Difficulty guide
Choose the right song difficulty
The best tutorial is not always the easiest or the hardest. A good song choice should be challenging enough to teach you something, but realistic enough that you can make progress in a few focused sessions.
Beginner tutorials
A beginner tutorial should have a small number of new ideas. On piano, that might mean simple hand positions, clear chord shapes, or a slow melody. On guitar and ukulele, it often means common open chords and a steady strumming pattern. On bass, it may use repeated root notes and a simple groove. On drums, it should keep the beat stable before adding fills.
Choose beginner songs when you want confidence, clean timing, and complete playthroughs. A good beginner tutorial should let you finish the song, not just understand the first ten seconds.
Intermediate tutorials
Intermediate tutorials usually combine several skills at once. You may need faster chord changes, more accurate timing, two-hand coordination, syncopation, muting, position shifts, or more detailed dynamics. These songs are useful when you can already play easier material but want to stretch your control.
An intermediate song should feel difficult but not impossible. If you can play the first section slowly after a short practice session, the tutorial is probably in the right range.
Advanced tutorials
Advanced tutorials ask for speed, independence, accuracy, and endurance. They may include fast runs, complex rhythms, wide jumps, challenging fills, detailed articulation, or arrangements that require both hands or both limbs to do different jobs at once.
Advanced songs are worth saving, but they should not dominate your Practicing list unless you have enough foundation to work on them productively. If every measure needs a separate lesson, it may be better to save the song for later and choose a nearby stepping-stone song first.
Mixed difficulty songs
Mixed difficulty is useful when a tutorial has easy and hard parts in the same video. A song might have a simple verse and a difficult chorus, or a basic groove with one advanced fill. These tutorials can still be valuable because you can learn the approachable sections first and return to the harder sections later.
When you add a mixed tutorial, use notes to remind yourself what makes it mixed. For example: easy chords, hard bridge; simple bass line, fast ending; beginner melody, intermediate left hand.