what goes under "my level is ..."

[ranakor]

i'm wondering what people usually call a piece of "their level" is it a piece you could learn in a few reads (2 - 3 reading throught not including memorizing) , a piece you could read in a trivial amount of time (3-4 hours either memorizing included or being able to read it at full speed) , a piece that is just hard enought for you to take a bit of time like a week something you could do in beetween 2 lessons but no sooner , something that felt too hard for you but you finally managed to do even if it took long or lastly the best thing you are currently able to play regardless of how long it took you to learn & what you usually tackle?

[ranakor]

i picked the 3rd choice something i can manage beetween 2 lessons

[greyrune]

i put that one two, if it was either of the first two i'd be about grade three or something and that would be a bit depressing.  Man i've really got to get my sightreading up to scratch.

[thierry13]

I said anything you could do after 2-3 times. If it takes practice, then it is not of your level, since you have to become better by practicing it to play it. If you have a good sight reading, you should be able to play a piece of your level at sight read.

[Jorgen]

The further you come, the harder the pieces become. It is absolutely bogus to asume your level is the level of pieces you can play after 2 timer playing. This is because you cannot interpret a piece correctly a prima visa.
It takes time and hard work to be able to play a piece (of certain difficulty, like nocturnes by chopin) perfectly.
Your level are the pieces you can play after one or two weeks studying.

[thierry13]

Chopin's nocturne are possible to play at sight read.

[lostinidlewonder]

I measure my ability by a memorised bar per rate(bpd) on a given piece. If (after analysing the music and noting problematic sections) I can memorise and peform at least x bpd in the given piece, I am satisfied that I can master that piece and it is in my ability. If I find that after studying the piece the first day everything seems much harder than it really was (which happened a lot when I started out at the piano), I have to have the respect for myself and the music and put it aside.

When I was a kid I took up the Appassionata and spent 2 years on it out of sheer pig headedness. But 2 years wasted really, 3 big movements learnt, but 20 smaller peices could have been learnt instead. Would I then say I am at the Beethoven Sonata level just because I played ONE complete sonata from him? No way.

Add up the difficulty of all your pieces you have in memorised and divide that by the number of pieces. That is the average level of your ability, you may be able to explore and stretch yourself, but still you must push up that average standard.

That isn't to say that ability is measured by technical prowess. It is measured by emotion as well, how musical you can play. And how do you measure something like that, it is very hard.

[ranakor]

well i'd rather have this not turn into a sightreading discution so think of the 1 / 2 read as a "once you have read throught it to avoid reading errors it become a trival piece both to read & to play" & the 3 - 4 hours solution as a "may or may not take time to read throught but you wouldn't be able to play it on the 1st try even if you were able to read throught it the 1st time"

the reason for this post is that people define the term level as diferent things & you may find someone who has a hard time going throught a grade 5 piece  rate himself as grade 5 while he can only do grade 3 in 3 - 4 hours & grade 2 instantly while you could have someone else who is able to do grade 4 in 3 - 4 hours & read throught grade 3 instantly rating himself as grade 3 thinking of his grade as what he can immediatly play

so i vote for whatever you'd answer when asked your level but also feel free to post about what you think the general consensus on level should be & why you think it should be so

[6ft 4]

surely it should me measured on ur sight reading ability.

[Glyptodont]

I just don't see it that way at all.

You and I are not even on the same page.

Wishing you well . . . . . .

[GrahamOz]

This becomes irrelevant the higher level one obtains, the closer one becomes to concert pianist.

Only a select few ultra-talented people in the history of music would have been able to learn the more difficult piano works without a dedicated (weeks+) period of study, let alone the more lengthy piano works & concerti.  This is before you consider the fact that sight reading is one thing, but performance is a whole different kettle of fish - performance requires you to know the music thoroughly (and how you wish to present it to the audience), not just the 'notes'.

I think that to be at a certain 'level' of playing one should reasonably be able to perform works of that level, but how long it takes to reach it is not really that important.

At least, of course, that is my opinion.

[6ft 4]

There are people at my school who can barely read a note yet slave hours and hours over some grade 8 level pieces play them fairly well and claim they are as good as me.

Yet ofcourse, any accompaniment required or perhaps if a band needs a pianist i always have to accompany them while sight reading.

Very annoying.