The Sick Doll Op.39 No.6
Piano solo ~2 min
In brief

This piece exudes a tender and melancholic atmosphere, evoking a child's innocence. The student will encounter delicate passages requiring a mastery of nuances to fully convey the emotion of the piece. Composed during the Romantic period, Tchaikovsky expresses his intimate sensitivity here while incorporating elements of traditional Russian folk music.

MusicCoach difficulty
14/100
Beginner
Likely range : 10–19/100
Confidence : 73% · fair confidence
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
On the syllabus: Grade 2 ABRSM

Official level, taken from the exam syllabus.

Other syllabi : Trinity_London Grade 1 · RCM Grade 1

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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Difficulty sources
Combined exam syllabi
Grade 1
11/100 normalised · 2 obs.
ABRSM (syllabus)
Grade 2
20/100 normalised
Relative difficulty
80%
Among Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
6%
Era
Genre
Estimated skills
Technique
Legato
1
Interpretation
Phrasing
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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