La Gazette de Passadoc - No 125

The weekly 125

Music...

When does she appear? With man* Of course, that is, millions of years ago.

Music… art of combining sounds after rules.
At the time, music did not meet this definition because of course there were no rules! But what other word do you use? For convenience, let's keep this one.

The first music, that of prehistoric times, is the human voice, the song, the melody... Then man will imitate what he hears: the cry of animals, the song of streams and the song of the wind in the trees. One of them will have the idea of avoiding a reed, then a bone that he will pierce from a hole... So the flute is born!
This is not a fabulation: in 2008, 35,000-year-old fragments were discovered in a cave (Germany). Thus is updated the oldest musical instrument in the world: a vulture bone, 22 cm long, pierced with 5 holes.

If this flute is the first birth of wind instruments, the family will quickly expand in all latitudes.

When the hunter-man perceives that the rope of his bow, stretched and then released, emits a vibration, a sound, he will seek to reproduce it and thus give birth to the family of stringed instruments.

Only the family of percussion instruments is missing to form an orchestra! They will almost naturally come with lithophones, in other words, « stone to sound »dated between 8,000 and 2500 B.C.E.

The oldest known musical notation dates from 3^e century BC (Greece).

Big jump in time! It is to an Italian Benedictine monk that one owes the solemisation (music notation system) and the if Always used.

Today, music is everywhere: in shopping malls, in elevators, it accompanies village festivals, prayers whatever the religions, pictures of films... Are we immersed in literature? We meet the music of words!

FADO
Water
Recited
Fado!
Soul, friendly island
I'm afraid I'm going to die.

... fun Louise de Vilmorin.

– Where is our music?

Patience... she's coming!

Jeanne Monin

*And of course his companion!
Research on many sites.

Claude Marti has won the Grand Prix 2023 from the Charles Cros Academy for all of his work.

On this occasion is published the CD « Marti Retorn« , a compilation of his most famous songs. Among them « Occitania saluda Cuba« I suppose a tribute to Fidel Castro and his regime.

I'll get this record, we'll have the chance to talk about it again.
I've been listening to Marti for over 50 years. I still have vinyl records 45 and 33 laps in my shed that I can't listen to anymore.

He is the leading figure of the Occitane song. In the past, his concerts were as much appreciated for his comments between two songs as by the songs themselves.
Today, he continues to sing but does not comment much.

The photo presented was taken during the Occitane festival of Mouans-Sartoux (Alpes-Maritimes)... in 1979 or 1980, I don't know anymore.

Marti had achieved great success with a conquered audience in advance.

I confess: Marti is not my favorite occitan singer. I like Daumas and Mans from Breish better. Question of tastes, of course!

André Abbe

Claude Boyer
If you want to know more about Marti, It's on this page.

Cyril R. Vergnaud
– Breish Mans... I discovered you after them, so I don't know your songs.. Curiously I started listening to Nadau and it led me to Marti and you.

And when I started learning the occitan, I discovered other singers, the artists « Ventador » and then many other styles, like Lou Dalfin, Peiraguda orEscabòt. But there are mostly songs that really touch me, like Los Carboniérs de la Sala, Volem viure al pais, Perqué n'an pas says Marti, the version of theEstaca de Patric or It's sad.

The Echoes of the Week

Lou gabian
114 years ago...
Travelling on Mount Lozère
Looking at the pictures...
Mr. Goujon's black sheep
The first names!
Participate in « The Gazette » Hey!

Lou gabian

Walking on the docks of Toulon Harbour, I discovered a beautiful boat with a common name too often used.

On the Var coast, we often call « gabians » All seabirds, without distinction.

Mèfi, lou gabian is the goëland in French

And the seagull is a marfeu in Roquebrune. Don't confuse.

Don't ask too much about the vocabulary of seabirds.

In my early years, I was more interested in the underwater world.

Courtesy prevents the definition of the word gabian in Provencal slang.

André Abbe

Claude Boyer

Here's what it says. « lou treasure dou felibrige » →

I wonder: In this definition, it is said that « gabian » was a nickname given to « and indirect contributions »

But in slang, customs officers are the « gabelous » and after my research « gabelou » from « gabelle »the famous tax; Which brings us back to the employees of contributions- but nothing to do with the gabian...

And yet « gabian-gabelou-gabelle »... All this seems to be closely related.

114 years ago...

114 years ago, Earth woke up in Lambesc.

Our living land causes some trouble to the insects that we are and that it hosts.

The Mediterranean is a seismic zone... the African plate goes up to Europe... Tensions accumulate for centuries, even millennia, and suddenly leave without shouting.

The Elders Say « I've never seen this before, and yet I'm a nonante!« ...but what are the non-indigenous about the thousands and millions of years our Earth has?

André Abbe

Claude Boyer
Read also this article.

Christophe A-Don Pariente
I was often told when I was a kid on June 11, 1909.

The family farm in the village of Coutheron, located at the foot of the trevaress between Venelles and Puyricard, lost all the faciado paret which collapsed on 2 floors to the roof but by miracle the rest of the building remained straight. My grandfather, who was 13 years old, and my father-papet later rebuilt with big metal keys.

