Does humor belong in music? What is your opinion? Could you offer humorous examples?

. Yes, music as art has certain humorous examples according to the different types of music from classical to rock. I'll think later about my own country examples as of F. Chopin compositions or rock music. However rock has much more levels of humor ex. lyrics too. Now I have in mind Italian virtuoso Niccolo Paganini's and his "Caprice". I feel also German Johannes Brahms, had lot of fun composing "Hungarian dances" No.4 or 5 as well as Hungarian - Franz List with "Hungarian Rhapsody", finally Austrian Johannes Strauss with "Radetzky march". Don't you think ?

Jesus Díaz-Campo

Talking about rock music, and not only classical music, in Spain there are some curious examples: Let´s take a look at that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwS-coeTRaE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5r0um-7BJY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yinR3tV_eUç

I hope you enjoy them!!!

Dear @Jesus I enjoyed music you shared. Funny. They (1 link) remind me for example British band The Kinks, The Clash. The last clip is like pop-disco back to European 80.

Stefan Müller

You may check out Knorkator:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-3PQf10myk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wBS33JGXwA

The song is called "I hate music!".

The singer has a classical education. He worked at the state opera (see German wikipedia). Also have a look at other work by them. They call it fun metal.

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

Jesus Díaz-Campo

Dear Beata.

In fact, it was influenced by that music style.

Let´s take a look at another one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paccyHqIAoo

Enjoy it!!!

Lijo, the setting of cat´s meow´s to music is so common as to form a subgenre of music. Here is the Cats´ Duet from Maurice Ravel´s child opera, "L'Enfant et les sortileges" (The Child and the Magic Spells). Note the reaction of the poor child, first pain on his eardrums, next an unsuccessful attempt to interact with the antisocial cats.

Ravel´s critics taunted him for this duet until his death in 1937, and when you listen to it, you can understand why. Why are some audiences so unreceptive to humor?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcJGxzNJ8eo

Stefan, I am the first to bring this transcendent question to Researchgate! Thanks for the first youtube you provided. By the way, the song is surprisingly melodious (which is more than I can say for the Ravel cat duet which I provided above).

Dear @Jesus... yes, Alaska is taking us back to 80. For sure pop-disco this is containing a humorous aspects.

Colleagues, please note that Jesús Díaz-Campo´s first youtube, "Siniesto total: Bailaré sobre tu tumba" (Total Sinister: I Will Dance on Your Grave) exemplifies the peculiarly Spanish form of humor called "Black Spain" (la España negra). You can find it in Goya´s more gruesome cartoon etchings"Caprichos" (Whims), in some picaresque novels like Quevedo´s "El buscón," in some tragic farces like Valle-Inclán´s "The Dead Man´s Three-Piece Suit," and elsewhere. This is the first time I ever heard of "Black Spain" in music! Gracias, Jesús.

Dear Patrick,

Feel free to contribute humorous youtubes from Singapore if any exist. Some of the youtubes already contributed are driving the rest of us tone-deaf!

Dear Nelson,

I what to offer to your attention the Russian Musical Film "Anton Ivanovich angry" (was created in 1941) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVgYJQ-OXXQ .

"Conservatory professor gives his daughter classical musical education expecting that she will continue the family traditions. However, Simochka is fascinated by the “light” music. She makes a brilliant debut in an operetta and finds her vocation in this genre."

"Old Conservatory professor Anton Ivanovich Voronov, . recognized only major classical music, . was forced to change their attitude to the "light genre" after, . I saw a brilliant performance in the operetta of his daughter Simochka."

