What is the difference in Cajun and Zydeco music?
It is difficult to explain the difference in Cajun and Zydeco music, even for some people I have spoken to in Louisiana. Here are the basics. Cajun music features the button Cajun accordion and triangle, which are traditional Cajun musical instruments. Cajun often has love lost lyrics, sung in Cajun French, with uplifting melodies. Two Step, Waltz, and Cajun Swing dance rhythms are typical. Zydeco is largely upbeat two-step rhythms, born at about the same time as Cajun music but more from the Creole culture. It presently incorporates R&B, Jazz, Blues and Urban Soul. Some of its distinctive Afro-Caribbean sound comes from a percussion instrument known as the frottoir (rubboard or washboard), played with metal scrapers. The word Zydeco is the phonetic rendering of the first two words of the French phrase “les haricots sont pas sales,” which means “the snap beans arent salted,” (we are too poor to buy saltpork to season the beans), but there is no misery in this music. It accommodates eve
