Maple Leaf Rag - Grade?

[matt_black]

Hi - well I did the entertainer original score - it took a few days to learn from memory - breaking into sections and doing a section each practice [every other dayish] and it took a couple of weeks to really be able to play full speed every time with hardly any errors

Now for Maple Leaf Rag.

Does anyone know what grade the Maple Leaf Rag is considered to be?

also what grade do people consider the following to be,
The Entertainer
Moonlight Sonata first movement thing

[Hannah Joy]

I'm afraid I don't have an answer, but does anyone know of a site where the grades of pieces can be researched?

[matt_black]

HI

yes a site such as this would be very usefull

[bernhard]

Matt black

Does anyone know what grade the Maple Leaf Rag is considered to be?

also what grade do people consider the following to be,
The Entertainer
Moonlight Sonata first movement thing

They are all around grade 5/6.

As for the Moonlight, here is an interesting story. On hearing that a former student of his was going to play the Moonlight on a recital , a famous piano professor asked: “How is that difficult movement coming along?” He was actually referring to the first movement.

Grades are completely subjective. Different educational establishments have different systems. In some places grades go from 1 – 10. The system I am most familiar with is the ABRSM where grades go from 1 – 8. These grades refer only to pieces that would be considered easy by most professional pianists. In other words, they do not include advanced, virtuosic pieces.

I find myself often surprised at the grades attached to certain pieces. For instance grade 5 ABRSM this year has a Waltz by Brahms (op. 39 no. 9) and a piece by Schumann (Phantasietanz) that in my opinion cannot possibly be of the same level of difficulty (Schumann is far, far more difficult).

So take all this grading of pieces with a large pinch of salt.

Also my philosophy nowadays is that there are only two kinds of pieces: easy and impossible, and the diference between them is practice.

Hannah Joy

I'm afraid I don't have an answer, but does anyone know of a site where the grades of pieces can be researched?

Yes.

Try this very interesting site:

https://www.ukpianogroup.f9.co.uk/

You need to become a member (it is free) to fully explore the archives, but amongst its many resources you will find something called “The Langfield Lists”. This is – in grade order - a list of all pieces ever required by the ABRSM in their exams. Unfortunately the list is not complete, because it contains only pieces that the ABRSM actually required in exams. I doubt very much that you will find Maple Leaf Rag in there. Or much Chopin.

So how do I know Maple leaf rag is grade 5/6. I don’t. But I play it, and it is my subjective opinion based on my experience.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[matt_black]

excellent
thankyou all for your feedback - it is well appreciated.

Grade 5/6 sounds about what I thought they would be but I would say that Moonlight Sonata for me was really easy to pick up and so was the entertainer but Maple Leaf Rag seems a bit more tricky in A flat
maybe the first two are 5 and Maple Leaf Rag 6

[steveolongfingers]

can you really grade only the first movement of moonlight dont you have consider the peice as a whole?

[bernhard]

can you really grade only the first movement of moonlight dont you have consider the peice as a whole?

Yes, of course you can. I just did it!

Now seriously. What are the alternatives? If you are going to grade the Moonlight as a whole, which grade should one attach to it? The grade of the most difficult technical movement (the third)? The grade of the most difficult movement musically (the first)? Or should one average the difficulty of each movement and come up with a mean and standard deviation for the difficulty of the sonata?

The ABRSM always grade sonata movements, never the whole sonata for a very simple reason: they do not hear whole sonatas in their exams (up to grade , and it allows them to have more pieces within any grade.

This leads to an even more general question: Should we grade music at all? Personally I don’t think we should simply because difficulty is highly personal, and a piece that may be considered grade 8 for one person will be considered grade 1 for another. Yet the grading system exists, and I for one consider it a bureaucratic, rather than a real assessment.

I also disagree with having just a single movement of a sonata played on an exam – but I understand that constraints of time may require it to be so. My own approach is not to assign sonata movements for an exam unless the student can play the whole sonata. And I follow the same approach for works like suites, partitas and the like (which actually would include a lot of Schumann – another composer who is often present in exam requirements in bits of his complete works).

Yet, people are obsessed with grades and assessments of their abilities, and with the credentials that go with the assessment – forgetting perhaps that skill is far more important than credentials. And if there is a market for this sort of thing clever entrepreneurs will milk it.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[minsmusic]

Yet, people are obsessed with grades and assessments of their abilities

Yeah, they learn it from school.  Ever got a B when you thought you deserved an A?  Grading anything is so subjective, yet it looks like it's in society to stay.  

An example, in the Australian Music Examination Board, Moonlight Sonata, 1st movement is in grade 4.  Yet Henry Mancini's "The Pink Panther Theme" is an option for grade 5.   :-/  

I would think Maple Leaf Rag would be grade 6, but then if Mancini can rate a grade 5 maybe the Rag could be grade 7.  

Rest assurred it wouldn't be grade 4, and it wouldn't be grade 8. How's that for accuracy?

[steveolongfingers]

IN the RCM sonata's are rated by all the movements, but its not very accurate as it has the Hammerclavier as the same grade as Moonlight, i dont think thats right.........

[rodoherty2]

I know Maple Leaf Rag is on the RockSchool Grade 5 curriculum.

https://www.rockschool.co.uk

Rob.

[ted]

I think that Maple Leaf Rag, and for that matter any ragtime, classical or contemporary, is very special music, and difficult to "grade" or assess on a linear scale.

The reason is that ragtime in general demands a very highly developed sense of rhythm of a particular type. As far as playing the notes is concerned most of Joplin is pretty easy physically provided you can play an octave. But in my experience really good players of ragtime are very rare, especially among classically trained musicians.

These days the situation has improved and you do find people - Joshua Rifkin, Scott Kirby,  Frank French, to name three - who play both classical and ragtime well.
On the whole though, ragtime still demands such a special feeling to play it really well that I would personally find it impossible to "grade" in any normal sense.

[bernhard]

I know Maple Leaf Rag is on the RockSchool Grade 5 curriculum.

https://www.rockschool.co.uk

Rob.

Interesting site. Thanks. However, the Maple Leaf Rag they have in their syllabus is a facilitated version. (I believe).

And I completely agree with Ted.

[matt_black]

excellent commetns - I notice that the rickschool have the Entertainer at grade 2 but listening to the example it is an arrangement not the original Joplin score with all the octaves etc..
Maple Feaf Rag I think is an arrangement of it by Adrian York

https://www.rockschool.co.uk/instruments/piano/pianograde-five.htm

I am enjoying plying the Joplin stuff has anyone any suggestions on what kind of Blues stuf i should look at to pick up techniwues that people like Jools Holland use etc....
Cheers