Scotch Strathspey and Reel, folk song
Modern Piano solo ~4 min
In brief

This piece combines rhythmic snap with a folksy air — the strathspey requires crisp, accented beats and clipped silence while the reel asks for a buoyant, dance‑like flow. Technically, you will need to focus especially on Polyrhythm 2 against 3 (3.1/5) — here that means keeping a steady ternary figure in one hand against binary pulses in the other while preserving independent accents — and on Impressionistic Style (3.1/5), i.e. shaping registers and pedal colors so timbre supports the folk motifs without becoming muddy. The work belongs to the modern period and is part of the composer's output of folk-song arrangements that blend vernacular melodies with idiomatic piano writing.

MusicCoach difficulty
50/100
Intermediate
Likely range : 38–62/100
Confidence : 30% · 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.

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.

Relative difficulty
77%
Among Percy Grainger
42%
Era Modern
Genre
Estimated skills
Rhythm
Polyrhythm 2 against 3
1
Style
Modern and contemporary style
1
Theory
Knowledge of forms
1
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.

See the whole progression