# Scherzo, how do I put the joke into the music?



## caters

This is my first phrase in my scherzo. The eighth notes in the right hand and the focus on Bb at first, making it sound like it is in Bb major instead of F major, despite the E naturals makes the right hand, I think sound like a true scherzo, at least until the cadence lands on F. The left hand however, I think diminishes the scherzo quality because it is a simple quarter note bass line until the cadence is reached and there are 2 dotted quarters.

I am writing this scherzo as an isolated scherzo as you can probably tell from the title in the image being Scherzo in F. So how do I put the joke into the music? If you can't tell already, I kind of going with a Haydnesque approach to this scherzo, in other words, really making it sound like a joke instead of one of Beethoven's more serious sounding scherzos.

I mean, just listen to this Haydn Scherzo:





and compare it to this Beethoven Scherzo of similar length:





The Beethoven scherzo, even though this is from one of his early works, sounds much more serious with both the parallel and relative minors appearing. Neither of these appear in the Haydn scherzo, the Haydn scherzo is exclusively major with no appearance of the minor as a key. My scherzo so far is similar to the Haydn scherzo in personality(doesn't sound too serious, unlike the Beethoven scherzo).

But how do I put the joke into the music as I write the scherzo? I don't really have a sense of humor so that wouldn't help. Would I like do everything to make you expect an F major harmony to come next but instead have D minor harmony appear or what?


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## david johnson

Think of it more as a style than a literal 'joke'. Maybe put accents on the third beats of your first two measures.


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