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Ha ha
Humor
Humor in Music
- Duetto buffo di due gatti = Heiteres Katzen-Duett : für zwei Katzen, zwei Kater, oder Katze und Kater gemischt, 2 Gesangsstimmen und Klavier = A comic duet for two cats : for two cats, two tomcats, or as a mixed duet for cat and tomcat, 2 voices and piano byCall Number: M1529.3 .R67 D8 2009
- Humor as a Concept in Music by Laurie-Jeanne Lister explores the concept of humor in music from both a philosophical and musical perspective. Part One studies the expressive possibilities of music, the concept of humor from etymological and psychological viewpoints, and humor in music with emphasis on the 18th-century aesthetic view of humor in art. Part Two presents two different analyses of W.A. Mozart's "Ein musikalischer Spass" KV 522. The first, a chronological look at the first movement, shows the creative process of the -fictitious composer- of the work. The second analysis studies Mozart's comical treatment of both compositional techniques and individual musical elements. Lister traces a striking parallel between Mozart's humoristic compositional style and his play with the German language in his letters (the "Basle Briefen"). Finally she discusses the extent to which the humor in "Ein musikalischer Spass" would have been perceived in its time or could be recognized today."Call Number: ML3877 .L57 1994ISBN: 3631470916Publication Date: 1994
Humor Als Formkonzept in der Musik Gustav Mahlers by Call Number: ML410 .M23 S2 1995ISBN: 3476012913Publication Date: 1995
Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art by
"Wit, humor, and comic effects have been commonly noted in accounts of Joseph Haydn's instrumental music from his own day to ours. Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art is a unique critical and historical study of this celebrated aspect of the composer's music and the key role of listeners in its success. "Artful jesting" indicates a strategy that involves the listener as an active interpreter of compositional alternatives in a musical work. Wheelock discusses how Haydn, utilizing the subversive potential of wit in a variety of classical forms, genres, and venues, both challenged and affirmed the musical conventions of his day." "The book is divided into three sections, each providing a different perspective on the wit and humor of Haydn's music. Part I, "Coming to Terms," takes a multidisciplinary approach to issues of compositional intent and reception history, focusing on changing values of wit and humor in late eighteenth-century literary sources and reviews of Haydn's music. Chapter 1, "The Musical Joke: A Laughing Matter?" details the productive role of humor in heightening consciousness of play with the most basic classical conventions. Dependent on often subtle ambiguities, these musical jokes challenged listeners' understanding of how convention and invention should interact, engaging them as participants themselves in a process of completing the jest. Chapter 2 traces important distinctions between wit and humor in a broad range of eighteenth-century sources, both German and English. Chapter 3 examines the critical understanding of the composer as humorist. Such views - both favorable and unfavorable - are inextricably linked with changing attitudes toward the proper role of instrumental music, popular taste, and the role of the composer in fulfilling expectations of increasingly mixed audiences." "Part II, "Frames of Reference," establishes several models for investigating the process of jesting in Haydn's instrumental works. Chapter 4 explores incongruous manners in the composer's symphonic minuets. Wheelock argues that Haydn's fusing of strictly academic and more popular dance styles subverted the measured dignity and refinement of a "proper" minuet, and that such disturbances of the "humors" actually helped to activate the discovery of wit. Chapter 5, "Engaging Wit in the Chamber," examines the metaphor of conversation in connection with Haydn's Opus 33 string quartets, presenting a convincing case that as the voices of the quartet listen and respond to each other the audience is simultaneously engaged in actively mediating this complex dialogue. Chapter 6 explores the deceptions involved in the symphonic finales, where eccentric motives and procedures focus listeners' attention on predicting their progress. Chapter 7, "The Paradox of Distraction," takes theatrical comedy as a point of departure in locating numerous comic devices akin to fixation, memory lapses, digressions, and incongruous juxtapositions of melody and rhythm." "Part III, "The Implicated Listener," examines how Haydn transformed humorous rhetoric into a new aesthetic, and considers the broader implications of comic procedures in instrumental music of the Classic era." "Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art combines a historical and social perspective with strong critical analysis, appealing not only to students of Haydn's music but also to those interested in the Classic style in general."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 0028728556Publication Date: 1992- Parodies : for high voice and piano, as some traditional jump-rope rhymes might have been set to music by the masters by I'll never go to Macy's : (George Friedrich Handel) (ca. 2:15) --Miss Lucy : (Gaetano Donizetti) (3:30) -- I was standing on the corner : (Hugo Wolf) (2:45) -- Poor old lady : (Modeste Moussorgsky) (4:35) -- Charlie Chaplin : (Henri Duparc) (1:50) -- Spanish dancer : (Manuel de Falla) (1:00).Call Number: M1621 .B26 P3 1986Publication Date: 1986
