I'm taking GCSE music and have to have a performance piece prepared to record for January. My music teacher has given me several pieces to work on, mostly around grade five or six standard. Although I can't do these pieces straight off, after a few weeks of practice I'm fine with them, and I enjoy the challenge of pieces that stretch my capabilties. However, when we were discussing teachers, he learned that I was self taught and have never had a piano teacher. After this, he started giving me pieces that another music teacher at the school put at only grade two or three standard. He's given me Tchaikovsky's Marche from The Nutcracker for my final piece, and the other teacher has put it at only grade three! It's only just two pages, but it is very very repetitive, and I just don't feel that it's a challenging piece at all!
What does anyone else think?

how about beethoven's appassionata? the first 3 or 4 bars are quite manageable...

seriously, try bach's prelude & fugue no. 1 from book 1? it's rather nice, but a tad overplayed, on the downside.

or a clementi sonatina? they're around grade 5 - 6 standard. not hard at all, & very fun to play.

Welcome to the forums Fran
Rai's suggestion of Clementi Sonatinas (Op36 they are) is very valid, despite his quip about Beethovens Appassionata Sonata. But you could look also at Beethovens easiest Sonata , Op49 No 2 in G - it is quite similar to the Clementis.
Whilst the Bach Prelude Rai suggested is fine, the fugue is harder than he makes out.
For something a bit different try some of Shostakovich 'Dances of the Dolls'. Good fun.
I could go on for ages.......... but I'll shut up. Good luck.

I don't know what exam board you are doing GCSE with, but my pupils have to do a grade 5 or greater piece in order to get a chance of achieving the best marks at the top level. I help them with their pieces if they want me to, and if I'm advising on what pieces to work on I'll usually choose something I can attach a grade level to. This means something from the Up Grade series or other books like that, or something previously set for a grade exam that they like. This helps the music staff a bit if the pupil can go to them and say they've got a piece to play and can say that it's Grade 5 or whatever.

If you can manage Grade 5 level pieces well I should go for that level. You could try Up-Grade or More Up-Grade Grade 4 - 5, by Pam Wedgwood (pleasant light pieces, some quite jazzy), Keyboard Anthology Book 3, A Romantic Sketchbook 3, Short Romantic pieces 3, More Romantic pieces 3, Real repertoire for piano grades 4-6, or have a look at the syllabus for Grade 5 here or the TG syllabus here. Good luck

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You're school music teacher shouldn't be choosing your pieces for you. Mine doesn't and I'm in my second year of GCSE music now.
Also, to get a good mark at GCSE your performances only need to be about grade three level. This will qualify as a "more complicated" piece and will gain you three extra marks.
In your first year of A level music, (should you take it) the standard should be about grade 6, and in the second year of A level music you should be aiming for grade 7-8.
I would just do something relatively easy, that you know you can easily get full marks on.

Hi Fran I think from comments (and criticisms) on other posts about GCSE music, it does seem as though accuracy rates very, very highly in the marking scheme, and that one of the most important things is to be as note-perfect as possible. As I understand it, people have been docked marks for stumbles in higher-level pieces, without gaining many marks for attempting something more advanced. Go for something that you can you feel really comfortable with. If that's one of the grade 5/6 pieces you were playing before, then stick with that. If you think you'd play more accurately by possibly coming down a notch of difficulty, then some lovely suggestions have been made here. If you find the Nutcracker Marche boring, it might show in your performance, so it's probably a good idea to ditch it! Good luck!

Thank you all very much for your suggestions! Seeing as how the "more difficult" marks only require grade three, I've decided to stick with the Nutcracker piece, a good mark is important in the end, I can always spend most of my practice sessions on that and then play pieces I like =]

Just as a general question, would the 1st movement of the Moonlight Sonata be appropriate for AS music, Edexcel? Only, my music teacher has suggested beginning to think about AS pieces now if we want to take it (very early I know!) in order to have sufficient preparation time, and time to change our pieces if necessary.

The first movement of the Moonlight is all about dynamics. Technically, its about grade 4, but to perform it is a different matter. In that regard it could equally be set as grade 7 or even higher!

Might be a good choice - but only if you can do it well.

Mole