http://www.compagnons-grasjambon.com À l'époque médiévale, il était courant de voir troubadours et ménestrels égayer les places de villages, les fêtes populaires ou les tavernes chaleureuses et bruyantes. C'était un choix de vie particulier que ce métier. Pour eux la vie s'organisait au jour le jour, ils n'avaient d'attache à aucune terre et poursuivaient à grand pas le calendriers des festoiements. Mais ne les enviez pas de cette liberté illusoire car les cigales dépendaient cruellement des fourmis. Et quand les maîtres ou seigneurs étaient durs à divertir le pain était amer à partager. Alors pardonnez les tours de passe-passe qui consument vos piécettes ou les mains sournoises près de vos denrées, ce n'est que pour arrondir nos fin de mois. Mais sachez qu'avant tout et pour vous, Les Compagnons du Gras Jambon, experts dans « lard » de divertir, vous emmèneront dans une époque médiévale festive et dynamique à travers musique et jongle. Pas de répits pour les danseurs, pas de fond dans les bouteilles des buveurs. Ces cinq musiciens avec leur jongleuse préfèrent les fêtes païennes et les gens-bons-vivants, plutôt que les carêmes. La vie est trop courte, et qui sait, en enfer comme au paradis, ils ne connaissent peut être pas le vin clairet et le gras jambon. Le Medieval Rock est un genre musical dérivé du folk rock et du hard rock et dont les sonorités évoquent la musique médiévale. Le medieval rock se caractérise par l'usage d'instruments médiévaux ou de la Renaissance, tels que la cornemuse, la chalémie, la vielle à roue ou la harpe, ainsi que d'instruments modernes utilisés en musique rock tels que la guitare électrique, la guitare basse, les instruments de percussion ou le synthétiseur. Outre les instruments, la thématique médiévale peut également se trouver dans le texte des chansons. Instruments used to perform mediaeval music still exist, but in different forms. The flute was once made of wood rather than silver or other metal, and could be made as a side-blown or end-blown instrument. The recorder has more or less retained its past form. The gemshorn is similar to the recorder in having finger holes on its front, though it is actually a member of the ocarina family. One of the flute's predecessors, the pan flute, was popular in mediaeval times, and is possibly of Hellenic origin. This instrument's pipes were made of wood, and were graduated in length to produce different pitches. Mediaeval music uses many plucked string instruments like the lute, mandore, gittern and psaltery. The dulcimers, similar in structure to the psaltery and zither, were originally plucked, but became struck in the 14th century after the arrival of the new technology that made metal strings possible. The bowed lyra of the Byzantine Empire was the first recorded European bowed string instrument. The Persian geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih of the 9th century (d. 911) cited the Byzantine lyra, in his lexicographical discussion of instruments as a bowed instrument equivalent to the Arab rabāb and typical instrument of the Byzantines along with the urghun (organ), shilyani (probably a type of harp or lyre) and the salandj (probably a bagpipe).[1] The hurdy-gurdy was (and still is) a mechanical violin using a rosined wooden wheel attached to a crank to "bow" its strings. Instruments without sound boxes like the jaw harp were also popular in the time. Early versions of the organ, fiddle (or vielle), and trombone (called the sackbut) existed. The music of the troubadours and trouvères was a vernacular tradition of monophonic secular song, probably accompanied by instruments, sung by professional, occasionally itinerant, musicians who were as skilled as poets as they were singers and instrumentalists. The language of the troubadours was Occitan (also known as the langue d'oc, or Provençal); the language of the trouvères was Old French (also known as langue d'oil). The period of the troubadours corresponded to the flowering of cultural life in Provence which lasted through the twelfth century and into the first decade of the thirteenth. Typical subjects of troubadour song were war, chivalry and courtly love. The period of the troubadours wound down after the Albigensian Crusade, the fierce campaign by Pope Innocent III to eliminate the Cathar heresy (and northern barons' desire to appropriate the wealth of the south). Surviving troubadours went either to Portugal,Spain, northern Italy or northern France (where the trouvère tradition lived on), where their skills and techniques contributed to the later developments of secular musical culture in those places. The music of the trouvères was similar to that of the troubadours, but was able to survive into the thirteenth century unaffected by the Albigensian Crusade. Most of the more than two thousand surviving trouvère songs include music, and show a sophistication as great as that of the poetry it accompanies.

• published: 27 Aug 2013
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