JeremyP's Blog

I see from comments on a recent post that my nephew's Grandma is criticising me for having a go at the England football manager.

When I was much younger, as a treat, my parents (one of whom is my nephew's grandma) would take me up to the Festival Hall to listen to classical music. In spite of the fact that there wasn't a Marshall amp or a Strat in sight and I had to dress up smart, I quite enjoyed these trips. I got to pretend to be sophisticated at half time with a gin and tonic (sans gin) and nobody would play two hundred year old music if it wasn't any good.

One time, we went for a concert of various bits and pieces including Ravel's Bolero, which I'd never heard before. On the way up, my parents and family friend Alan, who also took me to airshows and taught Martin Bayfield to play rugby, explained how the Bolero is a particularly difficult piece for the snare drummer. apparently, there are three different rythms which have to be played in six different combinations relentlessly throughout the piece, or it might be six rythms in three combinations.

The concert was fantastic as usual and I greatly enjoyed Bolero (little knowing that Torvil and Dean would later turn it into one of those pieces that makes you want to kill things because you've heard it too much). I can only describe myself as shocked when everybody else in the car (including Grandma) ripped it to shreds purely because the snare drummer lost his place. It seems I was the only person in the Festival Hall who went there to listen to the music. Everybody else was there to see a snare drummer either perform brilliantly or screw up royally. It has to be said that the Bolero wouldn't really sound any different if the drummer played the same rythm for each and every bar and it probably hasn't occurred to most readers that he/she doesn't play the same rythm for every bar.

Anyway, the point is I've never ever seen my nephew's Grandma step up to the plate and take the snare drum part of Bolero.