Piano Transcriptions for two hands

[sgambatiesque]

Just for fun:

WHITE Puffin' Billy (Captain Kangaroo & Five Go Mad in Dorset)(Rpt).pdf

WHITE Puffin' Billy (Captain Kangaroo and Five Go Mad in Dorset) rpt.mid

I made this from a multi-instrumental MIDI file I found a couple of years ago. It's originally much longer as MIDIs usually don't mark repeats, especially as ensemble pieces may have coloristic variations between repeats where the melody doesn't vary. I moved house at some point during this effort and lost my momentum: I can see that some bass chords still need pruning and there's a few little errors from over-zealous repeat detection, but it's now much cleaner than the default arrangement.

The MIDI is the pianified version, not the original.

[Mouchette]

Which software do you use? Have you found better than Sharpeye or Capella Scan???

I haven't looked at any of the scanning options in a long time as the internet has brought forward a great resource of easy to find MIDI files of the original compositions.

I used to use Finale to do this work because it had a "piano reduction" feature which smashed all selected staves into two, and then I'd weed it down a bit, print it out and make edits at the piano, going through however edits my patience and time allowed. IIRC there was a scanner add-in.

I looked at the Sibelius program but despite having a far superior user interface to Finale, it didn't have the powerful plug-ins or reduction features. It may have them now, but certainly not in 2003/4 when I last looked at it.

For a period I used Noteworthy Composer but not sure why I stopped.

More recently I've been using Notation Composer and two of the Purcell files I attached are generated from that. One by simply by printing the SATB-formatted MIDI file, and the other by applying the piano reduction (which is pretty much instantaneous on a short piece like this). I may have fiddled with settings like minimum-duration note but that's all.

I should note that MIDI is not an ideal format for this as it's primarily oriented towards mechanical performance. Alternate formats like MusicXML are designed to capture more of the notational aspects. So for example grace-notes and other ornaments often get dismembered with their parent notes, or repeated bass figures change bar to bar because of subtle changes in timings.

For those who want to dip their toes into such transcription waters ( I suppose I should say fingers, and leave toes to the organists) - you can usually download a trial version of the software, then just open a MIDI file of your choosing...

Weren't you talking about music OCR???

[sgambatiesque]

Weren't you talking about music OCR???

It's a bit confusing when you quote a long post about multiple topics in its entirety.

I mentioned music OCR briefly a few posts back saying it was about a decade since I'd tried it.

[paolor]

Heuberger is mostly known for his operette "Der Opernball" - voilà the overture:

Heuberger Raimann Ouvertüre Opernball.pdf

Bw,
paolor

[sgambatiesque]

After having a bit of fun playing through most of the 2H arrangement of RACHMANINOV Symphonic Dances, I'm wondering if there's a 2H arrangement of his Paganini Rhapsody - and not just the 18th variation.(?)

As a side note, I've got the Dances filed in an album after a 2H version of the SCHUBERT Piano Trio No.2 in E-flat, and I must say that there are places where the First Dance feels very similar to the Trio's Andante con moto.

[Timtin]

Well, it's not Schubert's Eb Piano Trio in 2H, but another chamber work in the same key,
by an equally famous composer, arranged for piano solo and scanned from a photocopy.....

Mendelssohn String Octet in Eb major Op20 (2H Tscherlitzky).pdf

Enjoy!

[Jean-Séb]

Thank you, Tim.

[parag]

Well, it's not Schubert's Eb Piano Trio in 2H, but another chamber work in the same key,
by an equally famous composer, arranged for piano solo and scanned from a photocopy.....

Mendelssohn String Octet in Eb major Op20 (2H Tscherlitzky).pdf

Enjoy!

Thanks Tim, nice find!

Regards,
Parag

[Alex]

Wonderful! The full Octet, thanks Timtin!

[mr_roberts_z]

Thanks so much for the Octet. I asked about it a while back and figured a full transcription didn't exist.