Michel Cardin : Le Canard de Gaspard, French – Canadian Children’s Songs for Voice and Guitar Volume 2 : Bergmann

Michel Cardin

Bergmann Edition : Score only :32 pages

Here is the second book of these children’s songs. Nos. 21 – 40 are presented here. Michel’s wife Helene started the ball rolling with the idea for this set of piece. Previously she ran a day care centre in Moncton, Acadia and sang numerous songs to these children. She got 14 from a children’s TV programme that she watched when a child. After that she asked several songwriters to add some more new ones. Then she got her husband Michel to write the guitar parts for them all, and here is the result of the second half of them.

They are all very melodic, with lovely melodies and do rely on repetition to a certain extent. The guitar parts that Michel provides are interesting, not too hard, and yet do require a decent player to cope with them. The songs are short, usually only one page of score, but could easily be sung/played a few times over, as the tunes are very catchy and definitely great for repetition. I won’t list all the 20 songs here, or the fact that numerous writers have provided the lyrics, but suffice it to say that with the right audience, this set is a lot of fun.

Chris Dumigan