"Anton Ivanovich played only Bach, but his daughter is studying at the conservatory. After her walks a young composer (Kadochnikov), writing an operetta, which Anton Ivanovich for the music did not think - because of this he became so angry that even quarreled with one another.It took the intervention of the great Johann Sebastian and daughter debut (Tselikovskaya) to severe orthodox melted and approved light music and ... love. Wonderful, charming musical comedy, and time is on her favor, as good wine. A lot of hilarious vignettes, and almost caricatured characters.Film studios restored to them. Gorky in 1988, Vladimir Berenstein. Lyrics Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky. (M.Smith) "

In my opinion, this film is the best Youtube on your topic. Please, just see this film and you will get huge pleasure. This film contains humor and classical music.

Thank you, Gennady! An invaluable contribution. Imagine a whole film on my question! I could never have supposed that it had such cultural significance.

Jesus Díaz-Campo

Dear Nelson.

Thank you ("Gracias").

Here you can take a look at another example (also by Siniestro Total):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQCIU9Kp3Vc

Dear @Gennady, I remember another very funny Russian old comedy as "Vesyolyye rebyata"(1934). Very funny...

Thanks so much, Beata.

I would be remiss in this string if I didn´t mention Haydn´s Symphony No. 94 in G-major, the so-called "Surprise Symphony." Maybe Haydn thought his music was dull and knew it lulled his aristocratic audience to sleep, so when unexpected, he included a loud fortissimo chord in this symphony to wake them all up. His music contained many jokes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DlLjwkamp3lI

Dear @Nelson, I think Haydn was joking in "Surprise Symphony" since first accords. But you may be right about his intentions about waking up his audience.

Dear @Nelson have you ever observed Herbert von Karajan while directing ? Maestro liked jokes a lot.

Yes, Beata, I am convinced that Haydn in his "Surprise Symphony" chose a purposely dull melody from the start so that he could surprise in the loud "tutti" afterwards. I never imagined that a conductor with his own body language could express a joke! Does anybody know a ballet with humorous body language? It must exist.

In the introduction to my question, I said that the three B´s, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, sound serious. Yet Beethoven, in his Third Symphony, the "Eroica," at one point interrupts the development of his first movement with the repetition of the initial theme at an unexpected point, thereby making it seem as if the whole orchestra has committed a mistake! His joke on the orchestra and on the audience!

(How many married men haven´t asked themselves, "Why can´t a woman/ be like me?"

like Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady"?) Someone should study humor in U.S. musical comedy, a true goldmine of jokes. What a PhD thesis that could make!

Dear Nelson,

I thank you for your kind comment about film "Anton Ivanovich angry". Using this opportunity, I want to remind a very funny humorous musical example. "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) once bet with his older colleague, compatriot Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), in a crate of best champagne. This bet was some kind of playing competition. They both were supposed to play some difficult composition that Mozart wrote on that day, and see who of them will be able to play it to the end. Haydn agreed and the notes were placed on the spinet. Just after a few strokes on the piano, Haydn saw that he wasn't up to it. He slowed down, and eventually stopped playing. This was because, while his two hands were playing at the both ends of the piano, he was supposed to press a key in the middle. He tried to figure out how to do it, but he was out of ideas. Then Mozart took his place and started playing. When he got to that "improbable stroke", Mozart bowed his head and pressed the key - with his nose. "

Dear Beata,

I thank you too for your kind comment about film "Hilarious Friends" (or "Веселые ребята" in Russian). I often play the piano wonderful music of Isaac Dunaevsky from this very funny musical film.

Dear Concha,

I thank you for Dimitri Shostakovich's Waltz no.2. This Waltz is beautiful without any doubt. But there are many other beautiful Old Russian Waltzes too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY298YD2kZw&feature=related

Concha, "pornophony" says it all, combining music and "off-color" humor! Those Russian journalists are ingenious! One thing this thread does is to disclose the many various types of humor, and there are lots!

Carlos Eduardo Maldonado

Dear Nelson, I like your question! Besides some of the examples provided above - all of which I am fond of - there is a marvelous spanish group: Aviador dro. You can find all the compositions in YouTube.

It's sort of anarchist group, with lots of good humor. Their most salient feature is that they work very much based upon science and technology. For instance there is a song on nanotechnology: hilarious! another one on the golden age: unique!, and many others...

