Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings.

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).

Humour in Western Art Music and in Music

Education: Literature Review and Research

Findings

Long Abstract

Most people tend to regard Western classical music as a deeply

serious matter, with its formally-clothed audience in large

concert halls with velvet seats. While no one doubts the capacity

of music to move us to sighs, or to tears, there are quite a few

who would deny that music can make us laugh. Nevertheless, there

are works in which the composer's humorous disposition is clear.

The question is to what extent an uninitiated listener can

perceive and understand this humorous element in music, that is,

how far this kind of humour is accessible to the majority of

people. Moreover, how have composers incorporated humor into

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).their works and how does musical humor affect children's

willingness to listen to music? How does musical humor

influence children's attitudes and activities?

This paper reports an attempt to answer the above questions while

looking at the abilities of pre-school children to identify and

interpret humour in Western classical music, and to express

themselves on this subject, verbally, vocally and kinetically.

The study was carried out during April and May 2011. The research

sample consisted of 25 children of pre-school age, 4 to 6 years

old, attending a state pre-school in a suburban area in Northern

Greece. The researcher conducted 5 weekly interviews with the

children, presenting 5 pieces of music for listening and asking

the children to express their impressions verbally, with an

emphasis on the humorous dimension of the music. Specifically,

the children were asked to respond to two questions: “Is this

music funny?” and “Why?”. When the first question was answered

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).negatively, explanatory information was provided on the extra-

musical context of the composition. There followed a second

listening before the questions were put again. At this stage most

learners were able to respond in ways that showed that they

discerned the humour in the music.

The results of this study suggest that: pre-school pupils are

able to notice humour in music, if only within a given frame of

reference: musical humour provided pupils with extrinsic

motivation to seek a closer relation with a musical work:

previous knowledge and experience have a complementary function,

facilitating the perception of humour in music.

This study may be regarded as a pilot, preliminary to the

construction of a research project with a larger sample of

children, which will provide more definitive findings of greater

validity.


Short Abstract

Humour and laughter are primarily social vocalizations that bind

people together, a hidden language that we can all speak. They

are both a learned reaction and an instinctive behavior

programmed by our genes. The finest moments in life, those we

always recall with pleasure and excitement, are moments of

laughter, those when humour plays the leading role.

By the same token, music too has a special strength; its nature

and importance are, as Reimer puts it, self-evident. Laughing and

listening to music are things that every human takes pleasure in

doing; they are both therapeutic and good for the mind-brain.

But how have composers incorporated humour into their works and

how does musical humour affect children's willingness to listen

to music? How does musical humour influence children's attitudes

and activities?


This study represents an attempt to answer the above questions by

looking at the capacity of pre-school children to identify and

interpret humour in Western classical music and to express

themselves on this subject, verbally, vocally and kinetically.

Keywordspre-school music education, western-art music, humor, musical

humor


Humour in Western Art Music and in Music

Education: Literature Review and Research

Findings

On Humour and Laughter

Since the time of Aristotle, philosophers and scholars have tried

to understand and explain the origins and the functions of humour

and laughter. In the literature, three theories on humour and

laughter show up repeatedly: relief theory, superiority theory

and incongruity theory (Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2004). From the

perspective of relief theory, people laugh because they need to

reduce physiological tension from time to time. According to

superiority theory, people laugh because they feel some kind of

triumph over others or feel superior to them. In incongruity

theory, people laugh at things that are unexpected or surprising

(McGhee, 1979; Meyer, 2000). In the 3WD model, a model of humour

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).in three dimensions which was created in the early 1990s, humour

must be examined as regards its structure, content, and response.

A joke or other humorous thing can be put to the 3WD test to see

what kind of humour it really is, and whether or not it is even

funny (Martin, 2007).

