Humor in music, does it exist? I mean: there are funny songs, of course, but it’s usually the lyrics that make them funny. I find the Dutch” tune ‘There’s a horse in the hallway’ funny because the lyrics come completely “from the left,” so to speak. I find Rocky Raccoon by the Beatles hilarious because of the lines: “Her name was Magill, but she called herself Lil, but everyone knew it as Nancy.” And I find ‘You’re so vain’ by Carol King funny because it makes fun of stuck up men.
But you don’t often come across music that is inherently funny. Mozart once wrote a funny piece, “Ein Musikalischer Spass.” (‘a musical joke’). It’s a piece in which he essentially pokes fun at bad composers. For example, there are passages that consist of multiples of three bars, instead of—as was customary—multiples of four bars. This makes the music, so to speak, go “limp.” He also uses very dull harmonic progressions to make the music sound clumsy. Plus he also deliberately has the horns play out of tune in certain passages to enhance the silly effect. lt’s a good example of Mozartian humor; he could be wildly funny in his letters too.
A friend of mine sometimes found Bach quite funny. I couldn’t quite keep up with him there. Now, I drank considerably less than he did, and some people, besides having a lot of unpleasant side effects from alcohol, sometimes also experience a kind of access to higher realms, so I was always curious what he was thinking at such moments. He’d say, “Hahahaha, listen, he’s deliberately getting himself into trouble, only to get himself out of it again.” I started paying attention, and indeed, I sometimes heard that Bach sometimes brings his music to points where you wonder: how is he going to get back to the right place? But that observation still didn’t crack me up.
Spike Jones’s music could be very funny, because of the strange sound effects. But effects are, as far as I’m concerned, a bit of a side issue. Is there any music that is inherently funny?
Dutch composer and mentor Guus Janssen once wrote a completely ridiculous piece for church organ. He recorded it on the out-of-tune organ in the church of a little town, just before the instrument was restored (so when it was still in very poor condition). The piece is based on a well-known theme but plays with the listener’s expectations by dragging out certain sections for far too long. It also sometimes hangs on a note in the middle of a musical phrase, leaving the listener with no idea when the repetition will end. The theme is, as it were, completely pulled apart, and the framework of the work is broken down. That’s a piece that really got me laughing no end.
I sometimes find Haydn funny when he takes a side door and finishes a musical phrase much faster than you expect and throws it away. It’s as if he’s saying, “Now enough of that crap, away with it.”
And of course, the incomparable Frank Zappa. I once had a good laugh listening to his album “Jazz from Hell.” Not only is the title fantastic, but the music is so annoying that it really gets on my nerves in a way that makes me laugh.
In my winter booklet “Wintery Scenes,” I included a piece that plays with the sound of an old LP. I’m curious to hear what you think. I play it in the vlog below:
**** Find the ‘Wintery Scenes’ here: ****