Many, many thanks, Carlos, for the excellent reference to the Aviador dro. We have many nanotechnologists in RG who will love the relevant song. I personally research the Golden Age and will look for that one!

Carlos Eduardo Maldonado

Dear Nelson, they also have a song on the Higgs Boson; or on the Nuclear Age; or on Anti-matter (what about that?)… You'll enjoy it!

Dear Carlos,

This is music with scientific humor! Love the idea! It is supersophisticated! Who would have guessed that there would be a learned enough audience of listeners for such humor?

Carlos Eduardo Maldonado

You' re right. And yet, as you can see by the number of downloads, it's sorta cult music. Just for the "initiated", hahahaha

Here is a youtube for "Antimatter" by Aviador pro. No piece of music has ever been composed with less substance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Boc--O9hjA

Unknown to me when writing this question, I have since found out that hooded sweatshirts are for sale with musical humor inscribed on them:

http://www.cafepress.com/+viola_music_humor_hooded_sweatshirt,548647357?utm_content=ChannelAdvisor_US_pricegrabber&utm_medium=productfeed&utm_source=CSE&CA_6C15C=530004740072361029

http://www.cafepress.com/+viola_music_humor_hooded_sweatshirt,548647357?utm_content=ChannelAdvisor_US_pricegrabbe

Talk about nostalgia in humorous music! I have just located on-line the "klezmer" music by Mickey Katz and his band that used to delight my grandparents and parents in the 1950s and that I danced with my children in the late 60s and 70s. The humor lies in the playing, but there is an ancient sadness mixed in here too. There are 4 pieces (1, 2 and 3 in the Middle Eastern Phrygian mode, for those who recognize it), and the final one is a Russian kazatzkah in a major key. I can´t wait to play it now for my grandchildren! Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHGFa-iAxW0

Eddie Seva See

Yes, it does. One of the most popular local singers we have was (may he rest in peace) Yoyoy Villame. His music and lyrics (and his facial appearance, manner of singing and movements all combined to be hilarious. Some of his works were Magellan, Multo, Philippine Geography, Dadada, Buchi kik, etc.

From the master of humor in Rock and Roll, Frank Zappa, we have the concert "Does humor belong in music?".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbeFjEHE-XY

And from the Rolling Stones, their classic "Far away eyes".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyK1bZZ7E-s

Eddie, I found "Philippine Geography" by Yoyoy Villame, sung in Tagalog, I presume! I can´t understand the words, but the expressions and body language are hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3G5FlwSd6o

Blues isn't usually funny, but there are exceptions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAwuMInu8_g

Cute, David! Funny how humor and sadness mix in music in unsuspected ways, and it all sounds harmonious.

To show you how this happens in the classics, I will refer you to the third movement of Gustav Mahler´s "First Symphony" ("The Titan"). It´s supposed to be a dirge for dead animals, but if you listen carefully, it is "Frère Jacques" in a minor key, with lively, funny klezmer music thrown in for good measure, all brilliantly developed together, and in my opinion quite beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddMV5cxuPks

Speaking of the blues, Big Mama Thornton's "School boy" always brings a smile to my face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVVufAbov0Y

Big Mama even manages to work some humor into this very sad blues number (at around minute 3:15).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9qVswPgbc

And for some more vintage Americana, here is Jorma Kaukonen's recent rendition of "Prohibition blues", with some tongue-in-cheek social and political protest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOMP2MvuGeM

The last one (at least for tonight): Lyle Lovett and his Large Band performing "Church".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-42NzUuUlLY

Sorry, I know I said I had signed out, but here is a postscript that I'd like to share before I forget it, that Nelson's Mahler piece reminded me of. Here the two genres, classical and blues, are combined (from the film Crossroads).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8_yx1_uGS4

Dear C. Lewis Kausel,

I want to express my admiration to you for you words "nostalgic Russian waltzes!". It is absolutely true. Now I want to present a Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8yvELY7d9E from my favorite film "His Butler's Sister" (1943). In my view, Deanna Durbin is the best performer of Old Russian Romances in USA. These Romances are huge nostalgia for me too. I want to say my personal opinion: it's time for nostalgia for everything beautiful in this world.

