# Music by Genre > Celtic, U.K., Nordic, Quebecois, European Folk >  French Folk / Fiddle Tunes

## MoreThanQuinn

Hey Café-ers, 

Is there such thing as a French fiddle tune? Or an uptempo French folk tune? 

I love playing fiddle tunes - they're lively and fun and easy enough. Now I'm in France for the next 8 months and I'd love to add some French music to my rep to play while I'm here, but I'm not ready to tackle any big classical pieces. Looking for something more fiddle tune-esque. 

You know of anything that's quick and fun and totally-French? 

 :Mandosmiley:

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## Daniel Nestlerode

Most folk music from France predates France as a single cultural entity.  Look up Breton folk, Picardie folk, etc.  
I'll see if I can dig up more over the weekend.

 :Smile: 
Daniel

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## foldedpath

I hope others will chime in here with more extensive knowledge, but here are a few I play. Many of the tunes that show up as "fiddle tunes" are adapted from Breton dance tunes, often cherry-picked by Irish trad bands. Like this set from Lunasa... a bit over-elaborate with orchestral backing, but great tunes. I play them on flute, but they would work on mandolin. The tunes are "Tadin-Tinaketa," "Marche Des Charbonniers," and 
"Ridees Six-Temps." 



There is a beautiful tune called Crested Hens (Poulles Huppees) by Gillies Chabenat, that shows up often in Irish sessions. It's a slow 3/8 Bourrée (sort of a waltz but not exactly), and would lend itself to a chord/melody arrangement on mandolin. This is a classic version by Solas with Winifred Horan on fiddle:



And then there's Bear Dance, a very simple and easy to learn tune. It might be originally from Belgium, but as you can see it shows up in France. Apparently fun to dance to!

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## DavidKOS

http://violonlemosin.canalblog.com/

VIOLONS (MAI MUSICAS E CULTURAS) TRADICIONAUS E POPULARIS DE LEMOSIN-AUVERNHA


http://violonpopulairemassifcentral....erre_CHAMPEVAL

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Bill Foss, 

Brian560, 

brunello97

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## Dagger Gordon

For sure there are. Check out this festival in Central France, Le Son Continu. It was formerly in the nearby village of St Chartier, which I went to once.

https://www.facebook.com/lsc.lesonco...227441219/?t=9

Heaps of French music there, played on hurdy-gurdies, accordions, French bagpipes (from different regions) and indeed fiddle. There is a lot more to French music than Breton music. The stuff from Central France is rather different.

http://www.lesoncontinu.fr/en/les-animations-2018-2/

https://www.facebook.com/lsc.lesoncontinu

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DavidKOS

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## Beanzy

I bought Chris Haighs book & there are lots of tunes in there http://amzn.eu/d/f2UTJFL and good info on his website called Fiddling Around

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brunello97

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## Gelsenbury

L'inconnu de Limoise:

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## mandocrucian

Here you go... plenty of trad French fiddle  VIOLON TRAD ...68 videos of various players including Jean-Francois Vrod
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf_V...3dyOKeBC2HJeCd

Lots of medieval 'residue' (imo) in this stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_folk_music


Main article: Music of Limousin
"Limousin is known for its violin music, as well as the chabrette bagpipe. Eric Montbel is the biggest star of Limousin folk, while Françoise Etay, Jean Pierre Champeval, Olivier Durif, Valentin Clastrier and Pascal Lefeuvre are also popular. Instruments include the cabrette bagpipe and the ancient army fife, pifre. Limousin violin music, focussed in Corrèze, has produced stars François Etay and Trio Violon, while more modern fiddlers include François Breugnot, Olivier Durif, Jean Pierre Champeval and Jean-François Vrod. The hurdy-gurdy in Limousin has been extended to avant-garde styles utilizing electronic music, jazz and other influences, including Pascal Lefeuvre, Dominique Regef and Valentin Clastrier." 

Niles H

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catmandu2, 

DavidKOS

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## Paul Kotapish

You are looking for French country dance music, and as noted above, there are loads of regional variations. 

