right thumb, and this set him apart from the main body of accordionists in France at the time. When he wrote and performed Indifference it was seen as a significant masterpiece, compared to the run of the mill tunes then being composed by the mainstream bal musette players.

It has since been played by thousands of accordionists, good and bad, in many countries in the world, so why is it perceived as a difficult tune? I think I may have the answer. It seems that players who have gone to a teacher are taught to play and read in fairly strict tempo. Indifference requires the 3/4 time to be swung slightly, and that appears to cause difficulty to players accustomed to sight reading.

I have watched a video of the revered French accordionist and teacher, Armand Lassagne, chastise a pupil for not using his thumb on the outside row to achieve the best fingering position for the next passage. Indifference is a tune that was made for the ad-libbers amongst us. Just get your accordion, listen to a few versions, and play the tune however you want it to sound.

If you are playing a strict tempo Scottish dance tune with the obligatory mega chord intro and exit, or whatever symphony of Beethoven's you choose to undertake, and you make a mistake, then somebody will surely give you stick for your error.

The beauty of French musette is you can play the tune almost any way you like.

 

[Soulsaver]

Thanks - v. interesting.
Ed

 

[Matt Butcher]

Hi Maugein, yes I think that was me... it was in the context of a discussion about "elementary" musette pieces, but I regretted posting it later in case it put anyone off trying anything. For me, a musical idiot with no time to practice, I would still find it hard. But I like your attitude to the music a lot and I hope it encourages people to try things with musette music without worrying too much.

I wanted to ask, what for you makes a great musette performance? What makes one performance or performer stand out over another? I like Gus Viseur, which I think has to do with touch, timing, little variations in loudness, a moody feel with a bit of cheekiness thrown in... who knows. Hard to say perhaps but I was interested in what you thought.

The historical material is very interesting, thank you. There was a discussion about Emile Vacher on melodeon.net which unearthed some fine music.

 

[maugein96]

Hi Matt,

Im not a great player, probably never having passed intermediate level in all my years of playing. Some tunes I can play with relative ease, and there are other bogey tunes that have haunted me since day one, with often a single bar causing the problem. Due to my choice of not pursuing the accordion music of my fellow Scots, I had to teach myself mainly by listening and referring to French tuition books. After one or two false starts I decided that Ferreros method was the best, although it took a long time compared to the other methods I tried that were really only intros to CBA. I had an additional problem that I couldnt learn off anybody else, until videos started to appear in the late 80s and I picked up quite a bit from them. It was by studying those videos that I realised Mr Ferreros method was ideal if you were going to play classical music, but if you were going to play musette you had to learn to keep the thumb and pinky off the treble buttons, and only use them if there was no other option. I had been trying to play Indifference with 5 fingers for years, and kept hitting two buttons at once. After I realised that Verchuren and Edouard Duleu played B system boxes I stopped watching them and concentrated on the C system players. I noticed that almost without exception they played those first two bars going into two octaves with just three fingers. The secret was out!

I had to learn to get my hand moving on that keyboard and not rely on my thumb as a saviour when things got tricky. Things started to fall into place after that.

When I first started out it was all pure musette stuff I listened to. I had never heard of Gus Viseur, Tony Murena, Emile Carrara, and the other swing type players, until I discovered cassettes with their names on them. The first time I heard Gus Viseur playing I couldnt believe it. He was taking tunes like Bourrasque and altering the whole concept of anything I had heard before. I quickly became a devotee but naturally had no clue whatsoever how he was playing his version of the tunes. I used to subscribe to a French accordion magazine and in an article about Gus Viseur they described his style as very unorthodox. Yet he did have formal training but seemed to have developed his own style. His daughter hated his playing, saying it was delivered in a manic rush, and said she preferred to listen to Tony Murena with his smoother flowing style. On that score I think she may have been correct. When I was younger I loved all of the excitement that was in Viseurs playing, but as I have aged I tend to go for things down a gear or two.

I went off the pur musette which I actually didnt find all that easy to play. It seemed to be the case, much like an electric guitar, that your mistakes were amplified.

Ill try to answer your question about what I think constitutes a good performance, naming players and my reasons for liking them. I would reckon I have listened to hundreds of French and Belgian players over the years, and other than Gus Viseur there has been no Belgian player that has managed to capture my heart. Their style is ever so slightly different like their different musette tuning, which is more of that standard North European variety. This list is based on my personal preferences, and obviously concentrates mainly on the big names.

The best pur musette player was Emile Prudhomme, a native of Gennevilliers, on the outskirts of Paris. His technique was faultless and when he played those polkas the notes were played with a military like precision like machine gun bullets bouncing off a metal air raid shelter. One thing I didnt like about him was the banter call outs to the audience before certain pieces, and also when he sang.

