Canadian Journal for Traditional Music (1983)

Editorial Notes

Edith Fowke

This year a substantial portion of the Journal is devoted to a reference list of Canadian folk music. The earliest version of this list, prepared for the Canadian Folk Music Society by Barbara CassBeggs and myself in 1966, was revised and updated for the first issue of the Journal in 1973, and again revised and updated in the fifth issue of 1978. As another five years have passed it seemed time to prepare a fourth version for this issue.

The remainder of the issue contains four nicely balanced articles. Lynn Whidden's discussion of Indian powwow music is an important contribution to the study of the music of our native people. Louise Wrazen's article on the Polish Highlanders of Toronto is a thoughtful analysis of what happens to the music of people from other lands when they settle in Canada. Mark Bandera's article deals with much the same subject as represented by a different group, the Ukrainian-Canadians, and a different musical form, the tsymbaly. With a different approach, Georges Arsenault gives some insight into the processes of song transmission and creation through his study of an important Prince Edward Island singer.

It is noteworthy that within the last two years a number of important French-Canadian song collections have appeared, far outnumbering comparative Anglo-Canadian publications. This issue reviews three of these. The first is the latest in a series of important volumes in which Conrad Laforte has dealt with various aspects of French-Canadian folk songs; here by analysing the song patterns and themes he shows their relationship to medieval poetry. The second, Madeleine Béland's collection of songs of the voyageurs and loggers, is, as Rika Ruebsaat point out, an excellent example of the way songs reflect the lives of the singers. The last review is of the second of three massive volumes of French-Canadian songs planned by Marius Barbeau before his death. The first, Rossignol Y chante, appeared in 1962; twenty years later Lucien Ouellet has prepared En roulant ma boule for publication.

In addition to these three important collections, two of our reviewers have themselves recently published hooks. Georges Arsenault's Complaintes acadiennes de l'Ile-du-Prince-Edouard and Donald Deschênes' "C'était la plus jolie des filles": Repertoire des chansons d'Angelina Paradis Fraser both contribute significantly to our knowledge of French-Canada's folk music.

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Once more we express our gratitude to the Ontario Arts Council for the grant that makes this magazine possible.