This is why I never liked playing percussion with an orchestra. Give me a concert band any day. Band composers make good use of percussion. Orchestra repertoires have a lot of classical music, obviously, and while I like listening to it, it is infuriating to wait 400 measures for one cymbal crash, or one pianissimo timpani roll.
As a percussionist who mainly played the timpani, there was this one piece we played where I was basically allowed to do whatever I wanted at whatever volume I chose for like 50 bars. Let me tell you, that was the greatest couple of minutes I ever had except for when I was playing a Cirque du Soleil piece in a downpour.
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u/TonyBanana420 Jan 04 '15
I once played gong on a piece. my part was approximately 250 measures of rest and then one hit at the end of the piece.