A contemporary character piece by Ulrich Nehls that adopts a blues harmonic language within a solo piano context. It relies heavily on evocative jazz-inspired chords and gentle melodic gestures.
Achieving a consistent, laid-back blues feel without losing rhythmic stability is the main technical task.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Blues for Simone 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 Blues for Simone lasts about 4 minutes.
Blues for Simone 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 'Neath Swinging Roses by Albert William Ketèlbey, Berceuse, H.8d by Frank Bridge, At Twilight by Zdeněk Fibich — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.