ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with satirizing techniques. The distortion can primarily affect its structure, that is the proportions among its components and their essence, and/or one or more of its components, which will be satirized by their exaggeration. Structural distortion can be achieved by three main devices: the removal of an essential component from the satirized object; the insertion of a new component, and the replacement of one or more of the object's characteristic components. The removal of an essential component from an object, while keeping all its other components in place, satirizes the tendency to overlook priorities and the inability to separate the wheat from the chaff. Musical applications of this technique highlight music's more redundant components, like conventional accompaniment figures and/or repetitive clichés, which tend to be perceived as background material. Primitivism, simple-mindedness and banality are always condemned and satirized in Dmitri Shostakovich's works.