McGhee (1979) focuses on the combination of cognitive processes

with mood alterations in the perception of humour, defining this

as an experience that is both cognitive and emotional. He notes

that it requires a high level of perception both of the stimulus

and of the incongruent information. It is also claimed that a

cheerful mood is an essential precondition for the perception of

humour. According to Abraham Maslow (1968) humour is a supreme

manifestation of the human spirit, a peak experience, a way of

bringing delight to the heart; it is not driven by other needs

but is linked to the disposition to play.

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).Humor in Music and Music Education

Humour in music is closely linked to its parodic or comic

elements. In the first case, parody is used by composers chiefly

to distance themselves from past generations, as well as from

their more conservative contemporaries. This kind of humour is

comprehensible only by initiates of the field, those who are in a

position to appreciate its wit and shrewdness. The second case,

the comic, has to do with composers who deploy the unexpected and

the exaggerated, who impose twists and distortions, in order to

give their work a comic character.

A common argument against the existence of musical humor is that

in most instances which provoke smiles or laughter, this does not

appear to lie in the musical sounds themselves but in the

associated ideas, that is in extra-musical factors. Lister (1994)

questioned how the listeners hear and interpret music as humorous

and discussed two kinds of humour: absolute humour, that is, that

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).which lies within the musical material itself, and referential

humour, that is, when it is the extra-musical connotations and

associations which let the music perceived as humorous.

It is a fact that several western composers have implied by the

titles they gave to their works that music can express humour

(Mull, 1949). Alfred Brendel, in1976, remarked that in some cases

music can be comical without verbal support, while making it

clear that the possible formal peculiarities of a piece do not

constitute evidence of its comic nature. One must take into

account the listener's background knowledge. Brendel claims that

if the clearly musical oddities and inconsequentialities of a

piece are to be perceived as amusing by a listener, this depends

on the psychological mood of the piece as well as on the

listener's disposition.

Humour as such appears officially neither among the aims of

education nor in the details of curricula, perhaps because it is

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).thought that it may cause unwelcome diversions from the steady

routine of teaching-learning, as curriculum designers equate

humour with silliness and importunity (Glasser, 1998). As for

music education in particular, we studied the aims and content of

20 music curricula, from Europe and America, and found that not

one of them made any reference to the perception of humour in

music. By the same token, few are the studies that focus on

humour in music; fewer still are those that concern themselves

with the pre-school age group.

Helen Mull (1949) played three recordings to female college

students (Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Strauss's Staendchen

and Rameau's La poule) and asked them to make a judgement as to

which of three compositions was the most humorous, regardless of

any knowledge of the composition's title. Mull noticed that the

subjects indicated as more humorous the passages that could be

characterized in terms of the degree of contrast in timbre,

intensity, pitch, rhythm and complexity and wrote that subjects

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).gave most reports of humour to Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel.

David Huron (1992) examined live recordings of Peter Schickele's

music and identified 629 instances of audience laughter. Each of

the laughter-evoking moments was analyzed to determine possible

reasons why listeners might have laughed. Huron noted that the

musical devices used by Schickele involve violations of

expectation. He concluded that in Schickele's music all of the

laughter-evoking events can be plausibly linked to a violation of

listener expectations. Most of these violations involve schematic

expectations.

LeBlanc, Sims, Malin, and Sherrill (1992) studied the

relationship between humour perceived in music and the self-

reported levels of preference for music, with subjects

representing four different age levels (Grades 3, 7, 11 and

college undergraduates). The researchers conclude, among other

findings, that perception of musical humour is largely a

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).function of age, and that higher levels of perceived humour were

significantly associated with higher levels of preference.

Randall Moore and David Johnson (2001) studied the effects of

music experience on perception of humour in western-art music.

Following two marked examples of the task, 202 university

students –106 music and 96 non-music majors at a state

university– rated 14 excerpts on two seven-point Likert scales,

non-humour/humour and dislike/like. Results indicated that there

was a general agreement among subjects as to what was considered

a humorous composition and what was not. Music majors showed

significantly stronger perceptions of humour in music than non-

majors did on 43% of the excerpts.

On the basis of the above observations and research findings, we

designed the present study.