The neighbors' house lost the second floor and as a result they only rebuilt on one floor. Not to mention the chimneys fallen through the roofs, the big lizards and deformations in all the houses in the neighborhood that had to be rebuilt or consolidated.

Luckily there was no death in the village, not as in Rognes and Lambesc or Saint-Cannat, many were still outside and those who were in the houses all managed to fuck the camp out. My uncle told me that they had all slept outside for several days because the lines were strong the following days and had lasted for several weeks.

Edith Granon
My mother-in-law always said that her birth had been precipitated by the fear and anguish her mother had had because of the tremor. It seems that the cocks started singing abnormally

Joshua Martine Richard
My grandfather had been so afraid that she would have had jaundice (family tradition)!

On Mount Lozère...

André Abbe
On the way to Mount Lozère, in 1989, I had seen this small but ideally placed mountain.

It is a pile of stones stacked in pyramids by pilgrims or hikers. It can be used as a landmark on snow days.

In more common language it is a « cairn » from the Celtic « karn » (chuckles)

In Occitan, it's Montjoie... A music group of the 1970s had adopted this name.

Janine Monin
There are cairns everywhere: Norway, Scotland, Ireland, of course Brittany. In North Africa, « cairn » becomes « kerkour » I read.

Christian Baudet
The bishop of Puy en Velay, when he gives us the blessing to pilgrims, on the morning of our departure on our journey, tells us to take stones with us and put one of them on these little stone mounds. Thinking that with this gesture, we release, we lighten a little bit « our backpack » and therefore the « burden » Wear it... And it's also a way to tell others that they're on the right track...

More pragmatic, more land to land, some will tell you that if everyone does this, than by removing a rock that we picked up, to put it on these mountains, we undress the track, the road... With rains, thunderstorms, etc., it ravines, it destabilizes the soil, which is not entirely false either...

Looking at the pictures...

Jeanne Monin
A statement by Michel Feltin-Palas – the defender of regional languages – this sentence by Ansel Adams (photograph) which is well suited to Passadoc, site mémoire :

« There are always two people in each image: the photographer and the viewer » (Ansel Adams).

Under olive tree.

Mr. Goujon's black sheep

André Abbe
The late Aman Goujon, shepherd in Roquebrune, made sure to have a black sheep for 19 white in his flock.

Thus, when summer in the mountains, with the help of his binoculars, he wanted to know how many sheep there were in the distance, he counted the blacks, who distinguished themselves far better than the whites and multiplied by 20 to know the total.
Smart statistics!

Aman was born on 1 January. His father had gone to the town hall to register him as Armand, but the town manager had been drinking a little too much at Christmas Eve and he had written Aman.
True story, Aman himself told me.

Marie Martin
My grandfather and his brother had the same name, that of their father, because the townman spent his day at the café; In the evening, when he went to town hall to fill out the records, he improvised...

The second brother found out only when he was summoned for military service...

Moms Mams
I only knew his name... Because all the young people we called him Mr. Goujon. I remember a lot.
Let him rest in peace. Thanks for the story.

Jean-Jacques Murat
Multiplicar per 20 es estat sempere may favour than devesir per 4 (other comptar lei fedas bias).
In other words: Multiplying by 20 is simpler than dividing by 4 (other way of counting sheep)...

The first names!

A birth certificate that generates many exchanges!

Claude Boyer

Aman... This is a very original name!

André told by what curious circumstance contest Mr. Goujon was named as follows: Aman was born on 1 January. His father had gone to the town hall to register him as Armand, but the town manager had been drinking a little too much at Christmas Eve and he had written Aman.

As a good genealogist – amateur –, fond of such anecdotes, I went to search the records of Roquebrune in search of his birth certificate.

Aman was born on 31 December 1908 and declared on 1 January 1909.

Maryse Laugier
In our home it was, I think, a tradition that the middle name is Mary even for a boy. My grandfather was Joseph-Marie.

Claude Boyer
It is true that in the past many boys had Mary in their middle name, but it was not special in Provence.

Marie Martin
Parfois les parents voulaient un prénom composé mais celui qui écrivait dans les registres mettait une virgule à la place d’un tiret…
Pierre-Marie devenait Pierre, Marie.
Et les nombreuses Marie-Louise ou Marie-Madeleine devenaient Marie sans s’en rendre compte.

Marie-Dominique Germain
Mon mari se prénomme Roland-Marie… encore aujourd’hui !

Jean-Pierre Violino
J’ai trouvé comme prénom Marquise et Comtesse.

… Marquise, c’est le féminin de Marc, answer Marie-Dominique Germain.

Writing Passadoc – Ont participé
André Abbe
Christophe A – Don Pariente
Christian Baudet
Claude Boyer
Edith Ganon
Marie-Dominique Germain
Maryse Laugier
Mams Mans
Marie Martin
Jeanne Monin
Jean-Jacques Murat
Joshua Martine Richard
Cyril R. Vergnaud
Jean-Pierre Violino
Layout
Jeanne Monin