AbstractMasters are defined as the degrees‐of‐freedom that are retained in the reduced eigenvalue problem. Various qualitative guidelines to select masters are published in the literature, but it is difficult to apply them to complex structures. In this paper a computational algorithm to select masters for complex structures is presented. This algorithm is based on a guideline14which assures that the associated Guyan reduction process is valid. This algorithm eliminates one degree‐of‐freedom at a time satisfying the guideline, and preserves lower frequencies in the reduced eigenvalue problem. The algorithm presented in this paper is used to select masters for four different structural models. The natural frequencies of the associated reduced eigenvalue problems are calculated and compared with those calculated from the full eigenvalue p