I used to play loads of bourrées and waltzes from central France. Many of them are in a 32-bar structure that would be familiar to anyone who plays American or Irish fiddle tunes. The bourrées are in two main rhythmic forms--"two-time" and "three=time." The former is square--not unlike a hoedown or reel--that latter is sort of a peppy, accented waltz time. Most of the tunes are played on the vielle à roue (hurdy gurdy), bagpipe, accordion, or fiddle. I learned them all by ear, but there is notation out there.

Here's a dance-oriented page with lots of video links so you can hear the tunes and see the dancing in that style.

Breton tune (Brittany) are very cool, gnarly, and fun, too. There are some great fiddlers in that tradition, but the more traditional instrumental combo is a pair is the bombard and biniou -- ear-splitting and mind-blowing reed instruments. Here's a great resource from Jim Oakden, with an explanation of the tune forms and links to a bunch of tune books.

Here's another great resource for French tunes of various sorts, also from the Lark in the Morning library: https://www.larkcamp.com/LarkLibrary/French/French.html.

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Anglocelt, 

DavidKOS

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## Paul Kotapish

Here's a set I recorded with Kevin Burke and Open House some years back. 




And another set, from our second CD:




Not traditional instruments or styling, but the tunes are cool.

One more from tune I recorded with the Rodney Miller Band:

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Anglocelt, 

Beanzy, 

DavidKOS, 

Simon DS

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## JeffD

> Hey Café-ers, 
> 
> Is there such thing as a French fiddle tune? Or an uptempo French folk tune?



Yes. 

http://tournealaube.free.fr/IMG/pdf/a_carnetrep.pdf

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DavidKOS, 

ondrej, 

Paul Kotapish

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## MoreThanQuinn

Haha holy crap. 

Excuse the language, but I did NOT expect such an awesome response. This is incredible. I'm sure it will take me hours and hours to go through all these resources. I can't thank you all enough, seriously. This gets me so excited to sit down and start learning some of these. 

I will respond to individual posts as I go through some of the content. 

You guys rock! 

Merci!

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DavidKOS

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## JeffD

> Yes. 
> 
> http://tournealaube.free.fr/IMG/pdf/a_carnetrep.pdf



There is a great story to go with my finding this. Chatting with a French mandolinner I met at a festival, and asking these very same questions. She in French, (her English was close to non-existant), and me in horrible French run through google translate several times.

But she guided me to pay dirt. 

Enjoy.

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## DavidKOS

https://www.monviolon.org/en/bibliot...euf_trad/vol_5

Dances from Central France
Berry, Bourbonnais, Nivernais, Limousin, Auvergne

mp3 and sheet music . enjoy

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Brian560

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## Martin Jonas

> There is a great story to go with my finding this. Chatting with a French mandolinner I met at a festival, and asking these very same questions. She in French, (her English was close to non-existant), and me in horrible French run through google translate several times.
> 
> But she guided me to pay dirt. 
> 
> Enjoy.


I have been using that "Tourne à l'Aube" tunebook a lot -- there is some great music in there!  I can't remember where I got the link from, but chances are it's from one of your posts here on the Cafe, so thank you very much!

Martin

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## JeffD

> I have been using that "Tourne à l'Aube" tunebook a lot -- there is some great music in there!  I can't remember where I got the link from, but chances are it's from one of your posts here on the Cafe, so thank you very much!


Could well have been. I love it. Some of the tunes that may at first sound (to my ears anyway) as being simple minded turn out to be among the most powerful and fun tunes in there. A tune need not be notey or complicated to grip one's heart.

