Chapter 03
Fiddles, Quadrilles, Sea Work and Shakespeare Mas
5 min
Windward’s string band begins in the groove between parts
The 1962 recording of “Suku Suku” is one of the clearest ways to hear a Carriacou string band at work. Elias Wilson and Nicholas Compton play violins. Oliver St Hilare plays banjo; Joey McFarlane and Benedict Bethel play guitars; Sullivan McGilvry supplies chac-chac. The names transform an attractive old tune into a record of six musicians making coordinated decisions.
One violin carries the tune while another can reinforce rhythm with bowed chords. Banjo and guitar do not merely strum together. Their “roll and chop” relation divides motion into complementary jobs: one keeps a flowing pattern, the other gives it lift and edge. The chac-chac adds a constant dry attack, audible even when fiddle phrases become busy. The ensemble is light enough to move with dancers yet dense enough to create several rhythmic levels.
String-band repertory reached Carriacou through the movement of sailors, settlers, scores, instruments and remembered tunes. Windward and Dover are associated with boatbuilding families and with histories of Scottish settlement and intermarriage. It would be easy to call the fiddles a Scottish survival. The actual sound is more interesting. Musicians on Carriacou maintained, selected and transformed reels, jigs, polkas, quadrilles, local songs and calypsos. Whatever travelled became part of an island social system.
A quadrille is six figures, not a postcard tune
The recorded Quadrille Figures 1–6 make structure audible. Each figure has its own tune or movement pattern, and dancers know how to progress through the sequence. The sixth can become a breakaway, releasing the form into a heel-and-toe polka such as “When I Go Tell Me Mama.” Hearing only one figure is like seeing one room and claiming to know the whole house.
In “English Quadrille 1,” a strong lead violin plays a jig-like 6/8 melody. A second fiddle answers with rhythmically bowed chords; tenor banjo adds fills. The tune repeats, but the players can alter pressure, articulation and emphasis. “English Quadrille 2” presents another variant. The word English marks a local category and a route of repertory. It does not make the performance less Carriacouan.
French-Creole titles sit beside those English designations. “Ba Moin Un ’Ti Bo” is performed by the same Windward instrumental formation. “Bo-Moin Homme, Chere Dou-Dou” appears as pass play. The coexistence of labels reveals layers of French and British rule, Caribbean Creole life and village selection. Music keeps relationships that a modern official-language map hides.
Quadrille also complicates the idea that African-Caribbean identity must sound only through drums. Black Carriacou musicians made fiddle music, bowed chords, banjo rhythm and European-named figures into their own social knowledge. An instrument’s earlier route does not determine the identity of everyone who later plays it.
Launching a boat requires music and muscle
Windward’s wooden boatbuilding tradition gives song a physical task. A finished vessel is heavy, valuable and vulnerable. Moving it from land to water draws builders, owners, relatives and helpers into coordinated effort. “Shame, Shame, Shame, Unc’ Riley” uses teasing address as propulsion. The social joke helps turn work into a public occasion.
“Rosibella,” led by Sidney Joseph with a large chorus at L’Esterre, belongs to a song family heard elsewhere in the Caribbean and in maritime labour farther north. That circulation does not make the Carriacou performance derivative. Joseph’s lead, the chorus interjections and the launching context are locally specific. Songs crossed water because sailors did.
The collection Roll and Go deepens this maritime route. Charlie Bristol leads “Hilo, Boys, Hilo,” “Bell A Ring A Yard O,” “Ride ’Em Trinidad,” “Yankee John Stormalong,” “Steamboat Due Tomorrow,” “Shiloh,” “Gwen Mwen,” “Roseanna” and other items. Daniel Aikens leads “Blow the Man Down.” Babsy McQueen leads the title track. Different leaders bring different phrasing and vocal authority to material that might otherwise be filed under one generic word, chantey.
Sea songs could coordinate hauling, launching, sail or net work; they could also ease repetition and homesickness. The chorus makes labour audible as a group problem. A lead singer chooses or improvises a line, and the group answers at the moment when bodies need to pull. Meter is not decoration. It creates a shared clock.
Pass play makes encounter theatrical
Pass-play recordings such as “Meet Me on the Road,” “Bo-Moin Homme, Chere Dou-Dou,” “Waterloo, My Boy, Turn Me Round” and “Ele Missi-O” bring procession, social meeting and turning movement into song. The form is less internationally familiar than calypso, but that does not make it marginal to Carriacou’s history. Its logic is public and relational: people approach, address, answer and move on.
The archive preserves titles but not always enough explanation to reconstruct every action safely. That limit should make a reader curious rather than inventive. A song called “Meet Me on the Road” suggests a scene; the recording provides voice and rhythm; community knowledge explains who may participate and what the encounter means. Each layer is different.
Shakespeare Mas turns memorized text into combat
At Carriacou Carnival, Shakespeare Mas players wear striking costumes and recite passages drawn from Shakespeare, especially Julius Caesar. Opponents meet in public, deliver memorized speeches and challenge one another through timing, projection, gesture and physical confidence. The form may echo colonial classroom recitation, but Carriacou performers converted imposed literature into competitive local theatre.
The music lies partly in speech. Meter, breath, accent, volume and the ability to land a line before an audience all matter. Percussion and carnival sound can frame the event, but reducing Shakespeare Mas to a musical genre misses its combination of oratory, costume and public contest. Its UNESCO inscription recognizes safeguarding work and community value; it does not freeze one authoritative version.
A printed Shakespeare passage does not tell you how the mas sounds. Players may alter pronunciation, stress and pacing. The crowd recognizes command as much as textual accuracy. The colonial page is therefore neither simply preserved nor simply mocked. It is possessed through performance.
A route for hearing Carriacou beyond Big Drum
Play “Suku Suku” for the string-band texture, Quadrille Figure 1 and Figure 6 — Breakaway for the arc of a dance set, “Shame, Shame, Shame, Unc’ Riley” and “Rosibella” for launching, and Charlie Bristol’s “Hilo, Boys, Hilo” for maritime call and response. Watch a current Shakespeare Mas presentation only through an official or community-supported recording, paying attention to voice before costume.
These forms share an island but not one function. Fiddle dance, work song, pass play and carnival oratory each organise bodies differently. Together they show why Carriacou cannot be summarized by Big Drum alone.
