Tag: comedy

Nicholas Ma | How Do You (Not) Write a Fugue?

“Nicholas Ma (b. 2001) is a pianist-composer living in Oakville, Ontario, Canada,” (Charleston International Music Competition). “He is in his third year as an undergraduate at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music and is pursuing a double major in Piano Performance and Composition … Starting piano at the age of 4, Nicholas has also obtained the ATCL Performance Diploma with the highest accolade, Distinction, from Trinity College London. More recently, Nicholas was the recipient of a Gold award from the 2021 Grand Maestro International Music Competition.”

When he’s not writing assignments for Counterpoint classes, Ma is working on his piano studies (see his interpretation of Sonetto 104 Del Petrarca, by Franz Liszt, below). Ma’s fugue, “How Do You (Not) Write a Fugue” (2023) traverses various keys of the moment, but one particularly clear modulation is actually announced in the lyrics. We won’t spoil the surprise with a timestamp! From Ma’s notes in the Youtube video description:

“In my first semester of tonal counterpoint class, our final assignment was to write a 4-voice fugue… so I said YOLO and wrote this meme fugue as the final assignment – with the lyrics being my revision notes from class haha. Huge shoutout to Prof. Nicole Biamonte for accepting this fugue as a valid assignment and not instantly dunking on my grades, especially with the “intentional parallel fifths” section. I later gathered four singers (with me playing the piano part) and played through this … It was incredible – the singers learnt and sung this fugue at this level with only two hours of rehearsal! I also have to shoutout my two inspirations for this fugue: the first being my favorite fugue to this day, Glenn Gould’s parodistic ‘So You Want to Write a Fugue?’ and Freddy Wickham’s self-explanatory ‘Ontological Fugue.’

I decided to go in the direction of these two pieces, but take a step further by adding theatrics, intentional “counterpoint error” sections, and slipping in familiar quotations (Art of Fugue, Double Violin Concerto, Christmas tunes). The piece can be summarized in three sections – The exposition (which introduces basic fugal techniques), the middle/”development” (where errors/fugal parodies are gradually introduced in a tongue-in-cheek manner), and the “recapitulation” (where the singers break the 4th wall, address the listener, and question the philosophy of compositional aesthetics and rules… yep it gets pretty off-the-rails haha).

Overall, I wanted a piece that could be appreciated by all levels – those that do not have much familiarity with fugal writing will gain something from it, and those that are experts in fugues will enjoy the humorous parodistic subversion of counterpoint expectations. (And of course the main reason, I needed to write a fugue for a tonal counterpoint class assignment).”

Randy Rainbow | Speaker of the House

Given the chaos surrounding the election of a new Speaker, today we feature Randy Rainbow’s parody of “Master of the House” from the musical Les Miserables, released earlier this year.

The track begins in Ab minor and shifts to Ab major at 1:35. A quote of “Castle on a Cloud,” also from Les Mis, appears at 2:20 in A minor. After briefly reverting back to Ab minor at 2:32, there is a return to A at 2:42, and a final modulation up to Bb major at 3:20.

Maybe It’s My Turn Now (from “Schmigadoon!”)

“Maybe It’s My Turn Now” is featured in the fifth episode of the second season of the Apple TV+ series Schmigadoon!, which aired this summer.

The musical comedy series blends satire of and homage to the musical theater catalog, with this season focusing on the Post-Golden Age musicals of the 1960s-1980s.

Written by Cinco Paul and performed by Cecily Strong, this track is a pastiche of the Kander and Ebb anthem “Maybe This Time,” written for the movie adaptation of their 1966 Broadway musical Cabaret. It begins in G major and modulates up a half step to Ab at 2:03.

Theme from “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”

Paul Ruebens, a one-of-a-kind actor and comedian and creator of the 80s hit television show Pee Wee’s Playhouse, passed away over the weekend. “Pee-wee’s Playhouse debuted in September of 1986 and ran five seasons and 45 episodes,” (80sXChange.com). “It aired on Saturday mornings on CBS as one of the few live-action shows among mostly cartoons. (It featured) the iconic Pee Wee Herman character alongside all of his friends and neighbors. Pee-Wee’s Playhouse was designed as an educational yet entertaining and artistic show for children, but the show quickly acquired a dual audience of kids and adults.

… One of the musicians who provided music for the show was Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo who most remember for their biggest hit “Whip It”. Since Devo, Mothersbaugh has developed a successful career writing musical scores for film and television and that really started after he worked on Pee-wee’s Playhouse. In film, he went on to work frequently with filmmaker Wes Anderson, scoring four of his feature films … Mothersbaugh was tasked with writing the opening theme song for Pee-wee’s Playhouse … (the theme) introduces us to most of the other characters and really sets the tone for the fun, colorful show … The opening prelude theme is an interpretation of Les Baxter’s ‘Quiet Village’. The Pee-wee’s Playhouse theme song was actually performed by Cyndi Lauper imitating Betty Boop” with a side order of Edith Bunker. Lauper was credited as Ellen Shaw.