The two biggest exponents of accordion pop were Andre Verchuren, born in Picardy of Belgian parents, and Aimable, a Chti from a village near Valenciennes. Both of them had individual styles and sounds that nobody else has been able to replicate since. They made a fortune out of playing utter rubbish most of the time, but boy could they play those accordions when the fancy took them!

Edouard Duleu, another northerner from Roubaix, with B system and Belgian basses had a fabulous tone, and was one of my earlier influences.

Yvette Horner was everybodys darling, except mine. A diminutive little lady with great technique, but IMHO she played everything in a manner that did little to inspire. Many people would disagree with me, but thats my opinion.

Emile Carrara composed a number of very popular tunes, and I would have bought every record he ever made but for the fact that his amplified accordion sounded awful. I preferred the stuff played by his lower key brother, Freddy.

Tony Fallone, from down south somewhere, plays some fascinating swinging jazzy stuff which is very nice to listen to, but I wouldnt even think about trying to play it.

Jo Courtin was once Edith Piafs accordionist. A very pleasant guy, but he had an awkward style that was difficult to copy.

Jo Privat has to be one of the best things that ever happened to the French accordion. His aunt, a prostitute, bought him his first accordion when he was a boy. It was a diatonic, and what he learned on that proved to be invaluable to his later CBA playing. Doesnt matter what he plays, that dance tempo was rock solid throughout. As my Irish relatives would say He was good at playing fast tunes slow.

Maurice Larcange, one of Frances most famous and also from Valenciennes with his Belgian basses taught a whole battalion of young French players to play exactly like him. Great for the development and promotion of the instrument, but when it was time for these youngsters to branch out few of them made the big time, as nobody wanted mere facsimiles of Momo

Players like Andre Astier, Joss Baselli, Louis Corchia, Louis Ledrich, and other big names that are far too numerous to list here have obviously proved their mettle, but I wouldnt go falling over looking for their CDs.

To sum up, I much prefer listening to players that are a bit rough around the edges like Jacky Noguez and his brother Claude Nouyes. They loved to give it big licks on stage and you always kept listening in case they made a mistake. Claude often did even in recordings whilst Jacky was more of a perfectionist. Both of them just played tunes in their own style regardless of how they were written.

Heres a link to one guy youve probably never heard of, but he nevertheless wrote a tune named Orly , a waltz that made it into the Paul Beuscher Musette music book (Vol 3 I think). Jo Morage played a more music teacher style and youll see his pinky working overtime in this composition by Gus Viseur.



Hope you enjoy it.

 

[donn]

Jo Morage played a more "music teacher" style and you'll see his pinky working overtime in this composition by Gus Viseur.

4th row seems to be decorative.

 

[Nonny Mouse]

Thanks for the interesting posts. I love listening to Jo Privat, Gus Visieur and Tony Murena, but it's good to hear about other French accordion players from that period. I'm going to start looking around for more CDs to add to my collection!

 

[dunlustin]

"4th row etc"
The Ferrero method warns against its use "until a solid technique has been acquired" for it is seen as an easy way out.
Same thing for a 3rd bass row with minor thirds.
Emil Vacher: Curiously, though urged to modernise by colleagues he never really switched to CBA preferring the Mixte system.
This has a Stradella bass. The right can be three rows tuned a fourth apart (Eg GCF) or two like that with the third a semitone away.
From his ornamentation, students more knowledgeable than me reckon Vacher played the second type.

 

[maugein96]

Emile Vacher had a gambling addiction and had to be bailed out on various occasions by well-meaning friends. At one time he played a 4 row diatonic as did Scotland's Will Starr.

I remember reading Ferrero's method book and his rebuke about the 4th row. He also damned those who used their right thumbs on the treble side saying that they would not achieve such a good technique.

At one time I was convinced he was right there, but I would reckon that the majority now believe that the thumb is indispensable, certainly in modern day playing. His method concentrated on making the pinky as strong as the other playing fingers, and teachers of the system adhered rigidly to his beliefs. I started off with the Anzaghi Italian method which used all 5 fingers on the right hand, but the pinky was very much an accomplice rather than a main player. I was unable to apply the Anzaghi method successfully to French musette, and began to look for an alternative.

I switched to the Ferrero method and immediately discovered that I had better accuracy. Also, my fingers were better placed for playing French accordion. However, these days following a hand injury and slight loss of flexibility, I'm finding that my thumb is coming more and more back into use. Adherents of the Ferrero system end up playing three note chords with fingers 3,4, and 5, which I now find quite difficult.

With a view to broadening my repertoire, I've been watching Italian CBA players quite a lot recently, and with some reluctance would have to agree that their thumbs on technique is superior to the guys who do without it. They are able to play with a more legato tone when needed, and have a greater fluency and range. I suppose their accuracy is down to what they are used to, but probably takes longer to acquire than the methods which keep the thumb on the side. I know this is a much debated subject, and this is only the opinion of an amateur player. Nevertheless I have played for a very long time, so feel qualified to comment.