# Old Hundredth: piano reduction for rehearsal ## Title and instrumentation **Old Hundredth** (tune from the Genevan Psalter, 1551), in the four-part setting you supplied. It is reduced here for **solo piano** on two staves, for choir rehearsal. Layout: the right hand plays soprano (stems up) and alto (stems down) on the treble staff. The left hand plays tenor (stems up) and bass (stems down) on the bass staff. This is the familiar hymnal layout, so you can pick out any single voice and play it alone. ## Duration and form - 8 bars of 4/4 in G major (one sharp). There are four two-bar lines, the four lines of the tune, all in quarter notes as in your source. - Your file has no tempo. I marked **♩ = 92** as a steady singing pace. That is only my suggestion, so take whatever tempo your choir needs. - At ♩ = 92 one verse lasts about 21 seconds. Nothing is marked to repeat, so play it once per verse. ## Difficulty and playability notes - **Level:** easy to moderate. It's all block chords in quarter notes. The main reading load is the six right-hand chords where the tenor joins the right hand. - **Tenor taken by the right hand on six beats:** bar 1 beat 1, bar 4 beat 1, bar 5 beats 1–2, bar 6 beat 4 and bar 8 beat 4. On those beats the tenor sits a tenth above the bass, which is too wide for most left hands. - The tenor's note is printed as the lowest note of the alto's chord, sharing the alto's down-stem. - On the bass staff the tenor simply drops out for those beats, with no rests printed. - **Bar 7, beat 1:** the bass plays G2, as the basses sing it, under the tenor's B3. That's a tenth, so it's marked with a roll sign: play the low G and roll quickly up to the B, catching the G with the pedal if you need to let it go. - The stretch check here treats every chord as struck together, so it lists this rolled tenth as the one stretch beyond a modest hand. - If you'd rather not roll it, play the G an octave higher (G3). That keeps both hands within an octave throughout. - **Stretch:** apart from that roll, every chord was checked against a modest hand size (25th percentile of adult female pianists) and is within reach. - The widest right-hand chord is the octave A3–D4–A4 at bar 5 beat 2. - The left hand plays octaves in bars 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8. - Every hand shift has a full beat to move. - No fingerings are printed. ## Performance notes - **Playing one voice for a section:** - Soprano: treble staff, stems up. - Alto: treble staff, stems down, the upper note on the six two-note beats listed above. - Tenor: bass staff, stems up. On those six beats it is the lowest note of the right-hand chord. - Bass: bass staff, stems down. - **Shared notes:** the tenor and bass share the G at bar 3 beat 1. It's printed as one note with two stems and played once. - **Breaths:** your source prints no fermatas or breath marks. A small lift at the end of each line (bar 2, 4 and 6, beat 4) helps the singers breathe. How long to hold line ends is up to the director. - **Dynamics and pedal:** your source has no dynamics, and I added none. Pedal is optional; if you use it, change it with every chord. - **The performance MIDI file** plays one reading of the reduction: - The soprano is brought out over the other voices. - Each line swells gently to its middle and eases into its last chord. - There is a short lift at the ends of lines 1–3, the pedal changes on every beat, and the last bar broadens slightly. - The bar 7 tenth is rolled upward from the low G, and the shared G in bar 3 is struck once. ## What was done and what was not Task: an arrangement of existing music — Old Hundredth (your four-part setting). - **Every note of all four voices is kept**, with the same pitches, octaves, rhythms and spelling. I compared the reduction with your file at all 32 beats and found no differences. - **How the hands share the four voices:** every way of splitting the four voices between the two hands was checked with each hand kept within an octave. The only split that works puts the tenor in the right hand on the six beats above, and it also needed the bass G an octave higher at bar 7 beat 1. I kept that split everywhere except bar 7. There I printed the sung G2 with a roll instead, so the bass line stays note for note: G2 rising to G3 on beat 2. - **The setting's voice leading is kept as written.** Your setting has a number of parallel octaves and fifths, mostly the alto or tenor moving with the bass (for example bar 1, beats 2–4). I didn't change them, because the brief asked for a reduction, not a re-harmonization. The reduction adds none of its own. - **Added:** the tempo mark ♩ = 92 and the roll sign in bar 7. Nothing else is added: no dynamics, slurs, fermatas, fingerings or lyrics (your file has no words). - **Checked:** I viewed the engraved page and checked every chord against the hand-stretch limit. No pianist has played through it yet, and nothing was checked by listening. - **Not included:** this commission delivers no recording of the piano and no score video. The performance MIDI is a playback file, not a recording. ## Files in this folder - `score.pdf`: the reduction, one letter-size page. - `score.musicxml`: the same score, editable in any notation program. - Each voice's stem direction is written in: soprano and tenor up, alto and bass down. - The tenor's silent beats on the bass staff are stored as invisible rests. - The short name on later lines is "Pno.". - `performance.mid`: a Standard MIDI file of the performance described above. - Piano only, one channel per staff voice, all on the General MIDI piano sound. - 127 notes, about 21 seconds, plus sustain pedal. - MIDI doesn't keep note spelling, the key signature, stems or the roll sign (the roll is played, not marked). - `GUIDE.md`: this guide.