"Dare to Drum" - best drumming documentary ever!

[Flint]

I whine all the time about entertainment about being musicians failing completely at representing what it's truly like. Too many misrepresent talent as being the only God given thing necessary for great performers. Others misrepresent what practice is truly like.

Dare to Drum captures what being drummer is like perfectly.

It is on Amazon Prime and I highly recommend it.

 

[Flint]

I didn't realize the entire performance of the piece the documentary was about followed the ending of the documentary. I actually applauded from my seat in my listening room after watching the performance. Wow!

 

[PaulyT]

Cool, I'll check it out!

 

[Randy]

Yes, I will look that up and check it out.

 

[Flint]

Now I am frustrated I cannot find a recording I can own of the performance or any performance of the piece. It was written by Stewart Copeland on commission for the D'Drum percussion ensemble and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Called Gamelan, I can only find the score for sale.

 

[PaulyT]

Wow @Flint thanks for this one, just finished watching it. It was fascinating, I was completely absorbed the entire time. To get the behind-the-scenes look at what went into this in terms of composition, instrumentation, performance, and even logistics and weather, wow. And yes to end with the full performance of the entire work was perfect. What a great show! I can't imagine what most of the "stuffed shirts" who are used to their normal Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky symphonies thought of this, but the audience really did seem appreciative, too.

Great and unique piece of music.


I loved Copeland's quip, (paraphrasing), "Well he [the orchestra conductor] doesn't seem like someone it'd be fun to go out and have a beer with, but he sure can pull these guys together." I can also only vaguely imagine what it must have been like for these guys who do improv together in a mostly unstructured environment to suddenly be placed under a rigorous classical orchestral conductor and the discipline that requires... I love these sorts of things where everyone involved is stretching themselves in musical directions they're not used to.

 

[PaulyT]

Oh crap, it just hit me who the conductor reminds me of!

(No disrespect of course... He's a great musician.)

 

[Randy]

I gotta finish watching this at some point.

 

[mcad64]

Oh crap, it just hit me who the conductor reminds me of!

(No disrespect of course... He's a great musician.)

I think they had a profile of him on 60 Minutes last night. Jaap not Gru.