Minor Seconds, Major Sevenths
Piano solo
In brief

This solo piano piece has an incisive, percussive character, built around crisp attacks and rhythmic contrasts that call for precision and clarity rather than broad lyricism. You will specifically face the competence “Gammes et arpèges (2.5/5)”: here it means keeping scales and arpeggio figures even and articulated, requiring clear finger distribution, clean substitutions and controlled wrist action to maintain regularity without producing a harsh tone. The composition date is unknown; it belongs to Bartók's piano repertoire, which frequently explores rhythmic drive and varied keyboard timbres. I do not provide a reference recording because I am not 100% certain of a widely recognized interpretation for this particular work.

MusicCoach difficulty
62/100
Intermediate
Likely range : 58–66/100
Confidence : 57% · fair confidence
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 6 to 7

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.

Does this rating look right to you?

This rating is computed automatically from heterogeneous sources. It gets things wrong, sometimes badly. If you know this work, your answer is worth more than our computation: it tells us which ratings to review.

Add a note (optional)

Your note is not published on the site: it is read in review.

Difficulty sources
Henle Verlag
6
62/100 normalised · 2 obs.
MusicCoach consensus
62.0
62/100 normalised
Relative difficulty
87%
Among Béla Bartók
76%
Era
Genre
Estimated skills
Technique
Scales and arpeggios
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