Our new Sheet Music Plus levels are designed to help you select music in the correct difficulty level. Each piece that includes a Sheet Music Plus level has been carefully evaluated to ensure that it follows the level guidelines below. Since each individual piece is reviewed by hand, only a small subset of titles currently includes level information. However, we are constantly reviewing additional titles to expand our selection of graded music.
| SMP Level |
Positions and Scales |
Chords and Rhythms |
Examples |
Other |
Primer
(Early Elementary)
|
- Very beginning music
- Five-finger patterns
- Almost no hand position movement
|
- No chords
- Quarter, half, and whole notes
|
|
- May be labeled as "5-Finger"
- Very easy note reading with some letter names written in the notes
|
Level 1
(Elementary)
|
- Five-finger patterns with a little hand movement
- Simple hands-together playing
|
- Some 3-note chords
- 1 chord per measure
- Quarter, half, dotted half, and whole notes, some eighth notes
|
|
|
Level 2
(Late Elementary)
|
- Limited hand movement
- Some hand position changes and finger extensions
|
- 3-note chords
- More than 1 chord per measure
- Quarter, half, dotted half, and whole notes, and eighth notes
|
|
- May be labeled as "Big Note"
|
Level 3
(Early Intermediate)
|
- Independent movement of the left hand
- Hands in parallel and contrary motion
|
- Multiple chords in a measure
- More variety of chords
- Eighth to whole notes, triplets, dotted rhythms
|
|
- Staff size smaller than previous levels
- Reading notes in most major and minor keys
|
Level 4
(Intermediate)
|
- Scales moving up and down the keyboard at a faster tempo
- Arpeggios covering 2 octaves
|
- Many chords, some 4-note
- More complex rhythms
- Sixteenth notes
|
|
- May be labeled "Easy Piano"
|
Level 5
(Intermediate)
|
- Scale passages over several measures
- Melodies may be in both hands
|
- More variety of chords including seventh chords
- More complex rhythms, including sixteenth notes and dotted rhythms
|
|
- More difficult note reading, with ledger lines above and below the staff
|
Level 6
(Late Intermediate)
|
- Longer scale passages, some in octaves
- Melodic lines in both hands
|
- Full four note chords in both hands, requiring large hand stretches, large leaps
- Irregular rhythmic groups between the hands
- More complicated patterns
|
|
- More difficult note reading, with full chords sometimes on opposite ends of the keyboard
|
Level 7
(Late Intermediate)
|
- Scales in octaves in both hands
- Melody and accompaniment in same hand
|
- Full four- to five-note chords in both hands
- Large leaps and broken octaves
- Polyrhythms and complex rhythmic patterns
|
|
- Moving melodic lines in both hands requiring greater technical facility
|
Level 8
(Early Advanced)
|
- Scales in 3rds, 10ths and octaves, whole tone scales and modes
- Intricate melodic lines
|
- Four- and five-note chords spanning more than an octave, rolled chords in 10ths
- Intricate rhythms
|
|
- Difficult music for smaller hands with more melody and accompaniment lines in same hand
|
Level 9
(Advanced)
|
- Extensive scale passages incorporated into pieces with active accompaniment patterns
|
- All types of major, minor, diminished and augmented chords spanning more than an octave
- Intricate rhythms
- Complex meter
|
|
- Difficult music requiring greater velocity and overall technical facility
|
Level 10
(Advanced)
|
- Intricate melodic lines often requiring extremely fast tempos
|
- Complex broken-chord patterns, full chords, and large hand extensions
- More complicated polyrhythms
- Complex meter
- Complicated melodic figures
|
|
- Very advanced level, very difficult note reading, frequent time signatures changes, virtuosic level technical facility needed
|
