The Bittle-It Polka is a jaunty, virtuosic salon piece by American composer William Mason. It captures the social vitality of the period through rhythmic precision and nimble melodic figurations.
Maintain a crisp, light touch to ensure the articulation remains clean at higher tempos.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Bittle-It Polka (Op.18) is rated Henle level 3 of 9 — late beginner repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 4–5. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 3.
You should be comfortable at Henle level 3 — meaning you can already play level 2–3 pieces cleanly. Learning it one level early is possible as a stretch piece, but more than that usually leads to months of frustration.
A typical performance of Bittle-It Polka (Op.18) lasts about 2 minutes.
Bittle-It Polka (Op.18) is available as free public-domain sheet music on IMSLP — the score is linked directly from this page.
Pieces at a comparable difficulty and character include Bittle-It Polka for Piano by William Mason, Bittle-It Polka by William Mason, Alexander's Ragtime Band by Irving Berlin — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.