The frenetic theme bounces along, following a classic (if sped up) songwriting template during its 90-second length. After a few verses, a bridge unfurls at 0:43, leading into a half-step key change at 1:06 for the final verse and ending tag.

The Supremes | The Happening

“If the Beach Boys’ ‘Good Vibrations‘ was a ‘pocket symphony,’ as it was so masterfully marketed, then the Supremes’ classic singles were pocket melodramas,” (Stereogum). “Those songs were heavily and fascinatingly orchestrated in their own ways, but the arrangements, nimble and groundbreaking as they might’ve been, were there to serve the stories. The Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team found simple, direct ways to write about complicated feelings — heartbreak, elation, faint embers of hope. And Diana Ross sang those songs with poise and sensitivity, maintaining her composure even as she subtly hinted at huge and overwhelming feelings.

For years, the Supremes were an absolute machine. They cranked these songs out with a terrifying efficiency, and almost all of them hit their marks. And maybe that’s why ‘The Happening’ stands out in the group’s catalog. It’s a rare miss, a song that deviates from the plan and goes all the way awry. It’s the moment where everything falls apart … ‘The Happening’ sounds like exactly what it is: a cynical tie-in with a bad movie. But it doesn’t sound like a Supremes song — even though, in some literal sense of the term, it’s the last Supremes song.” Nonetheless, the track hit #1 in 1967, if only for one week!

The tune modulates up a half-step while trying its darnedest to be a light-hearted and goofy part of its “crime/comedy” genre.

Randy Rainbow | Grumpy Trumpy Felon from Jamaica in Queens

MotD favorite Randy Rainbow released his latest song parody yesterday, riffing on the 1941 song “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” written by Don Ray and Hughie Prince and originally recorded by The Andrews Sisters. The tune starts in Bb and modulates up to B at 2:58.

Key + Peele | The Power of Wings

When it comes to comedy duo Key and Peele, “the title comedians are surprisingly good singers,” (Screenrant). The sketches on Comedy Central’s Key & Peele series “ran the gamut from touching on politics or race to skits on famous movies or TV shows. The pair also had some spot-on parodies of music artists, from the hilarious ‘Ray Parker Theme Songs’ – where the Ghostbusters singer reveals a catalog of horrible, unused themes for other movies – to ‘Outkast Reunion,’ where Andre 3000 and Big Boi awkwardly cross paths. Key & Peele remains a treasure trove of great sketches, with the show coming to an end back in 2015. While Keegan-Michael Key has continued to act, Jordan Peele has mostly retired from performing to step behind the camera, reinventing himself as a horror auteur with movies like Get Out.”

Wendell, a nerd and comic book fan of the highest order, is a recurring K+P character. But “Wings” took him to the next level of fantasy: If a Lord of the Rings Fandom Con had a baby with a power metal band, this video might be the result.

Unfortunately, the video’s modest budget is drained very visibly to zero dollars just before the bridge. Thereafter, even the half-step modulation at 1:53 and an “E for Effort” aren’t enough to save Wendell.

Cross That Bridge (from “Schmigadoon!”)

Schmigadoon!, a comedy TV series that premiered on Apple TV+ last month, is a parody of and homage to Golden Age musicals from the 1940s and 50s. “Schmigadoon! is nothing if not corny,” said Vulture TV critic Kathryn VanArendonk in her review. “It is a backstage musical (like Cabaret or Follies, a musical about putting on a show) that’s stuck in the world of integrated musicals, shows like Oklahoma! or Sound of Music, where songs are naturalistic extensions of the narrative’s emotional arc. In other words, it is a show where the only real way to register your feelings about being trapped in the aesthetics and the morality of a Golden Age musical is to burst into song about how weird and frustrating it all is. And really, what could be cornier than eventually giving in and singing about the transformative power of love (and also musicals)?”

“Cross That Bridge” is from the third episode of the show, and takes its inspiration from the Frank Loesser songs “Brotherhood of Man” (from his 1961 musical How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying) and “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ The Boat” (from the 1950 musical Guys & Dolls). The tune features modulations at 1:58 and 2:14.

Brian David Gilbert (2Wins2) | Just One Day

For a guy who’s racked up five-million-plus views on a video entitled “I Read All 337 Books in Skyrim So You Don’t Have To” on the Youtube channel for the popular gaming site Polygon, Brian David Gilbert is orders of magnitude more musical than you’d have any right to expect. But then multiply that sentiment by many, many Polygon videos, combine it with an effortlessly musical one-man sendup of classic late 90s/early 2000s boy band cliches, and <scene>.

Members of the thankfully fictitious sibling boy band 2Winz2 apparently focus on drive-by insults as much as they do on their latest single. The 2021 release “Just One Day” suggests that quartet member Dale’s days in 2W2 might be numbered — and not by his choice. The lyrics are not to be missed.

At 2:30, the much-maligned Dale earnestly dives into the bridge: his moment in the sun has arrived. By 2:43, a key change kicks in — but is rendered almost completely inaudible by thoughtless use of a blender, followed by an intra-band quarrel that shows Dale’s future with the group is in serious question.

Many thanks to first-time contributor Alex D. for this hilarious tune!