How to write a piano reduction??

39 minutes ago, Luis Hernández said:

@mercurypickles

Hi again.

That method above is particular and specific. It's not going to work for all the music. Unless you keep the basic rule:

MELODY + BASS is the essential, I insist. Not only for a piano reduction but for any compositions we can make.

If you don't have those parts perfectly represented, your reduction will sound different.

Go to google and check, your. see everybody says the same:

 

https://kevinpadworski.com/2015/08/20/the-art-of-the-piano-reduction/

 here are six basic rules that I humbly submit when considering a piano reduction:

1. Don’t consider it – do it. Music notation is cake nowadays, so just add the extra stave and your pianist will thank you for it.

2. Know what to omit. This requires knowledge about orchestration, both chorally and orchestrally. For orchestral reductions (who does write these, anyway?) identify doubling and core melodies, and make it feasible to play with 10 fingers. For choral reductions, utilize stems to identify parts, words like unison, and articulation and breath marks.

3. Keep the melody and the bass parts. 

4. Maintain the vertical harmonies, but remove those unison notes.

5. Always maintain the rhythmic integrity, but…

6. …Know what is idiomatic for the piano. Some notes shouldn’t be played in that octave on the piano. It sounds terrible. Some passages are too fast for most rehearsal pianos, particularly repeated notes. The keys won’t respond. Make it a tremolo.

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Just try.

 

Take a single phrase of what you have to reduce to piano.

First: analyze it, harmony, what's important and what not (unisons, octaves, etc).

Write the melody above.

Write a representative bass line.

Fill in with harmony and rhythm.

 

So wait, are you saying that most of the decisions I make aren't basic? Because these are all the decisions I make for Duet and Solo:

• Any important motifs? Keep those, even if the notes repeat(usually it's a Beethoven arrangement when I make this decision).
• Is one of the instruments too close to the bass to be represented at pitch on the piano? Raise it up an octave.
• Is the harmony too sparse when going from orchestra to piano? Add some more harmony.
• Is the harmony too dense with clusters or in the bass? Spread it out and/or get rid of some of the notes while keeping the harmony intact(I had to do this with the cluster harmony that occurs in Beethoven's Piano Sonata in F minor Op. 2 no. 1, getting rid of some of those cluster notes when arranging it for String Quartet)
• Which composer is it? Am I satisfied with repeated notes in the bass? If Haydn, probably yes. If Mozart, most of the time make it Alberti Bass(although there are those exceptions like Wind Serenade in C minor where I feel a more Beethovenian octave tremolo is best for at least part of it or the opening of Horn Concerto no. 2 where I felt arpeggios fit better) If Beethoven, make it an octave tremolo with the exception of those motifs. If Chopin, maybe a chordal arpeggio like in his nocturnes. Other composers, it depends on the context and feel of the piece.
• Is it a concerto? Make the dynamics so that the solo parts stand out.
• Am I given chords or Figured Bass? If Figured Bass, I have to try hard to both fit the Figured Bass and make it my own harmonization.
• What roles should the first and second piano play(Duet specific decision)? If it is a Symphony, most likely Woodwind and String material, leading to some antiphonal textures(where the pianos each take their turn). If it is a Chamber music piece like a Serenade, most likely High and Low notes, leading to less antiphonal textures and more Treble/Bass call and response.
• Is there some material that I just can't include without awkward overlaps? See which parts of the score can be ignored and still maintain integrity(For Tchaikovsky at least, this means repeated notes are out when it reaches a point of awkward overlap in favor of melodies)
• Does it fit my Ninth interval limit? If so, especially for a Solo, great, I can play it Solo. If not, I can't and somebody else with bigger hands needs to play it or I need to adjust it to fit mine(With the Liszt transcription of Beethoven's Fifth, I have no choice but to adjust that tenth in the F minor chord to an octave when playing it, the Ab isn't really needed anyway in the left hand) If it technically does, but it has a lot of ninths, see if I can change some of those to more comfortable intervals.

And in most cases, it's only been Mozart, Haydn, and a few others that I've been able to arrange for Solo. Beethoven and similar composers just require a duet arrangement.

If you have Finale, it does have a piano reduction plug-in which usually comes out with something of an unplayable mush but it does provide a start where you can chip away and modify to suit your needs.  Sometimes that's easier to work with than creating your reduction from scratch.

@caters

Your decisions are yoours. I don't care. For me, they may be not good. For you, fantastic...

9 hours ago, bkho said:

If you have Finale, it does have a piano reduction plug-in which usually comes out with something of an unplayable mush but it does provide a start where you can chip away and modify to suit your needs.  Sometimes that's easier to work with than creating your reduction from scratch.

 

I don't have Finale, so I can't use a piano reduction plug-in(unless they have made one for Musescore, but I doubt it. And I've heard a lot of bad things about Finale, much more than with Musescore or Sibelius. Things like that Finale is tedious, that it isn't easy to find things, that it's an overall bad notation software compared to it's peers.

But I know what you mean by unplayable mush. I've tried putting midi recordings in Musescore and I get a bunch of triplets. Triplets crossing bars, Off beat triplets, On beat triplets, Quarter and Eighth triplets, all because of one thing, it isn't really triplets, but just a natural rubato I have as a pianist. I never play exactly to the metronome, but close enough. And that fools the midi into thinking I'm playing triplets all over the place, when I am only playing triplets where I feel like playing triplets.

8 minutes ago, caters said:

I don't have Finale, so I can't use a piano reduction plug-in(unless they have made one for Musescore, but I doubt it. And I've heard a lot of bad things about Finale, much more than with Musescore or Sibelius. Things like that Finale is tedious, that it isn't easy to find things, that it's an overall bad notation software compared to it's peers.

But I know what you mean by unplayable mush. I've tried putting midi recordings in Musescore and I get a bunch of triplets. Triplets crossing bars, Off beat triplets, On beat triplets, Quarter and Eighth triplets, all because of one thing, it isn't really triplets, but just a natural rubato I have as a pianist. I never play exactly to the metronome, but close enough. And that fools the midi into thinking I'm playing triplets all over the place, when I am only playing triplets where I feel like playing triplets.

 

That's exactly why I did never use recordings as a basis for automatic "scoring". Well, that plus the fact that I am no pianist at all.

Anyway, I thank the original poster. I was considering a piano reduction of a choral/orchestral piece as a rehersal tool precisely these days, and found your questions quite useful.