Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

That's Comish Music! Mutant Sounds

That's Comish Music! Mutant Sounds LMJ12_02body_003-102 12/10/02 8:42 AM Page 41 That’s Comish Music! Mutant Sounds Frieder Butzmann on’t look in any dictionary for “comish.” It’s my idiolectic verbal bastard derived from the German word komisch. This essay’s German title would be “Das ist Komische Musik!” And here the trouble begins. A German native speaker, if asked, could not tell you what “komisch” means, only that it means “strange” and it means “funny,” but that it does not mean exactly one or the other, but both at the same time. If you look in a German music dictionary such as The Riemann Musiklexikon [1] or Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart [2], nowhere will you find an entry for “Komische Musik.” So you may start to think this Butzmann describes something that does not exist. Here is a sign of something being “comish” or “not comish”: you laugh or are very close to laughing—this means something’s comish! Or: you don’t laugh—this means something Fig. 1. This man is playing a guitar. He’s a musician. What’s funny here? You can find the answer at: http://www.friederbutzmann. de/comish.html . (Photo © Rainer Butzmann) D is not comish! At least, it is comish or not comish for you. An example of something that is not comish for you: you arrange to play the Moonlight Sonata at night beneath the ABSTRACT moonlight on a Hawaiian beach, you fix the date, the audience arhe author reflects on the rives . . . and there is a lunar eclipse. uneasy relations among pleaYou cannot see the moon—all are sure, humor and music by way laughing but are unhappy and you of a German word meaning both “strange” and “funny.” Such do not laugh! music arises out of mutation But nothing in the world is from the sounds that their comish by birth. Things become creators attempt to get “right.” comish through adverse circumstances, accidents, wrong tones on the right note of a tune, obstacles on the way to the grand piano and so on. First, there must be something, which might be great, admirable and not comish at all. You may change one feature of a sound or a music and this changes the character of the whole totally. Bach’s famous Toccata in D Major for organ sung by a bunch of dogs loses its smell of eternity. Nobody comes knocking on the door when Beethoven’s Fifth is played on a mistuned honky-tonk piano. So—for me—the “comish sounds” are mutants of “right sounds.” I love them. These mutants have ancestors and parents. Becoming “comish” is a musical transformation from “right sound” to “wrong sound.” But what is a wrong sound? Something that was right before. But what is a right sound? What does a wrong tone sound like? You know what: I will stop writing my article here, because there is a German proverb: Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn, which means “long speech, short sense.” You may find examples of all I wrote and answers to questions you never before conceived of but that may arise after reading this article at this very simple address: http://www.friederbutzmann.de/comish.html . T References 1. Hugo Riemann, The Riemann Musiklexikon (Mainz: Carl Dahlhaus, 1972). 2. Friedrich Blume, ed., Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Enzyklopädie der Musik in 17 Bänden (Kassel, 1989). Frieder Butzmann, now of Berlin, collects sounds, music and anything about sounds and music. Then he transposes, cuts or stretches these sounds and music and creates songs, film music, radio plays and whole operas. Frieder Butzmann (composer, musician), Yorckstr. 81, D-10965 Berlin, Germany. E-mail: comish@friederbutzmann.de . © 2002 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 12, p. 41, 2002 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Leonardo Music Journal MIT Press

That's Comish Music! Mutant Sounds

Leonardo Music Journal , Volume December 2002 (12) – Dec 1, 2002

Loading next page...
 
/lp/mit-press/that-s-comish-music-mutant-sounds-dZeqCtfiFK

References (1)

Publisher
MIT Press
Copyright
© 2002 ISAST
ISSN
0961-1215
eISSN
1531-4812
DOI
10.1162/096112102762295124
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

LMJ12_02body_003-102 12/10/02 8:42 AM Page 41 That’s Comish Music! Mutant Sounds Frieder Butzmann on’t look in any dictionary for “comish.” It’s my idiolectic verbal bastard derived from the German word komisch. This essay’s German title would be “Das ist Komische Musik!” And here the trouble begins. A German native speaker, if asked, could not tell you what “komisch” means, only that it means “strange” and it means “funny,” but that it does not mean exactly one or the other, but both at the same time. If you look in a German music dictionary such as The Riemann Musiklexikon [1] or Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart [2], nowhere will you find an entry for “Komische Musik.” So you may start to think this Butzmann describes something that does not exist. Here is a sign of something being “comish” or “not comish”: you laugh or are very close to laughing—this means something’s comish! Or: you don’t laugh—this means something Fig. 1. This man is playing a guitar. He’s a musician. What’s funny here? You can find the answer at: http://www.friederbutzmann. de/comish.html . (Photo © Rainer Butzmann) D is not comish! At least, it is comish or not comish for you. An example of something that is not comish for you: you arrange to play the Moonlight Sonata at night beneath the ABSTRACT moonlight on a Hawaiian beach, you fix the date, the audience arhe author reflects on the rives . . . and there is a lunar eclipse. uneasy relations among pleaYou cannot see the moon—all are sure, humor and music by way laughing but are unhappy and you of a German word meaning both “strange” and “funny.” Such do not laugh! music arises out of mutation But nothing in the world is from the sounds that their comish by birth. Things become creators attempt to get “right.” comish through adverse circumstances, accidents, wrong tones on the right note of a tune, obstacles on the way to the grand piano and so on. First, there must be something, which might be great, admirable and not comish at all. You may change one feature of a sound or a music and this changes the character of the whole totally. Bach’s famous Toccata in D Major for organ sung by a bunch of dogs loses its smell of eternity. Nobody comes knocking on the door when Beethoven’s Fifth is played on a mistuned honky-tonk piano. So—for me—the “comish sounds” are mutants of “right sounds.” I love them. These mutants have ancestors and parents. Becoming “comish” is a musical transformation from “right sound” to “wrong sound.” But what is a wrong sound? Something that was right before. But what is a right sound? What does a wrong tone sound like? You know what: I will stop writing my article here, because there is a German proverb: Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn, which means “long speech, short sense.” You may find examples of all I wrote and answers to questions you never before conceived of but that may arise after reading this article at this very simple address: http://www.friederbutzmann.de/comish.html . T References 1. Hugo Riemann, The Riemann Musiklexikon (Mainz: Carl Dahlhaus, 1972). 2. Friedrich Blume, ed., Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Enzyklopädie der Musik in 17 Bänden (Kassel, 1989). Frieder Butzmann, now of Berlin, collects sounds, music and anything about sounds and music. Then he transposes, cuts or stretches these sounds and music and creates songs, film music, radio plays and whole operas. Frieder Butzmann (composer, musician), Yorckstr. 81, D-10965 Berlin, Germany. E-mail: comish@friederbutzmann.de . © 2002 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 12, p. 41, 2002

Journal

Leonardo Music JournalMIT Press

Published: Dec 1, 2002

There are no references for this article.