Podorythmie is a traditional

French Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French people, French colonists first arriving in Canada (New France), France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of ...

method of tapping one's feet during musical performances, which is a common practice in Québécois and

Acadian The Acadians (; , ) are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, most descendants of Acadians live in either the Northern American region of Acadia, ...

music, and to a lesser extent, Canadian folk music as a whole. It is a

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

technique that uses the feet as a

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make Music, musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person ...

to produce sound by hitting the feet on the floor. This technique is especially common during

fiddle A fiddle is a Bow (music), bowed String instrument, string musical instrument, most often a violin or a bass. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including European classical music, classical music. Althou ...

performances.

Shoes and equipment

In order to produce a sound that is loud enough to be heard over the music, special boards and shoes are often employed by the performer. Shoes with wooden heels or leather soles generally have a desirable sound. Sometimes, the artist will use taps or fibreglass added to the toes and heels to create a louder sound. Contact microphones or specially crafted amplified boards (such as

stomp boxes A stomp box (or stompbox) is a percussion instrument consisting of a small box placed under the foot, which is tapped or stamped on rhythmically to produce a sound similar to that of a bass drum. A stomp box allows a performer such as a singe ...

) are used in professional stage productions to augment the volume of the foot percussion.

References

Body percussion Canadian folk music French Canadian culture Percussion performance techniques Music of Quebec Canadian dances Tap dance Foot percussion {{Idiophone-instrument-stub