Filmed entirely in central London and featuring actual footage shot on the London Underground, Rainer Hersch’s new Apple® Ringtones Rag Video is a real cracker!
Gloucester Road tube station: We were pretty sure we were going to be arrested by the London Transport Police here but nothing.
Rainer has taken all those all-too-familiar and ever-so-slightly annoying ringtones, alerts, keyboard clicks and vibrations associated with Apple® devices and created an extraordinarily funny and musically coherent piece in a ragtime style. Brilliantly edited, it features scenes shot on the platform and on the London Tube as well as outdoors against the backdrop of some of London’s famous scenes.
The line up consists of players from the Rainer Hersch Orkestra with Rainer playing xylophone accompanied by clarinet, horn, two violins, viola, cello and percussion.
On the Piccadilly Line: Yes, there was a passenger sitting just out of shot on the left. She got off at the next stop. Strange that.
Rainer explains more about the making of the video…
“This is the first clip I have ever done specifically for YouTube. I wrote the piece last year with a friend as the sequel to my Windows™ Waltz, also on YouTube, which almost 5 million people have watched so far.
My first idea was to film the entire piece on the street outside the Apple Store in Covent Garden, London. But, from the outside, that Store doesn’t look like anything – there is no signage or big apple logo hanging. So then I did a reconnaissance of the Apple Store on Regents Street with the idea that we all stand on the central reservation in the middle of the road. But that store is shut for renovations – doh! (In the end I just used that location for the final, final scene after the credits where I am playing the xylophone alone). With those ideas gone, the obvious thing was to just record ourselves performing it with London’s world-famous sights as a backdrop.
The only place where we got into trouble was the shot where you can see Tower Bridge in the background. A beefeater came out of the Tower of London (I kid you not) to say that the whole of the river front is owned by the Queen and, since we didn’t have permission (from her? I didn’t find out), we would have to stop. He was very nice about it and, since we had already played the piece twice through already, we didn’t mind but cleared off pronto in case his mood changed and he put us into a cell at Her Majesty’s pleasure, or worse.
Anyway the clip was a lot of fun to make and I hope it gives people a lot of pleasure. I also have a bet with my Nephew for a hundred quid that it will get to 10 million views in three years. He says it won’t but he’s only a kid (er…23) so what does he know? But, just in case, do me a favour and watch it a few times because my mouse finger is starting to get sore from all the clicking.”
On Westminster Bridge: Most of the tourists on that double-decker tour bus thought they were going to get a shot of Big Ben – but they got a shot of us instead.
The sound file is available for download now.
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Catch The Rainer Hersch Orkestra live at The New Year’s Eve Bash at London’s Cadogan Hall on 31 December – the perfect New Year’s Eve event for all the family.
‘Whether you are a professor of harmony or couldn’t tell a string quartet from a string vest, this is the funniest concert you’ll ever see’ Time Out
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