Arranging another “impossible” piece for piano duet!

by Scott

A little over a year ago, we were introduced to the concept of “Black MIDI” through the “Rush E” videos we made last summer (by far the two most viewed videos on our YouTube channel! 4-hands and 8-hands). Black MIDI is a type of music that is humanly impossible to play, and contains thousands of notes in a very short amount of time. After recording Rush E, we contacted the composer of the piece, Andrew Wrangell (currently living in Australia), and asked if he had any more “impossible” compositions that we could recreate as a 4-hand arrangement, and his first suggestion was “Press F”. Press F is both a catchy piece of music, and a compositional challenge, where the note F (closest to middle C) recurs every eighth-note beat (after a 6-bar intro) for 67 bars straight!

In making this arrangement, I listened carefully to the Black MIDI version, and tried to notate as accurately as I could, and when the music became unplayable, I added whatever figuration I could come up with to make it sound as busy as possible. Lots of fun to arrange and play! Thanks, Andrew, for the composition and the suggestion!

Here is our video!

The original Black MIDI of Press F

The recurring F is in green in the middle of the image.

My 4-hand arrangement

The recurring F switching from the primo to the secondo part

The portion from the Black MIDI image above, color-coded to show which portions are represented in the 4-hand version.

The recurring F switching back and forth between parts several times near the end.