... or for comical effect? Think of Hendrix-style gimmicks, but documented in a traditional context. Examples from the Mediterranean area and the Middle East would be particularly welcome.
There are ancient examples for black comic effect. The Roman's sometimes restaged the Orpheus legend as a form of comic execution, complete with musical instruments (Auguet, 1994, Cruelty and Civilisation, 102ff; Fagan, Coleman, 1990, 'Fatal charades: Roman executions staged as mythological enactments, JRS, 80, 44-73). You may like to check out
Oswald, F. (1936-37) Index of Figure-Types on Terra Sigillata (“Samian Ware”), Supplement to University of Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology.
for images of lyre playing on Roman pottery that may reflect this
Although it is outside your geographical area you may also like to consider whether the Germanic legends of men thrown bound into snake pits charming, at least temporarily, the snakes by playing a harp with their feet counts,
I don't know if it is serious enough, or if it has not ethnomusicological significance, but you might want to check Les Luthiers from Argentina. In Spanish. YouTube them, you'll find out.
Yes:
The Buddhist Dunhuang murals (Central Asia, now part of China) show acrobatic pipa lute playing.
There is a large repertoire of such tricks in Turkmen dotar lute playing
The Lopes Brothers play a duet Portuguese concertina having their arms intricated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiARl3xpywc
one of the strangest versions of a musical instrument being played in unconventional positions has to be that in the folk song Binnorie/Cruel Sister, in this a harp which has been made out of the body parts of a murdered girl plays/sings by itself in order to accuse the sister who murdered her when the musician places it on a stone at the wedding feast of the murderess, this is suggestive of a degree of virtue in the victim which allows justice to be done, the story in it's most famous English language form is relatively recent with it's 1st known appearance being c. 1656, however, the existence of parallel versions in Gaelic and all the Scandinavian languages suggest that this is a lot older than this
Movies are fiction, but there is a comical scene early in the Amadeus movie where Mozart plays a ditty on the piano while held upside down by a friend.
Thank you all for your kind and informative suggestions; together, they undoubtedly outline the complexity of the question I'm tackling here. A couple of punctual replies:
Dear Prof. Jones, as you may have already guessed, Apollo's contest with Marsyas got me here, so your reference to mythological executions is extremely valuable for the overall cultural context of the Imperial period. Unfortunately, as far as I've seen, iconography doesn't provide any clear representation of such a "fatal charade", and only isolated examples of lyres held upside down, which have to do precisely with Marsyas, rather than document any sort of autonomous instrumental practice.
Dear Prof. Picard, thank you very much: these are exactly the kind of ethnomusicological parallels that I had in mind when asking the question. I'll follow these leads on my own, of course, but if you happen to come across a paper discussing such acrobatic performances in East and Central Asian musical traditions, I'd be grateful for a reference.
Hi Theo,
Here are two strong examples of high level professional musicians playing their instruments unconventionally, and one of them actually happens to be an upside-down demonstation.
Trumpeter Clark Terry played the flugelhorn upside down regularly as a means of not only impressing the crowd but of testing his mind and body mechanics on the instrument. It's actually quite unfathomable that he is able to achieve such flawless execution of technical and musical ideas this way. Here is a video clip of him doing that from 1973: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxOXqFDIrUA
Another example is from a "trumpet summit" from 1990 which featured James Morrison, Wynton Marsalis, Arturo Sandoval & Jon Faddis on an F blues. Go to the 13:52 mark of this video and you will see Arturo playing without a mouthpiece attached to the trumpet, (I should add that it is extremely difficult to even make a sound this way, let alone play sixteenth note lines that sound just as musical as with a mouthpiece on): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLbd5RoSBGg
Both video clips are extraordinary demonstrations of musicianship, and note that in both cases the musicians are improvising (making it up as they go), which adds yet another level of impressiveness.
Let me know what you think!
~Jonathan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxOXqFDIrUA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLbd5RoSBGg
Mehmet Nazli is a Romani violinist from Antalya, Turkey. He is blind and is self-taught and certainly a virtuoso. Linked is a documentary about him in Turkish. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8T0M2m6Aae0
Maybe you already considered the violin played behind the back by tzigane players I don't know whether for displaying virtuosity or simply for fun).
A little more up to date, keyboard whiz Keith Emerson (RIP) used to regularly play Hammond organ from 'the wrong side' of the instrument. If memory serves, jazz rock pioneer Joe Zawinul had a keyboard custom made with the black and white keys transposed. Hope this helps! :-)
Lots of this kind of thing among tradtional fiddle players, almost everywhere that i have firsthand knowledge of [canadian maritimes, romania, Appalachians etc.] so most likely even more - virtuosity, humor, show-off, entertaining, in the larger category of ‘trick’ playing, and in the case of fiddle [widely globalized] in the same manner of other [pre-existing local] bowed lutes spike fiddle
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