Silver Swan Rag
Romantic Piano solo 4 min
In brief

This rag balances a poised cheerfulness with a touch of melancholy, demanding almost lyrical singing lines set against sprightly, hopping figures. You will need to focus in particular on Tempo rubato (3.1/5) — using measured flexibility with small, controlled anticipations and delays to shape phrases without upsetting the flow — and on Syncopes (2.5/5), which require clear attacks on weak beats and precise wrist control so the displacements stay clean. The piece belongs to Joplin’s ragtime output where Romantic-era phrasing intertwines with early-20th-century popular forms. I am not listing a reference interpretation because I cannot be certain of a single widely recognized recording for this specific piece.

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Sheet music

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Is this the right work?
MusicCoach difficulty
45/100
Intermediate
Likely range : 33–57/100
Confidence : 35% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 5

Estimated from our difficulty score, not taken from an exam syllabus. Checked against 333 works on the ABRSM syllabus: the exact grade is right 7 times out of 10, and within one grade 99 times out of 100.

Difficulty estimate by MusicCoach on a scale of 1 to 100.

Where this work sits
050100

Most works cluster between 45 and 65: a small score gap often marks a real step. The highlighted bar shows this work among those for the same instrument.

The MusicCoach difficulty measures a work's overall demands (technique, reading, stamina) on a shared 0-100 scale, consolidated from editorial and pedagogical reference points (Henle, exam syllabuses, curation) and our own analyses. It measures neither musical value nor the practice time YOU will need: two musicians of the same level can experience the same work very differently depending on their strengths (hands used to octaves, quick sight-reading…). The confidence reflects how many reference points sit behind the score and how well they agree — a lightly documented score is flagged “to validate”. For a truly personal bearing, the diagnostic and your space compare each work to YOUR estimated level, which the score alone cannot do.

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Relative difficulty
75%
Among Scott Joplin
25%
Era Romantic
Genre
Estimated skills
Pedaling
Sustain pedal
1
Style
Romantic style
1
Rhythm
Tempo rubato
1
Technique
Hand independence
1
Rhythm
Dotted rhythms
1
Rhythm
Syncopation
1
What to play next?

Each suggestion combines difficulty gap, risk, confidence and skill overlap. The first two cards in each column are the most useful pedagogically.

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