The Aesthetic Value of Parodies

From wikipedia, A parody (pronounced /ˈpærədi/; also called send-up, spoof or lampoon), in contemporary usage, is a work created to mock, comment on, or make fun at an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation.

There are parodies too in music. It’s easy. Pick a song you like, change the lyrics and the music a bit. Make it sound super funny and cheesy for whatever that you’re accomplishing. How artistic is that? For the sake of entertainment? For the advancement of your musical career? Okay, it’s time to sit down and grasp the whole ideology for a second.

People do parodies for a variety of reasons and mostly for entertainment. You know, all the fun stuff, make you yourself laugh, make other people laugh and make fun of the original work and authors. Sorry if you find sarcasm in that, to me parodies can’t never be aesthetically challenging or intellectual as the original especially in the comedic approach. One would really really have to try hard to impress or make me laugh with a parody for most of the time. I think it’s primarily the idea of using an existing work as a parody that bothers me somehow. Why can’t it be original and funny? Why must it originate or based from something else?

When I was first introduced to parodies, I kept thinking on why the person did not do something original in the first place. I began to ponder if parody stems from the combination of parrot and comedy. That would’ve been so unfortunate for a person to go down the level of an animal being, for the sake of comedy. It really sound that degrading you know. It’s degrading for real musician with potential, in the sense that it would make me believe at some point that these performers have limited abilities. They can only mock people but not be original. Sad. It forces me to believe that musical parodies are for people with very limited or possibly no music appreciation at all.

To enjoy a parody, I would have to try not to think of anything and just laugh or pretend laughing to go with the flow. Yes it can be insane, but the thought of doing it is funny by itself, that I am particularly laughing at myself but not the parody.

In a different point of view, I strongly agree that it bogs down to the chemistry of the performer and the audience. If you can relate yourself, everything in the world is and would be funny given any possible circumstances. Other than that, it’s a hack and slash effort for the parody performer to foster this chemistry.

Benefiting from Music Appreciation

Music appreciation is an educational perspective that teaches people to understand, to reason and to appreciate different genres of music through listening and participated discussions. In often educates a listener to have an idea of what to look for when listening to music.

Music appreciation has being taught in various educational levels, from as early as kindergarten level to advanced professor’s degree. In its most educational context, music appreciation is taught so that students will be able to recognize and understand different genres and aspects of music. Students are also exposed to the basic elements of music, major forms of music as well as stylistic periods. These studies would form an intelligent approach in the appreciation and understanding of music.

How can you benefit from music appreciation? Even if you’re not a musician, you can benefit from a music appreciation course for the reasons of

• General knowledge – it is always good to know for the knowledge to know more in depth about music.
• Professional careers – even if you’re not a musician, you can use the musical knowledge you gain to help you with your career such as journalists or a producer for a television production for instance.
• Better well-being – it would be beneficial for your well-being to know what music that would help you to express your emotions well and to know what music would be to help with health-related problems such as insomnia.

Music itself is an essential part of any given culture in the world we live in. Music appreciation courses can often be tailored to non-musician as well as music students. For the music major students music appreciation is gained through various aspects of music such as compositions, performing and critical listening. Music appreciation is designed in a way to have students to look at music in all of its forms.

From the historical aspect, music appreciation teaches you the history of music in order to understand why do certain types of music are favorable in a given period or era. This is just like to why you like your type of music at this very millennium age. To add, through music appreciation you would be able to examine the lives and musical works of musicians and how those have affected them and the world’s history in their respective era.

In a nutshell, to be knowledgeable in various aspects of music proves to be beneficial for everyone who has undergone music appreciation course or self research. Without it, what you know would only be limited to a certain degree and thus reflect your knowledge about music.