Humor in Music and the Performing Arts
Humor in classical music has a long tradition as shown by such playful vocabulary items as the French gavotte, which like the Irish and English gigue or jig is music for a fast-moving dance. A scherzo is a musical joke while a cappricio is a composition that is irregular in form and usually lively and whimsical. A divertimento is a light and entertaining instrumental composition. And a rondo is a composition whose principal theme is repeated three or more times in the same key, interspersed with subordinate themes.
In our PowerPoint about “Humor and Music,” we discuss the musical humor of Anderson, Bach, Beethoven, Borge, Confrey, Debussy, Gilbert and Sullivan, Grieg, Grofé, Haydn, Igoodesman and Joo, Joplin, Lehrer, “Monte Python,” Mozart, Offenbach, Pachelbel, Prokofiev, Rossini, Russell, Saint-Saëns, Schickeley, Simon and Garfunkel, Strauss, Wagner, Webber, Vivaldi, and Yankovic.
St. Patrick’s Day 2011: Riverdance Flash Mob in Sydney, Australia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7auErQnU6fU
Yannie Tan Plays Tom and Jerry Parody of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody # 2:
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=red+pocket+yannie+tan+hungarian+rhapsodie&mid=7C2DB0489026CE7739297C2DB0489026CE773929&FORM=VIRE
Duo Baldo: Hungarian Dance Number 5, by Brahms:
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=duo+baldo+youtube&mid=9A74127DF945D79CBD2B9A74127DF945D79CBD2B&FORM=VIRE
International Society for Humor Studies: http://www.humorstudies.org/
Some often employed functions:
To capture listeners' attention at crucial structural points in a composition's course.
To tease out details, essential characteristics or generative components of particular figures or motifs that feature conspicuously within a composition's large-scale narrative.
As rhetorical devices/ processes.
To reduce monotony or rapidly switch from a currently instated emotional mood, instrumental texture, etc., to a contrasting one.
To simply entertain listeners, or to increase their ability to relate intellectually to a work or extended section.
To establish a distinctive personal identity and reputation within a particular domain, genre, niche or of composition or performance.
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