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## zoukboy

Here's some of the best:

https://www.you

tube.com/watch?v=wy3LMXJ7bdE&t=30s

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Bill Foss

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## Simon DS

Here’s a book of Popular French Folk songs, a lot of which are probably played on the fiddle, see with YouTube.
Enjoy.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z87qz0cc2l...20%20.pdf?dl=0



ALSO:
Here’s a book of tunes from the Auvergne region of France, I added the TAB to make it more accessible, though because the tunes are relatively simple, it can sometimes be more effective to just learn to play by ear and go through, playing along with the vids.
Auvergne is a south central, quite isolated part of France and compared to what people think of as Old French trad the music reminds me of the difference between Nova Scotia and ITM.
-quite a lot of it was ‘written’ for flute, whistle, hurdy gurdy...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ahw02aegkh...20TAB.pdf?dl=0

And, because the site is now down, I put the Tourne à l’aube book here, I did post on MandolinCafe another one in old text with a summary and references which lead to other sources, but can’t find it for the moment, enjoy!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kaxyakl6at...DOTAB.pdf?dl=0

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Brian560, 

brunokev, 

bstanish, 

DavidKOS, 

Jairo Ramos Parra

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## Ranald

> Auvergne is a south central, quite isolated part of France and compared to what people think of as Old French trad the music reminds me of the difference between Nova Scotia and ITM.


Sunrise, what's "ITM." I'm from Nova Scotia. If someone says I'm from ITM, are those fightin' words?  :Wink:

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## Simon DS

Oops, you can see Im not much of an archivist, I should have written NSTM.  :Laughing:

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## Ranald

> Oops, you can see I’m not much of an archivist, I should have written NSTM.


I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but I'm still confused. Changing ITM to NSTM, I get: "Auvergne is a south central, quite isolated part of France and compared to what people think of as Old French trad the music reminds me of the difference between Nova Scotia and" NSTM. I'm assuming you mean Nova Scotia Traditional Music, but I still don't understand what the sentence means. Nova Scotia is a place and NSTM is the traditional music of the residents, is it not?  :Confused:

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## Ranald

Oh, do you mean the difference between Cape Breton music and mainland Nova Scotia's traditional music? That would make sense. (I'm a terrible proof reader myself, so I understand how you make such a mistake.)  :Laughing:

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Simon DS

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## Martin Jonas

> Yes. 
> 
> http://tournealaube.free.fr/IMG/pdf/a_carnetrep.pdf


I've been playing a lot of the tunes from this book lately, posting them in the Song-A-Week social group.  As the site has been down for some time now, it may be useful to have the original PDF archived here on the Cafe (I note it's also still accessible through the Wayback Machine).  Great source of tunes from France and elsewhere!

Martin

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Beanzy, 

ondrej

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## Simon DS

I came across another little treasure Martin, it’s an old soft backed book of popular French Folk songs.

Most around 1900’s, some are... well I mean, quite diverse, the lyrics of some being almost pornographic. And a lot of political, children’s rhymes, rural, tragic songs too, to be consumed in moderation.
Here’s a sort of Air, I guess.
Very hard to play on the octave but interesting all the same.  :Smile:

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## Simon DS

Bump!  :Wink: 

Here’s a link to the TAB that I transcribed from the original site:
TOURNEALAUBE.FREE.FR
ENJOY!  :Smile:

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DavidKOS, 

John Clay, 

ukcarrie

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## catmandu2

> Hey Café-ers, 
> 
> Is there such thing as a French fiddle tune? Or an uptempo French folk tune? 
> 
> I love playing fiddle tunes - they're lively and fun and easy enough. Now I'm in France for the next 8 months and I'd love to add some French music to my rep to play while I'm here, but I'm not ready to tackle any big classical pieces. Looking for something more fiddle tune-esque. 
> 
> You know of anything that's quick and fun and totally-French?


Appears to be an old thread, but 'm going to chime in: there are tons of quick, fun, easy, French tunes to learn.. I know a dozen or so in this easy AABB form.  Have to be a fan of waltz-time though  :Smile:

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## John Clay

As a North American option, if you search for examples of the older, pre-accordian style of Cajun & Creole musicians in Louisiana, a lot of the songs and fiddle tunes came from France in their origin and there is a certain crystalization (preservation) of older French culture in some of France's former colonies (sort of like the way the Appalachian Ritchie family preserved older English songs in almost their original form).   (BTW, I refer to Creole here in the older sense; a person of French ancestry who was born in Louisiana, as opposed to a descendant of the French settlers of Acadia who fled from British rule to Louisiana).

