# Is this piece playable? How difficult is it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 3, 2015, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134 "2015-07-03T14:34:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/1 "2015-07-03T14:34:11Z")
I could spend a day or two hacking the thing out, but I figured there are piano players here who might be able to answer at a glance. I suggested to my wife that someone could learn this thing after maybe six months to a year of lessons. She seemed to think that was much too optimistic. What do you think? She’s a much better player than I am–as in, she can actually play, whereas I can just poke around, so that gives her view some weight! But still, we didn’t have a detailed discussion, so if it’s too hard for a relative newbie, I don’t know where the too-hard parts are. I suppose the high notes in measures 8, 11 and 12 might be hard to hit in time? (It is kind of fast.) Of course this is all assuming the thing is playable at all in the first place. Are there any impossible combinations of notes in the thing that I didn’t notice? ETA: Ignore the guitar voice–I was actually thinking of piano when writing it. > **[Farmer Farmer Red Pajarmer - Noteflight Community](https://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/c5b1cbfbf6c8eecf1ea501f3b81b725e40be5f42)** > > Noteflight online music notation software allows you to create, view, and share music with the Noteflight Community. You may also buy and sell music on Noteflight Marketplace. Sign up to get started! ---
**Author:** ![sandra\_nz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/2 "2015-07-03T14:44:27Z")
Took my laptop into the piano room and played it. Dotted semiquavers then a rest? Seriously? Who wrote that?! That looks to be around grade 4/5 level to my eye. Not achievable with 6 - 12 months of lessons. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/3 "2015-07-03T14:47:51Z")
> [@sandra\_nz](#): > > Took my laptop into the piano room and played it. Dotted semiquavers then a rest? Seriously? Who wrote that?! Oh crap I totally forgot about that, I should have explained in the OP: That’s not how it would actually be written out. I was trying to get the software to make it sound right… it’s just eighth notes, I just want there to be a clear separation between them. ETA: Also the third section is completely unfinished and should be ignored. ---
**Author:** ![sandra\_nz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/4 "2015-07-03T14:55:15Z")
Heheh! And now I realise there is more than one page _cough_… the syncopated bit from bar 31 is not written ‘correctly’ which makes it harder to sight read. You shouldn’t have a quaver then a minim (sorry for using English terms) - you should have a quaver, then a quaver joined to a crotchet joined to a quaver - that way the treble and bass clef notes will align properly and the syncopation will be clearer to the pianist. As you say, the high notes will be difficult for a learner, as will the rhythm changes from semiquavers to triplets, the syncopation, and the time signature change. There are also some ambitious gaps between notes to be played together. A learner will struggle to play octaves and many (including myself) can’t stretch any further than that, despite 20 years of playing. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/5 "2015-07-03T15:02:16Z")
Thanks, that helps a lot actually. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/6 "2015-07-03T15:03:49Z")
I’ve tried everything in the software I can find to produce the right “sound” for those weird eighth notes (that I notated as dotted semiquavers). Staccato is too, um, staccato. But I want there to be the contrast between the clearly-separated eighth notes in those bars, and the not-as-clearly-separated eighth notes in, for example, bar three. Is there some notation I could use for this? ---
**Author:** ![sandra\_nz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2015, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/7 "2015-07-03T15:06:36Z")
Try staccato with a slur. Or simply semiquavers seperated by semiquaver rests. But bear in mind that any software is going to ‘sound weird’. It sounds very different when I play it on my piano compared to hearing it on their player thingee. And remember that each player gives their own interpretation, regardless of how much you try to notate! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2015, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/8 "2015-07-04T03:33:45Z")
Take a look at some of the pieces by Charles Valentin Alkan. This is quite reasonable compared to some of his monstrosities. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2015, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/9 "2015-07-04T04:24:57Z")
OOh, I just figured out how to make it play. The first part is quite pretty, and jolly fun. Not so sure about the dissonances on pages 3 and 4. Those clash too harshly against my more conventional aesthetic sense. But overall, pretty, and I’m sure it’s playable. [(Here’s an example of Alkan, being cruel to a pianist from beyond the grave.)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeYrv7jKitA) ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/10 "2015-07-04T21:50:01Z")
This thread is probably best suited to Cafe Society. I’ll relocate it. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/11 "2015-07-05T01:38:11Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I’ve tried everything in the software I can find to produce the right “sound” for those weird eighth notes (that I notated as dotted semiquavers). Staccato is too, um, staccato. But I want there to be the contrast between the clearly-separated eighth notes in those bars, and the not-as-clearly-separated eighth notes in, for example, bar three. > > Is there some notation I could use for this? I’d use [tenuto staccato](http://blog.twedt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Tenuto-Maykapar.jpg) (detached, but not _too_ detached). ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-piece-playable-how-difficult-is-it/724134/12 "2015-07-07T00:53:07Z")
The fast leaps at, for example, measure 8 beats 3 and four give me pause. They’re playable, but very unnatural. The most natural way seems to be to assume you have an octave between your thumb and middle finger. Otherwise you have to do a really fast leap. Then again, I’m not really a good pianist–I’m just good at improvisation.