Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?

Subject: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: GUEST,clueless_zanfona
Date: 24 Mar 26 - 06:14 AM

Hello friends, I have here three short tunes that I'm trying to figure out what they are? My friend said that he thinks the first one is a French tune that he heard as a child but could not recall the name of it. Any help in identifying these would be appreciated.

https://voca.ro/18qdmYavPlA9

https://voca.ro/1cVis2UfRgnW

https://voca.ro/1aB1Sq2qr2yL

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 24 Mar 26 - 06:21 AM

Don't know the first one.
Second one starts off similar to "Wheat that springeth green"/"noel nouvelle", but is different.
Third one I think is on a Rosbif album.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: Monique
Date: 24 Mar 26 - 06:39 AM

The 2nd one is Joan Petit que dança of Occitan origin, there's a French version of it and even a Catalan one on a different tune.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: Monique
Date: 24 Mar 26 - 06:54 AM

The 1st one sounds like this gigue dance song that you can hear sung here (Lo curat de la capèla).
The 3rd is a bourrée but I can't recall which one now.
All three songs are Occitan ones from central France.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: Monique
Date: 24 Mar 26 - 07:23 AM

There's a version of the 3rd one with a different tempo. You can hear it played on this 1978 LP by Del Sauveterre at 6:48. It's called "La preciosa" and on the LP sleeve it reads that it's a bourrée that they treated differently.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 24 Mar 26 - 08:31 AM

The first one sounds very familiar. It may be Belgian/Flemish. Possibly a recording by 't Kliekske.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: GUEST,Jon Harper
Date: 24 Mar 26 - 05:36 PM

First one is "Branle du rat"

Second one is "Jean Petit qui danse"

Don't know the third one but it's probably also a traditional French song

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 24 Mar 26 - 07:39 PM

A wonderful resource.

It will take some exploring - pure magic.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

THANK YOU ! ! !

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: GUEST,clueless_zanfona
Date: 25 Mar 26 - 02:11 AM

So one and two are confirmed, but three is still unknown. To my ears that track from the Del Sauveterre album doesn't really sound at all similar.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 25 Mar 26 - 05:53 AM

Lovely tunes! As an aside to this, our French friends introduced us to the music of Nadau, also from the Occitane region: fabulous stuff. Lots of recordings on YouTube: amazing atmosphere at his concerts!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: GUEST,thelittlebouzoukithatcould
Date: 25 Mar 26 - 05:43 PM

I realize now why these sounded so familiar, they're from Assassin's Creed (I've inquired about a tune from those games on here before).

Specifically Assassin's Creed Unity. All three of these tunes are played by the street bands found in various corners around Paris.

In this video, tune 2 is heard at 14:00, tune 3 at 14:45, and tune 1 at 15:57. Afterwards, all three tunes just continue to loop until the end of the video.

According to the game's credits, Seán Dagher was the one playing the hurdy-gurdy on these tunes. Seán is still quite active on social media so perhaps contacting him might be the best way to identify these tunes.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Anybody know these tunes? Maybe French?
From: Howard Kaplan
Date: 27 Mar 26 - 10:22 PM

When I saw the title of tune #2, "Jean Petit qui danse", I suspected (correctly) that it was also the name of something I learned when I was doing recreational international folk dance back in the 1960s. A quick listen to the linked audio file confirmed that.

It's a cumulative song, with an ever-growing list of body parts, adding one in each verse.

As I learned it, the dance was done only by men, doing something to illustrate each body part in turn, and ending by tapping their foreheads on the ground in the last of the increasingly-long verses.

There are a few videos on YouTube, but none demonstrates what I remember.

There's an animated version which doesn't give a good sense of what human male dancers would be doing.

There's also a video of several dozen school-age children trying to follow an instructor demonstrating some of the motions, but not the climactic head-tapping.