So I just read about the "Music Minus One" recordings, and I'd been looking for something like that for a while now.

(For those who don't know: It's recordings of multi-player music with one person missing, like a concerto minus the piano, or a piece of chamber music minus the cello, designed for you to play along with at home.)

Not that I think I'm ready for a concerto. But maybe a piano/violin sonata would be fun to practice.

But... they ain't cheap. $30-$40 for a recording, it looks like! Anyone know of something similar but not so expensive?

Sean

I think they pretty much have the market.
I don't know for sure that there's nothing else, but in all my hundreds of years that's the only thing of its kind that I've ever heard of.

BTW.....I'm very surprised to hear it's that expensive. I've bought 2-3 of those things and I'm pretty sure the price was like just the normal cost of a record, but that was a while back, maybe it has changed.

P.S. I just took a look at their site, and I see that the prices are in that range -- often $40.
I also see that some of the things are "2-CD sets" even though the piece can easily fit on a single CD.....usually even half of a CD.
I wonder what the extra one is for......(besides raising the price).
(Oh I see.....it's a "reduced tempo" version for practice. Do they really need to give that????
And they also include a copy of the score, which is good.....even though you'd think that anyone who's looking to get a Music Minus One already has it.)

If you are interested in piano duets, there is the Play It CD series. I have the Brahms Waltzes and part of the Hungarian Dances.

When you compare the price of the MMO series with the price of hiring an orchestra, the MMO sets are a bargain.

Rich

If you have the sheet music and if you have a notation editor that outputs MIDI and if you want to spend the time entering the notes for the other instruments and if you have a way to play MIDI files, then you're all set. You did say cheaper...

I've done it. Other pluses: You can set the tempo however you like, transpose, and change instruments.

-Tom

You can sometimes find MIDI arrangements on the net, then if you have a MIDI editor it's pretty easy to mute just one track.

I thought about the MIDI option, but on my computer the instruments always sound so fakey and bad with MIDI playback. I know there's options out there to use better samples or modeled instruments; I haven't really looked into it that much. Maybe I should ask around in the digital piano forum.

It seems so strange to me that when you can find endless classical music CDs in the bargain bin for $1 or $2 from all kinds of state orchestras around the world that none of them have decided to compete with Music Minus One which is, apparently, much more profitable. (I mean if you're already recording the so-and-so piano concerto, why not also record it once without the piano?)

Maybe I need to travel the globe and pitch this idea to orchestras the world over.

I don't know how much more profitable it is, because we don't know how many of any CD gets sold. I imagine there aren't huge bucks in it. Plus, this isn't that easy to do. People play in those orchestras because they want to play in an orchestra, and when you make a Music Minus One recording, you're not really playing in an orchestra; you're doing scutwork. The players must hate it (and frankly the quality sometimes reflects that), and the conductors probably hate it even more.

Does anyone from this thread want to trade Music Minus One piano concertos? I have a couple I'd be interested in trading.