Fiddles on Friday X

Our fiddler of today is Bertrand Déraspe

Bertrand is a fiddler from the Magdalan Islands (part of the Canadian province of Quebec), he was born in Point-aux-Loups and works as a lobster fisherman when not busy fiddling. He inherited a large répertoire of Acadian and "madelinots" tunes from his father, Arnold Deraspe and other Acadian fiddlers. First lets take a look at a video found on youtube. Here you see Bertrand playing some old tunes with his father on the kitchen table, I love it. He demonstrates how Madelinots fiddlers have a different bow stroke than Cape Breton fiddlers. The Madelinot fiddlers, who were mostly fishermen with calloused hands and sometimes missing fingers, would tend to play with less notes and more rhythm :) Bertrand started playing fiddle when he was 4 years old and was already playing for weddings when he was 6. He has been a member of various music groups, including Suroit, Les Clapotis, and Vent'arrière. He recorded a solo album called "Mes Racines" (my roots). From that Album the title track "Mes Racines" Here you can see him at work with a young fiddler Whilst searching for Bertrand videos and music files I also found the brothers Deraspe, or Les Frères Dèraspe, I have got a hunch that they are relatives or even the sons of Bertrand, but my French is "miserable" so it's a wild guess and please correct me if I'm wrong or if you got more info. And finally here's a compilation of songs by Bertrand and relatives, enjoy and have a nice weekend!