Joys of Quebec — Mandolin Tab

Mandolin tab and sheet music with synced audio · Fortunat Malouin · Key of A · 120 BPM · 4/4 time · French-Canadian Reel · Beginner

Chords used in this arrangement: A, E, D.

The French title of Joys of Quebec, "Les Joyeuses Québécoises," literally means "the happy women of Quebec". It's credited to Fortunat Malouin, a Saint-Sauveur fiddler and traveling salesman who cut a 78 RPM version for Columbia Records in New York City in 1928. The twist to the story is that a rival Montreal musician named A.J. Boucher later published it under the title "Variations sur un air canadien," essentially suggesting it wasn't Malouin's to claim at all, and went out of his way to include a version with, as researcher Jean Duval puts it, "fairly acrobatic variations," apparently to one-up him. That kind of old-school fiddler rivalry is baked right into the tune's DNA.

This page includes mandolin tablature, standard music notation, and a chord chart — printable as PDF and playable in sync with the original recording. Change the key, slow the tempo down, and loop the bars you want to practise.