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I made a piano arrangement of a video game track. Should I make this for four hands, or simplify it to make it playable by one person?


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A year ago, I arranged the Divine Beast Vah Ruta battle theme from Zelda: Breath of the Wild for piano, by ear.  This was my first major arrangement of a piece for piano.  Here is the original: 

 

And here's my arrangement of the theme: 

 

And here's the score (yes, I know that some parts need to be moved around; this is not the final version of the sheet music): Copy of Zelda Breath of the Wild_ Divine Beast Vah Ruta.pdf

 

I know the chords aren't exactly the same --- this was intentional, as I preferred certain chord progressions to the ones chosen by the original composer (like in measures 18-19).

The feedback I've gotten so far is basically that the harmonies and arpeggios sound pleasant, but that it would be difficult (if not impossible) to play using two hands.  I tried playing it on my keyboard, and yeah, I can attest to that.  I'm also aware that the dynamics are kinda weird; I tried to do the best I could to get it to sound the way it sounded in my head.  Does anyone have advice on how to make this more playable?  Because I don't exactly want to get rid of any of the extra embellishments I added.  Should I make it even more complex and make it for four hands, or remove parts to make it for two hands?

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It looks unplayable because the score is so poorly exported, but it's actually not super hard for any good player. Unnecessary piano unisons with bad cross voicing and glissandi notation make it look a lot harder than it actually is. Measure 25 is the only measure I immediately see as problematic objectively. Fix the score, and I'm sure it'll look a lot more doable. 

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@Monarcheon 

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it's actually not super hard for any good player.

Well, that's a relief!  I was aiming for this grand and theatrical virtuosic arrangement, so it's good to know that advanced players could play it.  

I'll get rid of all the unnecessary crescendos and cross voicing and see how it sounds.  Also, I'm a little concerned by the amount of 32nd and 64th notes I have, like in measure 21.  It just looks messy.  Is there any other notation I can use in place of those really short notes to get the same effect?  Like, if I put a glissando rather than writing out all the individual notes, it would sound the same, right?

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Measure 25 is the only measure I immediately see as problematic objectively.

Haha, yeah...I'm not sure what to do about that.  I don't want to remove that high E; otherwise the ascending pattern (I don't know the technical term) would just sound incomplete.  Should I get rid of the third left-hand triplet and assign the C#-G-C# chord to the left hand instead?  Or would that disrupt the flow of the piece too much?

Edited by OnlyICanLikePie
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