- Alfred Brendel on music : three lectures. I/III, Does classical music have to be entirely serious? Go behind the notes and explore the mysteries of music with those three lectures by Alfred Brendel! Alfred Brendel is one of the greatest pianists of our time, but also one of the greatest musical thinkers of our age. His masterclasses are real events in which every student around the world wishes to participate. In these three lectures, Brendel takes us on a musical voyage of discovery that goes behind the notes and explores the mysteries of music. He holds his listeners enthralled with an array of musical examples that illustrates his explanations at the piano. Presented to be specifically recorded audio-visually, these lectures where held in the rooms of Salzburg Festival. Thanks to their successful blend of music and theory, they are informative and entertaining not only for experts but also for all lovers of music with an interest in deepening their understanding of the subject.Call Number: STREAMINGVIDEO - Rice only
Yodeling and Meaning in American Music by
Timothy E. Wise presents the first book to focus specifically on the musical content of yodeling in our culture. He shows that yodeling serves an aesthetic function in musical texts. A series of chronological chapters analyzes this musical tradition from its earliest appearances in Europe to its incorporation into a range of American genres and beyond. Wise posits the reasons for yodeling's changing status in our music. How and why was yodeling introduced into professional music making in the first place? What purposes has it served in musical texts? Why was it expunged from classical music? Why did it attach to some popular music genres and not others? Why does yodeling now appear principally at the margins of mainstream tastes? To answer such questions, Wise applies the perspectives of critical musicology, semiotics, and cultural studies to the changing semantic associations of yodeling in an unexplored repertoire stretching from Beethoven to Zappa. This volume marks the first musicological and ideological analysis of this prominent but largely ignored feature of American musical life. Maintaining high scholarly standards but keeping the general reader in mind, the author examines yodeling in relation to ongoing cultural debates about singing, music as art, social class, and gender. Chapters devote attention to yodeling in nineteenth-century classical music, the nineteenth-century Alpine-themed song in America, the Americanization of the yodel, Jimmie Rodgers, and cowboy yodeling, among other topics.
ISBN: 9781496805805Publication Date: 2016
Brit Wits by
The Sex Pistols. David Bowie. Pink Floyd. Rebel rockers and provokers of the public, vivid in our memories as much for their subversion of the mainstream as for their signature sounds. Yet what very few people realize is that a substantive part of the weaponry used by these rockers and their contemporaries was humor: outrageous onstage antics, coded cultural references, and clever lyrical constructs were all critical to expressions of youth rebellion that could still slip past the powers that be. Focusing on key subversive rock humorists, Brit Wits shows how and why humor has been such a powerful catalyst and expressive force in these artists’ work. Distinguishing rock humorists from rockers who are merely sometimes humorous, Iain Ellis trains his attention on those whose music and persona exude defiance—beginning with the Beatles, the Kinks, and Pink Floyd; and continuing through the Smiths, the Slits, and even the Spice Girls—to investigate the nature of rock humor and the ways in which these groups have used it to attack prevailing social structures. Politics and issues of gender, class, and race are all laid open to ridicule, as is the music industry itself—epitomized by the Sex Pistols’s scathing “EMI.” And although lyrics are foregrounded, Ellis demonstrates that a guitar solo, dissident dance move, or antisocial hairstyle may in context be every bit as subversive and humorous as a song. At once an action-packed look at some of the most notorious rebels of British rock history and a celebration of an underexplored area of humor, Brit Wits compiles essays and critical profiles that look at one of the most effective—and entertaining—means of anti-establishment expression for half a century.
Call Number: ML3534.6 .G7 E45 2012ISBN: 9781841505657Publication Date: 2012-04-01
Comedy in Music by
Providing a general overview of comic music, this reference outlines the history of important comic musical genres, considers interconnections among seemingly disparate humorous repertory, and includes an extensive bibliography and discography. The narrative challenges the notion that serious works are more important than comic works. Many supposed tragic works include comic elements and abstract genres, such as the symphony or string quartet. The narrative discusses almost 1,000 works, each cross referenced to publication information. The bibliography includes over 800 books, dissertations, reference sources, and articles. By tracing the development of major comic genres, this unique guide to comic music also examines how absurdity influenced the avante-garde developments of the 20th century. This study of comic music will appeal to musicologists, musicians, and music students. The relationships drawn between familiar and obscure works allow for a fuller understanding of the aesthetics of comic expression. Cross-referenced throughout, this resource is a much needed and useful guide to further research.
