Is this grading system really only a 'New York' area thing?
No, but as others have pointed out, there's very little correlation between different states' and countries' rating systems.
How do they avoid getting a grade 3 arrangement when they had wanted a grade 5 or vice versa?
They don't. The only way is to look and/or play through the pieces which interest you. Difficulty ratings are sometimes wildly inappropriate or just plain stupid. For example, the Illinois junior high class B solo list includes Schumann's Adagio and Allegro. I guess someone looked at the first page and saw that it had lots of half and quarter notes. That same reviewer probably would think that the slow movement of Mozart K447 is more difficult because it has some 16ths.
Political and economic factors also influence the content of various graded lists. For example, the Illinois lists include (or have in the past) several very poor quality issues from one particular Illinois based publisher.
Bottom line is, use all those various grading systems as a rough guide and then make your own judgment.
Dan
================================ Dan Phillips Professor of Horn, University of Memphis webmaster: http://music.memphis.edu
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