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).Research on humor perception by kindergarten children:

methodology and findings

We know that children in early childhood usually appreciate

simple forms of humor. They have a strong preference for visual

and physical humor (e.g., grimaces, visual surprises, clownish

behavior) and they also laugh at other simple forms of humor such

as unusual voices and sounds (McGhee, 1971, 1979; Shultz, 1996;

Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2004). Still, can pre-school pupils

appreciate humour in music? And, if so, how do they perceive and

interpret music as humorous? Does the understanding of musical

humour depend on prior experience?

These were the initial questions that informed the design of this

study. The research sample was 25 children of pre-school age, 4

to 6 years old, who were attending a state pre-school in a

suburban area in Northern Greece. All the children were taking

part in a seven-month programme of music education, with three

40-minute lessons per week.


The study was carried out during April and May 2011. The

researcher conducted five weekly interview sessions with the

pupils, presenting five pieces of music for listening and asking

the children to express their impressions verbally, with an

emphasis on the humorous dimensions of the pieces. Specifically,

the pupils were asked two questions: “Is this music funny?” and

“Why?”. When the first question was answered negatively,

explanatory information was provided on the extra-musical context

of the composition. There followed a second listening before the

questions were put again. At this stage most pupils were able to

respond in ways that showed that they discerned the humour in the

music. Finally, with a third listening we returned to the music

itself and discussed the elements of structure and expression

that have to do with humour, that is, we sought the pupils'

personal interpretations, as far as they were able to express

them.

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).The pieces or passages presented for listening were: the opening

of the first movement of Kodaly's Háry János suite; the first

movement of Eine Kleine Nichtsmusik by P.D.Q.Bach (Peter Schickele)

(The pupils were already familiar with W.A.Mozart's Eine Kleine

Nachtmusik.); People With Long Ears from Camille Saint-Saëns's Carnival of

the Animals; the first part of Richard Strauss's Till Eugenspiel's Merry

Pranks; the third movement of Bizet's Jeux d'enfants (The Spinning Top)

On first listening to Peter Schickele's Eine Kleine Nichtsmusik, pupils

recognized the differences between Mozart's original and

Schickele's parody, paying particular attention to the latter's

use of a motif from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. However, on a

first listening the pupil's did not consider the Nichtsmusik to be

funny, but asked the researcher why the music was different. When

they had received the reply, “So that the composer can make us

laugh and feel happy”, they listened again and this time laughed

spontaneously at most of the elements of parody.

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).The Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodály opens the first movement of

his Háry János suite with a loud “sneeze” produced by the whole

orchestra. The children did not find this music funny. When the

researcher asked them what the opening of the work sounded like,

giving as possible answers laughter, sobbing, sneezing and

hiccoughs, pupils effortlessly chose the sneeze, and asked to

listen to the piece again. The second listening was accompanied

by laughter and vocal mimicry.

Pupils showed a similar reaction to Camille Saint-Saëns's People

With Long Ears. At first they gave negative answers to the question,

“Is this music funny?”, while when, thanks to the educative

method, they realized that the composer was putting across an

animal noise, some children began spontaneously to mimic it while

others laughed, though reservedly.

From Till Eugenspiel's Merry Pranks we listened to the theme “once upon a

time”, Till's theme on the French horn, the clarinet theme that

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).indicates Till's laughter when he is preparing a prank, and

Till's horse-ride through a market. The pupils did not at first

find this music humorous. There followed a brief narration of the

story, focussing on Till's character. The pupils showed increased

interest during the second listening but did not laugh at any

point – neither had they laughed during the narration. They just

asked to hear the rest of the work, particularly the end, when

Till is hanged. That is, they were more focused on the dramatic

nature both of the story and of the music.

As for The Spinning Top from Bizet's Jeux d'enfants, during the first

listening the pupils showed a clear disposition to physical

movement. They did not find the music funny until they had

learned that it presents a spinning top. They asked, of their own

accord, that they might express themselves in movement, and

laughed when “the top stops spinning” and “we wind the string” in

order to set it spinning anew.

