Revival of ‘crooked’ fiddle tunes in the performance of contemporary Quebec traditional music

The instrumental music of Quebec shares several traits with other music traditions such as old-time music in both Canada and the USA and traditional music in Great Britain and Ireland. A characteristic strongly associated with the music of Quebec that helps to distinguish it from these other traditions, however, is the frequent performance by many musicians of asymmetrical tunes – so-called ‘crooked’ tunes – up to the present day. Asymmetrical tunes
are played, or were played, in other musics to various extents as previously shown in several NAFCo papers and articles.1 But, the performance of crooked tunes in Quebec was, and still is, very much alive, forming an essential and continuous part of the traditional music soundscape, probably to a greater degree than in other music traditions. This article will first present a broad picture of asymmetrical tunes in Quebec. Then, with references to the work of other researchers, I will explain the typology that I developed to describe the
asymmetrical musical system associated with them. I will also show how this tradition has been brought up to date in the last thirty years through the composition of new tunes, and, in conclusion, how asymmetries are used to create variations and improvisations.