Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
Marion Gushee (1989)
Die Musik in Geschichte und GegenwartNotes, 46
LMJ12_02body_003-102 12/10/02 8:42 AM Page 41 Thatâs Comish Music! Mutant Sounds Frieder Butzmann onât look in any dictionary for âcomish.â Itâs my idiolectic verbal bastard derived from the German word komisch. This essayâs German title would be âDas ist Komische Musik!â And here the trouble begins. A German native speaker, if asked, could not tell you what âkomischâ means, only that it means âstrangeâ and it means âfunny,â 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 ï¬nd an entry for âKomische Musik.â So you may start to think this Butzmann describes something that does not exist. Here is a sign of something being âcomishâ or ânot comishâ: you laugh or are very close to laughingâthis means somethingâs comish! Or: you donât laughâthis means something Fig. 1. This man is playing a guitar. Heâs a musician. Whatâs funny here? You can ï¬nd 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 ï¬x the date, the audience arhe author reï¬ects on the rives . . . and there is a lunar eclipse. uneasy relations among pleaYou cannot see the moonâall are sure, humor and music by way laughing but are unhappy and you of a German word meaning both âstrangeâ and âfunny.â 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 âright.â 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. Bachâs 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 Beethovenâs Fifth is played on a mistuned honky-tonk piano. Soâfor meâthe âcomish soundsâ are mutants of âright sounds.â I love them. These mutants have ancestors and parents. Becoming âcomishâ is a musical transformation from âright soundâ to âwrong sound.â 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 âlong speech, short sense.â You may ï¬nd 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, ï¬lm 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
Leonardo Music Journal – MIT Press
Published: Dec 1, 2002
You can share this free article with as many people as you like with the url below! We hope you enjoy this feature!
Read and print from thousands of top scholarly journals.
Already have an account? Log in
Bookmark this article. You can see your Bookmarks on your DeepDyve Library.
To save an article, log in first, or sign up for a DeepDyve account if you don’t already have one.
Copy and paste the desired citation format or use the link below to download a file formatted for EndNote
Access the full text.
Sign up today, get DeepDyve free for 14 days.
All DeepDyve websites use cookies to improve your online experience. They were placed on your computer when you launched this website. You can change your cookie settings through your browser.