If you can get a copy of Denus (sometimes spelled Dennis) McGee and Amedé Ardoin's early album, it has some archaic, pre-chank-chank songs.  Alan Lomax's Louisiana Field recordings also have some fiddle pieces in the older style.

I hear that the Quebecois and New Brunswick traditional fiddlers have also preserved some older French fiddle tunes in their repertoire.

I've spent years listening to and translating older Cajun songs and I've always wanted to dig into some traditional music from Quebec.

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catmandu2, 

DavidKOS, 

Eric Platt, 

Simon DS

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## catmandu2

John, do you know if any of this particular early repertoire is on youtube?  I like this style and played quite a bit on fiddle.  I'd be interested in learning more.  There are several really nice documentaries on YT, unfortunately i dont speak French or dialects and I dont get the discussions.

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## JeffD

> As a North American option, if you search for examples of the older, pre-accordian style of Cajun & Creole musicians in Louisiana, a lot of the songs and fiddle tunes came from France in their origin and there is a certain crystalization (preservation) of older French culture in some of France's former colonies (sort of like the way the Appalachian Ritchie family preserved older English songs in almost their original form).   (BTW, I refer to Creole here in the older sense; a person of French ancestry who was born in Louisiana, as opposed to a descendant of the French settlers of Acadia who fled from British rule to Louisiana).
> 
> If you can get a copy of Denus (sometimes spelled Dennis) McGee and Amedé Ardoin's early album, it has some archaic, pre-chank-chank songs.  Alan Lomax's Louisiana Field recordings also have some fiddle pieces in the older style.
> 
> I hear that the Quebecois and New Brunswick traditional fiddlers have also preserved some older French fiddle tunes in their repertoire.
> 
> I've spent years listening to and translating older Cajun songs and I've always wanted to dig into some traditional music from Quebec.


My experience playing French Canadian fiddle tunes as part of the north eastern contra dance repertoire, and the tunes I found in that collection of traditional fiddle tunes from France, is that they are pretty different. As different as say New England contra dancemusic, and Old Time fiddle from Appalachia. But as with anything, my experience is limited to umm... my experience.   :Smile: 

More specifically, as with my comparison of northern and southern old time, the Quebecois tunes are more notey and virtuosic, while the tunes in that Belgium collection do a whole lot with few notes and more rhythmic repetition. Both are absolutely excellent and fun to play. 

I am not familiar with the Cajun tunes so much.

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Eric Platt

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## John Clay

> John, do you know if any of this particular early repertoire is on youtube?  I like this style and played quite a bit on fiddle.  I'd be interested in learning more.  There are several really nice documentaries on YT, unfortunately i dont speak French or dialects and I dont get the discussions.


Here is a link to the complete early recordings of Denus McGee:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...lzg52imZ-6WMMI

It’s an amazing album - the twin fiddle pieces could give mandolinists a lot of food for thought on twin instrument arrangements.

I love 20th Century Cajun music with its syncopation after the accordion became a staple (Iry Lejeune brought the accordion back to prominence after WWII) but the older twin fiddle songs always had a closer connection to the old Continent.  

Michael Doucet has a great Homespun audio course on Cajun fiddling for which Niles Hokkanen was the transcriber.  Doucet offers a lot of commentary on the heavier sawing/shuffling bow stroke with lots of slides in the pre-20th Century music of French  Louisiana.  McGee was unique because he was born in 1893 and learned a pre-radio repertoire of a much older tradition and he lived until 1989.

One good resource for finding older Cajun folk songs and instrumentals (pre-commercial) is the Cajun and Creole albums in the Smithsonian Folkways Collection (and they offer the Lomax recordings).  

Sometimes the singing or playing sounds rough but it is earthy, raw, and the melodies have more of a modal sound than more modern Cajun (which I also appreciate).  As I got better at translating and transcribing, however, I realized that a fair number of the Smithsonian and Arhoolie transcriptions by the folk ethnologists have inaccurate (sometimes wildly so) lyrics - perhaps hobbled together from other sources of transcription but not necessarily tracking what the person is singing.  But they captured the music at an important point in time when the older songs and tunes were still being performed.

