Can anyone explain why Mozart's
"A Musical Joke" is a joke?

Because there's all kinds of ensemble mistakes programmed in the score; like one instrument playing out of harmony or starting a end cadence too soon. Didn't you notice?

Haydn used these kind of inside jokes all the time, and so did Mozart. I believe it is the E major 39th symphony (Mozart's) which has a wrong start in the trio of the scherzo. The clarinet starts a melody that clearly points to an end phrase - yet it is the beginning... It's meant to be funny.

There's a whole tradition of these jokes. In the fifties Jerome Robbins made a ballet for the NYCB featuring the same kind of humor, with a bit for four corps-de-ballet girls and one somehow is still wearing her sunglasses and is always wrong in her steps.

It never fails to crack up the audience. Note BTW the jokes always appear in the tradition when an art form expands its audience to the lay people. Some get the joke; others don't. That makes the joke even better.

Anyone else more examples?

Herman

Hoffnung did a series of concerts in the fifties based around that concept. Comcerto for watering pipe, the chorus singing an excerpt from Belshazzers Feast, which turns out be "Slain".

Then Zappa did wonderful parodies on Sheik Yerbouti, incl Bob Dylan style singing about car mechanics

Neil of Young Ones Fame did a humerous "concept" album which is a parody of Sgt Pepper with superb takes on heavy metal, Pink Floyd, Donovan, Caravan etc

malcolm Arnold, to many in jokes to maention but try the Belles of St Trinian for starters.

The list is endless.

Tom

It's a little-known but totally hilarious fact that if you listen to the notes corresponding to the prime numbers from the beginning of the "The Turning of the Seasons" episode in Act II of Harry "Laughing Boy" Birtwistle's opera "Gawain", it plays the beginning of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Try it - you'll wet yourself laughing.

Alternatively you might just be left mewling on the floor.

P.S. Tom, nice attempt to include a dipthong BTW. I appreciated the effort.

nick.lees at btinternet.com

Gentlemen,

fess up, what's this business with "including diphthongs" (to use the correct spelling) - I'm really eager to know what's so funny.

Herman

This is a well known, pretty straight forward one - but never fails to get a laugh out of me - Paul Simon taking off Dylan especially the plaintive "I've lost my harmonica Al."

And two other places I regularly laugh is The Beach Boys, stumbling over the girls' names in Barbara Ann, laughing and carrying on. The other is Paul sniggering during Maxwell's Silver Hammer. Not really jokes, but I suppose the decision to keep the tracks in is the joke...

quote:

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Originally posted by herm:
Because there's all kinds of ensemble mistakes programmed in the score; like one instrument playing out of harmony or starting a end cadence too soon. Didn't you notice?

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Well, after posting this query, I tried to
recall the last time I heard this piece and
I think it was when it was the "theme music"
to "The horse of the year show" on UK TV -
this means at least 20 years ago!!!

Now I suppose I'll have to find a copy to
see if I can spot the mistakes That said,
I have no muscial training, so perhaps I won't
notice.. And as for harmony, well I can't carry
a tune in a bucket..

Andrew

Let's not forget the great Les Dawson's piano playing.

"All systems are perfectly designed to get the results they get."

Or the Ruttles...

Hey diddle diddle
the cat and the fiddle
piggy in the middle
do a poo poo
a poo poo pe poo

Ouch! You're breaking my heart
Ouch! I'm falling apart.
Ouch!
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!!

The Rutles - a legend that will last a lunchtime... The Prefab Four, who made the 60s what they are today...

The Rutles rule - even more so now the DVD and CD are out (though I have the vinyl - nice 8 page or so booklet)

There's always that mischord at the start of Roxanne as well...

BTW - WHERE does Paul snigger in 'Hammer? I've noticed the rest of the band going "yeah" and whooping in the background after he sings "Went upstairs and had a smoke" in Day in the life, but ONLY through headphones...

When the music's over turn out the lights

Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra has a passage which parodies Shostakovich's Leningrad symphony, finishing with a couple of raucous brass raspberries. It's just about funny the first time you hear it.....

Mr Lees - apart from the fact that Turning of the Seasons is between acts, your knowledge of Birwistle is top notch. Which recording do you suggest I get - can I copy yours?

David

In gods name what is a"diphthong?"

It must be Friday

In a just world one of these TWR boys would respond to your query, Gary, but I guess they're on the road to new mischief.

'Road' in fact features a diphthong, just like 'boys'. The dictornary definition is: "union of two vowel sounds in a single compound sound, particularly when represented by two letters."

Personally I'd still like Nick or Tom to explain what's so funny about using diphthongs in a post, since it's very hard not to use tons of 'em in any ol' post.

Herman

quote:

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but I guess they're on the road to new mischief.

---

Bastards, Have they gone out without me?

At the risk of reducing a discussion of Mozart and Bartok to the level of fart humor, my fave humor albums include:

-The Dickies: The Incredible Shrinking Dickies
-The Butthole Surfers: Hairway to Steven (espeically the faux live track "John E. Smokes")
-Sebadoh: Smash your Head on the Punk Rock (I'm convinced this is mostly parody)
-Most anything by the Dead Kennedys, but especially Plastic Surgery Disasters, which is quite acidly funny.

There's nothing remotely funny about dipthongs. They're a very serious business.

Whilst your definition of a dipthong may be technically correct, the true spirit (and indeed wonder) of the dipthong is the collision between the vowels as written properly. For example: æ and œ. They're the nearest English comes to having sexy accents like the cedilla or umlaut. They're being lazily written out of the language.

nick.lees at btinternet.com

I think that the German, spass, doesn't mean a joke in the English sense but more a way of expressing having fun, messing around.

Matthew

Nick, give me an example (you probably did but I is thick innit?)

quote:

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Originally posted by Matthew T:
I think that the German, spass, doesn't mean a joke in the English sense but more a way of expressing having fun, messing around.

Matthew

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tis correct, matthew

Gary: Nick clearly doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. The ae en oe stuff is so Un-English. The sexy part of the English language (as spoken by women, rather than, say, Tom) is the th - as in cerveca (= beer), indeed. It's very hard for Continentals, too.

Herman

I deny it. I don't speak English, I grunt. it's easier.

Isn't a dipthong something men wear, like small y-fronts?

Tom

The funny part (and it really isn't funny, especially this late on) is this. The day before this post Nick had made some comment about using two dipthings in a post. The following day in the above post I spelt "mention" "maention". Nick was subtly pointing out my spelling error. "My how we laughed" as I said to Clarie

[This message was edited by Tom Alves on FRIDAY 04 April 2003 at 20:51.]