Gennady and Concha, I concur with your appreciation of Russian music. Concha, you mention ballet, and almost automatically I think of Tshaikovski´s "Swan Lake." As to the "Concierto de Aranjuez," there is little music comparable in depth to the second movement, the "Adagio." The youtube you provided is a present to all of us. Still, these are so serious (which is not a bad virtue), and we should really return to the theme at hand, which is the justification of humor in music.

Dear Concha Diez-Pastor,

I thank you for your love to "Russian art, literature, history... ". I know that the Spaniards very like "Rimsky Korsakov Capriccio Espagnol". Let's just hear this great musical composition again by clicking the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh6mDL-VwYw

Juan-Esteban Palomar Tarancon

My dear friends, your answers are all so delightful, that I thought I would return you to the humor theme by referring you, tastefully, to eschatology in no one less tasteful than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His rather off-color humor, while hinted in the film "Amadeus," was really more prevalent than is generally believed:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Mozart_MsOfDifficileLectu.PNG/600px-Mozart_MsOfDifficileLectu.PNG

Here you are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKpFhPdyQLM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F37cHDGWgUc

And in one piece, Cecilia: "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" (Mozart´s famous nocturne, "A Little Night Music.") ¡Love that clip, Juan Esteban!

Lijo Francis

@Concha the associated Golden Apple Quartet links are also interesting...

It reminds me the action songs that I and my friends used to perform and teach for different groups of children in the church many years ago.

Thanks

Manjunatha, we definitely need non-Western contributors to this thread to round out our world perspective on humor in music. French philosopher of music Louis Lucas, in his curious book "L'Acoustique nouvelle" (The New Acoustics, 1854), remarks that the Egyptian bayadères or dancing girls (ancestors of the Spanish gypsies) used to follow the age-old custom-- received from India!-- of setting to music all circumstances of amorous incidents through erotic pantomime. This sounds like Bollywood centuries before its actual invention.

Concha, your response on Calatayud is perfectly appropriate in this thread. Many, many thanks! Incidentally, Manuel de Falla´s humorous ballet, "El sombrero de tres picos" (The Three-Cornered Hat), ends with a wonderful, parodic jota. As soon as I return from my 10-km. walk in this splendid spring weather, I will supply the youtube.

Thanks so much, Cecilia, for spreading the musical wealth! The present thread and yours have become so rich, that you should consider publishing yours, and perhaps I will publish mine if I reach the magic number of 100 responses.

Juan-Esteban Palomar Tarancon

Dear Nelson, finally I found good Polish singer Maja Kleszcz & IncarNATIONS with song in "Sleep, dream"... a bit humorous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_IA1tIDXoo

Without any doubt the best musical humor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcV19rylSZc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON17jEIJ7z4

You know, everything's got a point.

Turn up the volume for this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0GLgMMfy3I

(You don't have to have a point to have a point.)

Ok, this one is seriously funny. Don't miss it. Carmen will never be the same.

Video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2jn_lxrrPg&feature=youtu.be

Below: 19th century poster.

This cartoon underscores the tragic dénouement, in which the jealous Don José slays "poor" Carmen for being faithless with a bullfighter. How can this be a "comic opera"? You´re right, David, that´s what it´s called.

Nelson, I shouldn't have distracted your attention with the poster. I just edited my last post to make it more transparent. If you haven't seen the video, please check it out. The poster relates to the theme of your question, but the video much more so.

David, the video is delicious and indeed comic. I wonder if it would have succeeded better and won a prize if the singers had been castrati.