New York Skyline Melody, A.407
Modern Piano solo ~3 min
In brief

This melody conjures an imagined urban skyline, alternating floating figures with pointed rhythmic accents that outline silhouettes and reflections. You will face specifically Polyrhythm 2 against 3 (3.1/5) — here you must keep one hand steady in a three-beat grouping while the other articulates duplets without slipping — and Impressionist Style (3.1/5), which calls for a colorful touch and carefully judged pedaling to reveal delicate sonorities. Listed as A.407 and belonging to Villa-Lobos’s modern period, it sits among his piano pieces that suggest orchestral colors on a small scale. I am not giving performance references because I cannot be certain of a single widely recognized recording for this exact work.

MusicCoach difficulty
40/100
Elementary
Likely range : 28–52/100
Confidence : 35% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 4

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
37%
Among Heitor Villa-Lobos
20%
Era Modern
Genre
Estimated skills
Rhythm
Polyrhythm 2 against 3
1
Style
Modern and contemporary style
1
Tone
Touch control
1
Interpretation
Dynamics
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.

See the whole progression