The best resource I have found for good transcriptions / translations of Louisiana French songs - which also includes the melodic vocal transcription (and a phonetic pronunciation accompanying the Cajun & Creole lyrics) - is Anne Savoy’s book on Cajun Music.  I just read that Volume II is coming out and can’t wait to get a copy.

An excellent book with lyrics and skeleton transcriptions of the fiddle part for hundreds of songs and tunes is a book called, Yé Yaille, Chère!, by Raymond Francois.  Floyd’s Records (Louisiana regional music store) may still carry it.  It is also available on Amazon at:  https://www.amazon.com/Yaille-Tradit.../dp/B01FKRRCG2

Francois’s book is probably the best resource for people who want to arrange fiddle instrumentals for a mandolin.

I would love to hear Niles Hokkanen’s thoughts because he has interviewed, transcribed, and recorded with Michael Doucet, Tommy Comeaux, etc. (I recall a really nice mandolin song on one of the Beausoleil albums, if I remember correctly).  It’s hard to play acoustic mandolin against an accordion but it fits in well with acoustic guitar, fiddle, and a ti-fer (triangle).  Here is a thread to check out on the Mandolin Cafe:  

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...cajun-mandolin

One minor thought I have had on some potential ways that the mandolin can be used - if you check out Sam Bush’s approach to rhythm, he often will play the lower two strings (G and D) followed by faster strums (or up strokes) on the A and E string almost like a snare drum.  I see a lot of similarities between that and the way that traditional Cajun fiddlers would play a rhythmic, chordal second or “bass” fiddle part behind the instrumental melodic lead on the other fiddle in the early 20th Century (pre-electric).  My favorite example of that style would have to be McGee’s early recordings.

But I would like to hear more from others about traditional music from the Quebecois and Acadians that contains older traditions from France.

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catmandu2, 

Simon DS

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## catmandu2

That's cool, didn't know Niles was involved -  I learned the tunes from the Doucet Homespun VHS back in the 90s I guess - got me into it way before I got into Irish tunes and the lot.  I always ask people if they can play ti-fer.  Too much fun!

Niles, you wouldnt happen to have the lyrics to those tunes trans in English?  If I could sing the tunes I'd get right back into it.

*Alright man you guys have totally gotten me back into it - I haven't played in years but I'm going to start again 




Tune from the VHS

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## John Clay

> That's cool, didn't know Niles was involved -  I learned the tunes from the Doucet Homespun VHS back in the 90s I guess - got me into it way before I got into Irish tunes and the lot.  I always ask people if they can play ti-fer.  Too much fun!
> 
> Niles, you wouldnt happen to have the lyrics to those tunes trans in English?  If I could sing the tunes I'd get right back into it.
> 
> *Alright man you guys have totally gotten me back into it - I haven't played in years but I'm going to start again 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tune from the VHS


For Cajun French lyrics with a translation, this website is an excellent source:  

https://earlycajunmusic.blogspot.com/

Try the search bar on the link to pull up individual songs.  Lots of info about seminal early recordings, often with links to the recordings.

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catmandu2, 

Simon DS

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## Simon DS

Some tabbed tunes from Auvergne, France. 
Some are on YouTube too. 
Enjoy and Happy Christmas guys!!  :Smile: 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ahw02aegkh...20TAB.pdf?dl=0

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Eric Platt

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## catmandu2

> For Cajun French lyrics with a translation, this website is an excellent source:  
> 
> https://earlycajunmusic.blogspot.com/


Wow, perfect!

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## John Clay

> Bump! 
> 
> Heres a link to the TAB that I transcribed from the original site:
> TOURNEALAUBE.FREE.FR
> ENJOY!


Merci Beaucoup!

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## catmandu2

> *Alright man
> 
> Tune from the VHS


Edit: .. NOT  :Popcorn: 

*avoid posting after night time toddies  :Mandosmiley:

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