Comic Adventures in Music

It’s certainly either alarmingly original or originally alarming.
- Lemony Snicket on his "The Composer is Dead"

Let's venture into humor and classical music...

THE BEST CONCERT EVER
by
Gregory K.

A violin told knock-knock jokes.
A trumpet made a pun.
A French horn told some riddles that were really goofy fun.

The timpani and xylophone
Made lots of silly faces.
A tuba and a piccolo decided to switch places.

A double bass got lots of laughs
By standing upside down.
Every last viola had been dressed up like a clown.

The instruments played forte soft.
They played piano loud.
The woodwinds all threw whipped cream pies directly at the crowd.

I haven’t laughed this heartily
Since I can’t tell you when.
I sure can’t wait ‘til I can hear this Symfunny again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This article by Richard Nilsen about how classical composers wove humor into their music is excellent. He explains: "It should be pointed out that there is plenty of verbal humor in music of all genres...Finding the joke purely in the notes is another beast."

And now, here's the Typewriter Symphony:


The Houston Symphony held a family-friendly concert called the "Tickle Me Symphony," which they describe as "a concert of music that shows how composers like to have a little fun. Mitchell [the conductor] will have you snickering with delight with Glinka's Overture to 'Ruslan and Ludmila' and Mozart's Ein musikalischer Spass (A Musical Joke). Other pieces to tickle your funny bone include excerpts from Offenbach's Can-Can from 'Orpheus in the Underworld,' Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours from 'La Gioconda,' Mendelssohn's 'A Midsummer Nights Dream,' Kabalevsky's Suite from 'The Comedians' and more." Sounds like it would make a nice video -- I wonder if it was recorded?

More fun stuff:
* Fantasy Concerto for Four Prepared Slot Machines
* Funny Stories: Classical Music for Children
* I Know A Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello
* Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead
* Mary Lee posted "Poetry + Music = Fun" about Camille Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals (with verses by Jack Prelutsky and illustrations by Mary GrandPré of Harry Potter fame) just a couple of days ago.

This week's Poetry Friday round-up is at A Wrung Sponge.