GRADUS

Gradus — a piano difficulty checker that says why.

Drop in piano sheet music and get the grade teachers use — RCM 1–10, with the Henle number alongside.

free account

Checking a file needs a free account, so the 20 monthly checks can be counted against something.

Sign in Make one
Free: 20 checks a month for MusicXML and MIDI files  ·  PDF scanning is on the paid plan — $8 a month
Drop a piece here
or
.musicxml .mxl .mid — free  ·  .pdf — paid plan

Your file is deleted from our servers as soon as the grade is made. Nothing is kept unless you save the piece to your library.

what a check looks like
Gymnopédie No. 1
Erik Satie
example
5
RCM 5
≈ Henle 2
on the RCM scale of 1 to 10
12345678910

The hardest thing: keeping the left hand's slow leaps quiet while the melody stays free above them.

See a full reference page
checked with gradus · grades are approximate — one level either side is normal
no file yet?

How to get a MusicXML of your piece

Nearly every notation app exports one. In MuseScore it is File → Export → MusicXML; in Sibelius and Finale it is the same menu under a different name. If you own a digital edition, look for a .mxl beside the PDF — that is a zipped MusicXML and Gradus reads it directly.

Or skip the file entirely

If the piece is well known, its reference page already has the grade, the breakdown and what to play before and after it. Those pages are free and need no upload.