A short clip to make you laugh!

[Uncle Al]

When this link opens, click on the 'play' arrow
A Cat, A Dog & a tub of water

Uncle Al

[Kirbstone]

Sorry, Uncle Al, When I press the 'play' arrow the screen goes white and I get sound only.

T.

[Uncle Al]

Looks like the video has been pulled

Uncle Al

[thesmithie]

Its still up! cat and dog hilarity.

[Big and Bashful]

For all you ticklers of ivory keys, some classic English comedic plunkings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... MOrsWxh5mg

[Uncle Al]

Takes quite a bit of training and practice to play a song correctly,
then turn around a play it "Off-Key" on purpose.

Funny

Uncle Al

[Big and Bashful]

Takes quite a bit of training and practice to play a song correctly,
then turn around a play it "Off-Key" on purpose.

Funny

Uncle Al

Les Dawson was a legend of comedy piano, comedy everything else as well! Sorely missed when he went.

[Sinned]

Legend has it that his off-key playing came about by accident when he was dying in front of a difficult audience and he started the off-key playing in desperation and the audience laughed. I am not a keyboard player and have been told that after years of playing properly deliberately playing "the right notes in the wrong order" is not easy. Very, gifted comedian and a member of a great class of comedians ( along with Ken Dodd, Tommy Cooper and many others ) and apparently a nice guy too. Still, he was subject to the self-doubts and depressions of his performance group.

[Uncle Al]

Another great comedic pianist was Victor Borge.
He had multitudes of people laughing, to the point of crying, with
his antics at the piano.
Then he had his serious side.

Enjoy

Uncle Al

[Big and Bashful]

I remember Victor Borge from when I was a little person! I remember finding him really funny as well, I vaguely remember his musical punctuation.

Now I have watched those clips, he really was a talent, funny and also a beautiful version on Clair De Lune. (A piece of music I had forgotten about, it was a favourite of my Mothers.)

[Big and Bashful]

He's good!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehumz0ugOoA

[Big and Bashful]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctaszjeaDK0

There's more!

[Big and Bashful]

And then:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOQP3czk6nY

[Kirbstone]

I too adore the piano legacy left by Victor Borge. It was certainly worth sitting through his Tom-foolery to (eventually) hear him actually play!
His interpretation of Claire-de-Lune is particularly lovely and the subtle backing of the strings adds considerably to the listening pleasure.
I grapple with Claude (Debussy) as one of my 'mentors' on the keyboard. As I trained myself in my early years to deliver medleys as live background music in a restaurant, one Debussy sequence which fitted was (and still is) Claire de Lune, followed by 'the girl with the flaxen hair', followed by 'Arabesque Nr.1'. The two former are in D flat, which is also C sharp, the very first note of the Arabesque in E major, so these three flow into each other without having to play chords for key changes in between. As it happens I have the music to all three on my piano music stand right now, as I have been brushing them up for an event shortly.

To my delight only quite recently I unearthed a vinyl of Victor & his phonetic punctuation &c., and found that the last track on that LP is his interpretation of Leopold Godofski's arrangement of Albeniz's 'Tango'. I had spent some time memorising that delightful Spanish piece, having tracked the music for it down in Heilbronn in Germany. Borge just adds a repeat of the last verse with a delicious finishing flourish which I have taken on board and works well.

T.

[Damian]

hahaha hilarious!