Sleepy-Head
Modern Piano solo ~4 min
In brief

Sleepy-Head has a drowsy, intimate mood: delicate harmonic washes and interweaving motifs create a rocking, dreamlike quality rather than overt drama. The Polyrhythm 2 against 3 (3.1/5) will require precise subdivision of the beat between the hands — concrete gestures of keeping a steady underlying pulse while offsetting the cross-rhythmic voice — and the Style impressionist (3.1/5) calls for careful pedal control and voice balance to reveal coloristic harmonies without blurring the lines. The piece belongs to the composer's modern-period output and sits as a piano miniature, a modest but typical item in his solo piano repertoire. I do not give a performer reference because I am not 100% certain of a definitive recording for this specific work.

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Is this the right work?
MusicCoach difficulty
52/100
Intermediate
Likely range : 40–64/100
Confidence : 35% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 5 to 6

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
33%
Among Arnold Bax
48%
Era Modern
Genre
Estimated skills
Rhythm
Polyrhythm 2 against 3
1
Style
Modern and contemporary style
1
Technique
Legato
1
Memory
Memorisation
1
Pedaling
Sustain pedal
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