The way I probably SHOULD have worked was to assemble all the parts
into a score, then reduce from there. However, my final band was so
much smaller than the original that I would have ended up copying
over way more parts than I ever would have used. So I mostly looked
over the parts while referring to the piano-conductor reduction,
copying and re-assigning parts as I saw fit, sometimes making a mini-
sketch on staff paper with a pencil for an eight-bar or sixteen-bar
passage. I ended up keeping most of the Trumpet 1 and Reed 1, for
example, though I added extra parts here and there.
I can read transposed parts at speed (long habit!) so none of that
threw me. I proceeded a phrase at a time, keeping parts in my head as
I decided what to use.
If I only had to reduce, say 26 to 16, then my first sentence would
have made more sense.
If I were doing what you were doing, I would have to do what you do.
Your method sounds right for that music.
Christopher
On 11-Dec-10, at 11-Dec-10 4:31 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 11 Dec 2010 at 10:23, Christopher Smith wrote:
I ended up working from
16 or so open parts books laid in a big semicircle around my desk.
I'm curious about your methods here, as this is the situation I find
myself almost exclusively with the stuff I'm working with (i.e.,
starting from parts, as there was never any full score available).
Did you write your new orchestration direct from the parts, or did
you score up the original and then work from that?
When I do my arrangements for viols from the Fitzwilliam Virginal
Book, even when my target is a 3-part arrangement or 4-part
arrangement, I start out with a straight transcription into 4 parts
(and keyboard music never has a fixed number of parts, ranging from 2
to 6 parts at any time), neither adding nor substracting any notes.
Then I work from that to get the arrangement for a particular final
disposition. And if I'm arranging for 3 parts, I generally do a 4-
part first, for two reasons:
1. my group can likely use the 4-part arrangement, AND
2. 3-part music by definition is very often a reduced 4-part texture,
and starting from the 4-part disposition results in more completeness
in the final result (though one has to remember that 3-part music
doesn't require complete chords -- as long as there's a third above
the bass, it's going to work).
Anyway, just curious...
--
David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/
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