Call Number: ML128 .H75 A75 2001ISBN: 0313299803Publication Date: 2000
The Cat and the Fiddle by
Pigs playing bagpipes, monkey fiddlers, and demons making music on kitchen implements: this extraordinary cast of characters peering out of the pages of books and manuscripts has amused, entertained, and intrigued readers throughout the ages. Music is a serious subject which some artists and illustrators have for centuries treated in a light-hearted manner.Jeremy Barlow delves deep into the rich and diverse Bodleian archive, and taking us on a whimsical journey through ??? years of iconographic history, exploring a range of strange and humorous images, from animal hybrids playing musical instruments in the margins of manuscripts, to prints by Hogarth, and from children's literature to class-conscious cartoons in Punch. He includes many images never published before, and sheds new light on old favourites. What is the relationship between animals and instruments, and how have themes such as devilry and drunkenness been used in musical representations? How did developments such as printing, and the importance of public concerts affect musical humour, and how was it used politically? These and other similar questions are explored in this engaging little volume.
Call Number: ML85 .B37 2006ISBN: 1851243003Publication Date: 2007- Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art by
"Wit, humor, and comic effects have been commonly noted in accounts of Joseph Haydn's instrumental music from his own day to ours. Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art is a unique critical and historical study of this celebrated aspect of the composer's music and the key role of listeners in its success. "Artful jesting" indicates a strategy that involves the listener as an active interpreter of compositional alternatives in a musical work. Wheelock discusses how Haydn, utilizing the subversive potential of wit in a variety of classical forms, genres, and venues, both challenged and affirmed the musical conventions of his day." "The book is divided into three sections, each providing a different perspective on the wit and humor of Haydn's music. Part I, "Coming to Terms," takes a multidisciplinary approach to issues of compositional intent and reception history, focusing on changing values of wit and humor in late eighteenth-century literary sources and reviews of Haydn's music. Chapter 1, "The Musical Joke: A Laughing Matter?" details the productive role of humor in heightening consciousness of play with the most basic classical conventions. Dependent on often subtle ambiguities, these musical jokes challenged listeners' understanding of how convention and invention should interact, engaging them as participants themselves in a process of completing the jest. Chapter 2 traces important distinctions between wit and humor in a broad range of eighteenth-century sources, both German and English. Chapter 3 examines the critical understanding of the composer as humorist. Such views - both favorable and unfavorable - are inextricably linked with changing attitudes toward the proper role of instrumental music, popular taste, and the role of the composer in fulfilling expectations of increasingly mixed audiences." "Part II, "Frames of Reference," establishes several models for investigating the process of jesting in Haydn's instrumental works. Chapter 4 explores incongruous manners in the composer's symphonic minuets. Wheelock argues that Haydn's fusing of strictly academic and more popular dance styles subverted the measured dignity and refinement of a "proper" minuet, and that such disturbances of the "humors" actually helped to activate the discovery of wit. Chapter 5, "Engaging Wit in the Chamber," examines the metaphor of conversation in connection with Haydn's Opus 33 string quartets, presenting a convincing case that as the voices of the quartet listen and respond to each other the audience is simultaneously engaged in actively mediating this complex dialogue. Chapter 6 explores the deceptions involved in the symphonic finales, where eccentric motives and procedures focus listeners' attention on predicting their progress. Chapter 7, "The Paradox of Distraction," takes theatrical comedy as a point of departure in locating numerous comic devices akin to fixation, memory lapses, digressions, and incongruous juxtapositions of melody and rhythm." "Part III, "The Implicated Listener," examines how Haydn transformed humorous rhetoric into a new aesthetic, and considers the broader implications of comic procedures in instrumental music of the Classic era." "Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art combines a historical and social perspective with strong critical analysis, appealing not only to students of Haydn's music but also to those interested in the Classic style in general."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Call Number: ML410.H4 W47 1992ISBN: 0028728556Publication Date: 1992
The Humor of Music and Other Oddities in the Art by Call Number: ML65 .H82ISBN: 0875970605Publication Date: 1971
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