Serenaded by a music man

[Corinne]

Went out into the garden on Tuesday at 10pm with the dog for her last job before bed to be confronted by a man standing in the middle of the street facing my garden.  He had a music cart/wheelbarrow (how educated am I ) which played music when he turned a handle with the use of card stips (A4 size linked together) and he was singing very loudly (no microphone need for sure).  Not really my kind of music but I enjoyed it non the less.

Anyone else been entertained by a street musician and is this an old French custom?

[Tourangelle]

I think I have seen something like that, like a barrel organ, but I never heard anybody sing. Was it for la fête de la musique?

[Corinne]

There are no fates or anything going on in the area.  We had the balcony doors open all evening and had to heard him singing anywhere else before or after our house which is very strange.

 

It was very similer to a barrel organ except it worked using punch cards rather than a barrel but same type of noise...I mean music.

[Missy]

[quote]There are no fates or anything going on in the area. We had the balcony doors open all evening and had to heard him singing anywhere else before or after our house which is very strange. It was v...[/quote]

Maybe you have an admirer which your OH doesn't know of!...

and this poor admirer is trying to woo you away from the beastly OH!...

How romantic! Balcony! Music! Serenade! Red roses? Long blond hair?...

Cute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Corinne]

[quote]Maybe you have an admirer which your OH doesn't know of!... and this poor admirer is trying to woo you away from the beastly OH!...How romantic! Balcony! Music! Serenade! Red roses? Long blond hair?.....[/quote]

 

 

Not sure what my German husband would think of me being wooed by a French man...not that I would complain to much, after all it would just be me doing my bit for european relations would't it?   

The old man did shut the balcony door and put the blinds down while the guy was singing his heart out, maybe that was a sign 

Not a rose in sight (yet) but Long hair although more a mouse brown rather than blond and not forgeting the nice voice..if only I could have understood a word he sang

[Dick Smith]

Was it a vielle a roue or hurdy gurdy? There is a description here:

http://www.dcdwithin.com/dcd.pl?caduceus=hurdygurdy

[Corinne]

The vielle a roue and hurdy gurdy are generally hand held instrements....always loved the name hurdy gurdy makes me smile just to say it, simple things please simple minds as they say

These pics are the closes I have found:

The cards are coming out on the right of the picture

The cards where larger (folded A4) and the 'Pram' was way way more basic like in the picture above. 

 

[Vraititi<P>PSG till I die -fluctuat nec mergitur.<P>]

It is most likely to be an 'orgue de barbarie', of the portable type, called 'orgue de barbarie baladin'. The modern ones now work with a proper chip card instead of the old 'cardboard' (but which you can still buy, they sell them by the metre one organist was telling me). They've enjoyed a marked revival in France in the late eighties, part of the 'Nostalgie, quand tu nous tiens !' scene (recycling of old traditions, going back to our roots, rediscovering France, and all that funky chicken). As we say in the campagne: 'Ma foi, c'est bien plaisant tout ça !'. At the beginning of it all, in the late 80's, was the belief that the French should rediscover their country, the 'hinterlands' more than the coastal bits. I vividly remember the official French Tourist Board having the following advertisement campaign in France: 'La France, on devrait y aller plus souvent'. At the time green tourism was very unfashionable and you were looked funny if you spent your holidays in the Lozère admiring craggy outcrops or in a farmhouse doing not much in the Cévennes. A few years later, it was the height of sophistication almost.

 

[Corinne]

Thanks for the info Vraititi, did a search on the names you gave me and have found one that is as close as I can remember it looking...even the man looks like it could be the same man, truly! (before he grew his hair to shoulder length) and I refuse to say that all Frenchmen look alike