This is a hilarious film about the role of the snare drummer in Ravel's Bolero- in 8 minutes (shorter than the actual piece, which runs closer to 14 minutes) we see the range of the part as it is required to be performed. There is an insistent quality to this work, brought about by the repetitive snare drum part which is shared with the rest of the orchestra in different places. In addition to this the entire piece continues to get louder on each repetition of the main melody.
For any one playing the snare drum part it is a balancing act between maintaining the pattern, creating the continuous crescendo and not losing where you are. Having been called upon to play this in an audition over 20 years ago (they only wanted 4 repeats of the pattern and a small crescendo), I can tell you that it takes a lot of concentration to play even that - the entire piece is a tour-de-force.
To me the point of this film is to show us just how hard yet deceptively simple this piece is - playing the same four bars (about 4 seconds) about 120 times with each repetition slightly louder than the last.
For any one playing the snare drum part it is a balancing act between maintaining the pattern, creating the continuous crescendo and not losing where you are. Having been called upon to play this in an audition over 20 years ago (they only wanted 4 repeats of the pattern and a small crescendo), I can tell you that it takes a lot of concentration to play even that - the entire piece is a tour-de-force.
To me the point of this film is to show us just how hard yet deceptively simple this piece is - playing the same four bars (about 4 seconds) about 120 times with each repetition slightly louder than the last.