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).The pupils, then, did not react with laughter to any of the

pieces on a first listening. Nevertheless, after hearing

explanatory information they showed perception of the humour in

the music, laughed spontaneously and even at such length as to

prevent them from following the development of the work. The

title of a work was one of two basic factors leading to

perception of high spirits in music. The other factor was the

content of the narration. It is notable that the pupils asked to

listen to the music again whenever they could. In some such

cases, their laughter was even louder and mostly infectious.

No gender or age-related differences in reactions were noted, but

the sample was small and we cannot consider this as being in any

way a definitive finding.

Discussion

The conclusions which may be drawn from observation of the

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).children's reactions and behaviour and from the post-listening

conversations are as follows:

(1) Laughter is not a spontaneous response to music:

searching for and discovering the humorous dimension in

music has to do with searching for and discovering analogies

in real life.

(2) The perception of humour or its implications in music

requires additional cognitive stimuli.

(3) Young pupils are able to appreciate humour in music,

which demonstrates their ability to use metaphor and

comparison in order to proceed to symbolic interpretations.

(4) A humorous element provides motivation for a closer

relation with a work of music.

(5) Existing knowledge and previous experience have a

supplementary function, facilitating the perception of

musical humour.

As general observations we may set down: a) the pupils' increased

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).interest in the works and their general demand to listen to them

again: b) their spontaneous reactions in the form of kinetic and

theatrical expressiveness, inspired by listening to the music.

In general terms, humour functions as a factor that increases

pupils' interest and plays a role in the formation of their

musical preferences. Therefore we can argue, as did Walton

(1993), that there is analogy between understanding humour and

understanding music for the purpose of musical analysis; both

deepen the understanding of a musical piece and enrich the

experience of the listener.

The findings of our research showed that children aged 4 to 6 can

be aware of musical humor, though within a referential context.

In addition, it seems that a close relation exists between a

sense of humour in music and the amount of musical training.

These findings are consistent with results from previous research

(Mull, 1949; Walton, 1993; Lister, 1994).


To conclude, to achieve appreciation of humour in music requires

a frame of reference, through an intervention in the listening

process that enriches listening with relevant information of an

intellectual or cognitive nature. This contrasts with Brendel's

(1976) view, which rejects informational background as a factor

in the perception of humour in music. Rather, the results of the

present study tend to confirm the position taken by Stuss, Gallup

and Alexander (2001), who regard humour as a metacognitive

function. Many of the children's reactions to the music they

heard reflect an ability to think relationally, metaphorically

and metacognitively. Thus, the results of this study contradict

the view that children up to 10 or 12 years of age cannot think

metaphorically (q.v. Gibbs, 1994). It is clear that music brings

forth metaphoric expression, which may include images, emotions

and metaphor. Further, the children's verbal responses to the

experience of listening to humour in music revealed the way in

which they perceived and processed both the musical stimulus and

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).the additional information (q.v. Rodriguez & Webster, 1997).

Finally, we should note that we observed that activities using

humorous music had a generally positive effect on the general

atmosphere in class. As we know, when learning takes place in an

attractive and happy ambiance, this has a positive effect on

learners' development in all sectors, social-emotional,

cognitive, moral (Cohen, 2006; Zins et al, 2004; Glasser, 1998;

Fontana, 1996), so we can claim beneficial effects for “musical

humour activities” from a wider standpoint.

Musical humour is an important tool that music educators can use

in order to achieve educational goals. Music teachers should

therefore encourage young listeners to appreciate humour in

music. This may also have a complementary function in increasing

students' interest in music, motivating them to enjoy music by

listening to it more than once.

Kokkidou, M. (2012). Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings. Στο W. Sims (eds.) Proceedings – Music Paedeia: From Ancient Greek Philosophers Toward Global Music Communities CDRom: International Society for Music Education (ISBN: 978-0-9873511-0-4 2012).References

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Humor in Western Art Music and in Music Education: Literature Review and Research Findings.

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