Annotation:St. Lawrence Jig
X:1 T:St. Lawrence M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Jig K:D ABA FAd|f2d A2d|c2B G2B|B2A F2G| ABA FAd|f2d A2d|cec ABc|d3 d3:| |:a2g B2g|g2f A2d|cde ABc|dcB A2f| a2g B2g|g2f A2d|d2c cBc|d3 d3:|
ST. LAWRENCE JIG. AKA - "6/8 du St-Laurent." AKA and see "Set de Vaudreuil 1ère partie." Canadian, American; Jig (6/8 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Miller & Perron, Page, Sweet): AABB'BB' (Phillips). The tune has been part of the core repertoire for New England contra dances for some time, and is a popular dance tune throughout French and English speaking Canada. Jean Carignan, the most famous Quebec fiddler of the mid-20th century, played the jig as "6/8 du St-Laurent" [1], which Carignan said he had learned from his mentor, fiddler Joseph Allard (1873-1947). Allard himself recorded a tune with the same first strain in 1930 as the first figure in his "Set de Vaudreuil 1ère partie," a four-part quadrille set, however, the second strain of Allard's recording is different than that of "St. Lawrence Jig." Jean Duval [2] notes that Quebec fiddler J.O. Albert LaMadeleine also recorded a tune with the shared first strain (with yet another second strain attached) as "Quadrille des seigneurs 4ème partie." Similarly, Quebec fiddler Isidore Soucy recorded in 1930 a jig as "Clog canadienne", again employing the first strain of "St. Lawrence Jig." Allard himself used the first strain once more, finds Duval, as the opening part of his three-part "Reel de St-Clet", recorded in Montreal in 1933. The first strain of "St. Lawrence Jig" is also shared with "Yeux verts (Les)" (Green Eyes), a jig printed in J.A. Boucher's rare volume entitled Le Répertoire du Violoneux[1] (1933, No, 92, p. 46), although, again, Duval records that the second strain differs from all other similarly related tunes. Boucher's quadrille-like tune is distinguished by a curious modulation of the first strain (set in the key of 'A' major) to the second (set in the key of 'G' major).
