Difference between easy and difficult pieces?

[movilogo]

As a beginner I am supposed to practice easy songs.

But how do I know whether a composition is easy or difficult? Sometimes I pick up a song and then halfway feel that it is too difficult and give up. 

Are there visual clues or rules which would dictate whether piece is easy or difficult? If so, I shall be confident then that I should continue till end as it is supposed to be easy! 

[outin]

As a beginner I am supposed to practice easy songs.

But how do I know whether a composition is easy or difficult? Sometimes I pick up a song and then halfway feel that it is too difficult and give up. 

Are there visual clues or rules which would dictate whether piece is easy or difficult? If so, I shall be confident then that I should continue till end as it is supposed to be easy! 

Can you sight read at all? It's best to read the whole thing through first instead of just learning the beginning and then found the rest too hard.

Generally teachers are good in telling you if something is way too hard. Also there are repertoire guides that grade pieces, those can help giving a general idea.

[pianoplayer002]

Easy:



Difficult:



I'm joking around a bit by using examples from the extreme ends of the spectrum. Look for pieces where the score doesn't look complex, and if you encounter some difficulty, spend a little extra time just trying to resolve that problem, and you'll see you'll make progress.

[adodd81802]

One thing you could do is go straight to the hardest part and see if you have any hope of playing it, or even learning it. If the answer is no then put it aside and work from there.

It is often good to learn a piece from it's hardest parts, rather than just diving in from the start and having 10 pieces that you can play the first 20 bars and no pieces you can complete.

Tempo is quite a big deal, if there are a lot of notes and the tempo is 60bpm, it is unlikely you will be as challenged as you would the same piece at 180bpm so check tempos and timings also.

As pianoplayer mentioned the reality is a lot of notes or a lot of chords is going to be hard, it is often the case that hard pieces are just faster combinations of the things we can already do at a slower tempo. If you can't do it at a slower tempo, use the ideas above to find an easier piece.

Also, with Youtube and other video media, you can tend to find the pieces you want to learn, atleast to hear them and see if they sound difficult.

Lastly try googling "grade 1 piano pieces" you are likely to find a lot of compositions that are considered grade 1 which is entry level piano playing and work from there (grade 1-grade-8)