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gentrixuk - Posted - 06/27/2025: 05:03:42
This week’s Tune Of The Week is a fiddle tune from Quebec, one of several tunes with the same (or similar) French name.
“Le Saut De Lapin” literally translates as “The Rabbit’s Hop” and these tunes seem to originate from the French tradition. The feature that all the tunes have in common is a section where the tune and the accompanying dancers hop like rabbits. This looks like a lot of fun and is particularly good for encouraging kids to participate in the music and dancing. It reminds me of the pet rabbits we used to keep, and how they would suddenly decide to jump right up in the air as high as they could, and run around like crazy for no reason.
There isn’t a lot of background on where these tunes came from originally, but they all seem to have a well-established history. Here are some links to information about the specific tune I’ve focused on here from the Traditional Tune Archive, the North Atlantic Tune List and also The Session.
There’s a note on the NATL site about the translation, as the name appears in several different forms:
“Saute de Lapin translates variously as Bunny Hop, Hop of the Bunny, Rabbit’s Leap or The Jumping Rabbit. When I asked my French scholar friend regarding “de Lapin” or “du Lapin” (I see it both ways from various sources) she advised, “I suspect it’s Saut de lapin…. If you used du rather than de, it would specify a particular rabbit, rather than the more general.”
There are a few good videos of people playing the tune online:
Patti Kusturok given a lesson on how to play it on the fiddle
A group performance from Quebec
It also appears to be fairly popular with melodeon players here in England, but usually referred to as "Rabbit Stew" here. There are several melodeon videos online:
Saut du Lapin - A French Canadian Reel
Rabbit Stew / Saut du Lapin for Tune of the Month on Melodeon.net
Le Saut du Lapin (Rabbit Stew) - Lester - Melodeon
I think it works well as a clawhammer tune and I’ve tabbed out how I’ve been playing it and also recorded a video (standard G tuning) which appear below.
Alternative tune #1 (Quebec)
There are several videos of people in Quebec playing another tune with the same name – this one may be just as popular as the tune I focused on here judging by the number of videos I found. I like the way this tune includes a really specific “hop” where the fiddler has to pluck one single note in-between their bowing. I’d like to try this out on banjo some time.
Saut du Lapin - Devon's Tune of the Day 187
Saut du lapin - Quarantaine Trad (19/40) Joyeuses Pâques!
Day 55 - Saut Du Lapin - Patti Kusturok's 365 Days of Fiddle Tunes
ANDY DEJARLIS Le Saut Du Lapin (Rabbit Jump).wmv
Le saut du lapin tune - Google Search
Le Saut du Lapin, Une Galope à Jos Bouchard, Reel Robin
Alternative tune #2 (France)
I’ve found a few videos of people dancing to a completely different tune with the same name in France. This tune is possibly a rondeau(?) and the dancing features lots of bunny hops. This looks like this is the most popular tune that goes by this name in France.
saut du lapin folkpourtous 1415 du 03/01/ 22
Saut du lapin (rondeù) - Gasconha - video Dailymotion
saut du lapin folkpourtous1632 octobre 2013
Le saut du lapin tune - Google Search
Lo saut del lapin - danse à la calandreta de Gaillac
Although we can never know the full history, it’s another fascinating example of how folk tunes and their names travel around the world, getting jumbled up in different combinations along the way, but with key features surviving intact.
Edited by - gentrixuk on 06/27/2025 08:05:35
JanetB - Posted - 06/28/2025: 11:40:10
A+ presentation -- a delightful dance tune, Mark, and your version is a pleasure to hear. My former first grade students would have enthusiastically danced the Rabbit Hop. I listened and looked at the transcriptions on The Sessions (and saw where you may have gotten your B part). My arrangement is a combination of these. I have yet to explore the other links for the different melodies with the same title, and see if they're equally delightful.
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