20 easy piano songs for beginners to learn and play (2023)

when you startlearn to play the piano, or any instrument, the impulse comes from the music itself.

Ultimately, you want to play a song from start to finish.

Unfortunately, as with anything, progress is slow at first once you get the hang of the basics.

If you follow a curriculum thatpiano songsThings you learn as a beginner tend to be things like "Congratulations" (key of C) or "Frére Jaques" which just don't cut it.

As a mature student, learning a lullaby like "Three Blind Mice" may seem like a small step, but it's a step every aspiring pianist should take.

Once you've learned the basics and can play your left hand independently of your right hand, there are many easy beginner piano songs you can try before you get really bored.

This is especially true for those who want to master popular chord progressions and play contemporary music, rather than classical music, which tends to be more challenging for the player and requires discipline and skill to play the piano well.

So we've done our best to enlighten you on what your journey entails and recommend easy piano music for beginners.

There's a lot to report, but we've grouped our suggestions into appropriate categories and tried to curate music from a few different genres.

So we hope you come out on the other side with something more impressive than Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to play for friends and family!

20 easy piano songs for beginners

Without further ado, here is our list of some easy piano songs for beginners and why they are good choices.

1. "Chopsticks"

"Chopsticks" is probably a song that won't impress any more than the nursery rhymes we've researched, but it's basically a simple piece and everyone has to start somewhere.

We would be wrong if we didn't suggest you get this out of the way. It is played with both hands together and is undemanding.

2. "Small brown pitcher"

A two-hand piece to master, again with child-style elements, this piano music for beginners gives you something that's easy to achieve when you start with small, realistic goals.

3. "Oh If The Saints (Walk In)"

Like the previous song, this one has a simple progression.

Take a look at the sheet music; The right hand melody is good and the bass line has a slight march to master.

4. "Heart and Soul" - Hoagy Carmichael

With a light left-handed rhythm that repeats throughout, Heart and Soul is a great place to start and practice.

It has a standard I-VI-IV-V progression, and the musical lineup is very simple, leaving plenty of room for improvisation as you improve your piano playing with sheet music.

5. "Yesterday" - The Beatles

This great classical song might sound a little harder to master, but it's actually a very easy piano song to play that some people might overlook.

there are some othersBeatles-SongsIt's worth trying and learning too. John Lennon's "Hey Jude", "Let it Be" and "Imagine" are fairly easy piano songs for beginners.

6. „Sympathy for the Devil“ – Die Rolling Stones

The main verses of this piece focus on 3 chords and the piano plays a strong but uncomplicated line. The groove is great.

It's very upbeat and manages to sound way more interesting than it actually is. The riff is repetitive but really fun to play.

7. "Unchained Melody" - The Righteous Brothers

This beautiful slow folk song has a wonderful melodic melody and beautiful high notes.

The chord changes are a bit more extensive than some 4 chord pop songs, but it's definitely one to try if you're looking for a more challenging piano song for beginners.

8. "Ode to Joy" - Beethoven

"Ode to Joy" is a classical piece of music with a simple 3-chord piano structure.

The right-hand melody is only five notes at a time, so your hand is always in the right place for the next one, and each note is a quarter note; the rhythm is also direct.

9. "For Elise" - Beethoven

2 Beethoven's pieces may run counter to our "mix it up" ethos, but "Fur Elise" is an iconic piece that beginners can learn on the piano.

The music is simple and memorable.

10. "Moonlight" - Debussy

"Clair Du Lune" is actually considered an advanced piece by piano reviews, but a few stripped down versions are doing the rounds online.

The first movement of "Clair Du Lune" can be easily simplified to learn how to play as a beginner and give you something to brag about to your friends.

11. "The Artist" - Scott Joplin

Although this one has a faster tempo, there are hundreds of piano arrangements written in digital sheet music online.

If you are looking for a beginner's arrangement, you can learn to play it slowly and develop the necessary skills.

12. "Pachabel's Canon (Simplified Version)"

The basis of Pachabel's canon has only two bars and eight notes, expressed in eight repeating chords. This is an easy way to learn the gist of the piece.

The complexity of the movements can come later when you are an advanced pianist.

13. „Hermosa“ – Christina Aguilera

Beautiful has an easy-to-follow progression tutorial, but it has too many points of interest and too few changes to the established theme once you get into it.

It's music you can really learn to play sheet music with and view sheet music while playing the piano with emotional expression.

14. “When I Was Your Husband” – Bruno Mars

This one has a left hand part that doesn't distract your attention from all the music with right hand requirements.

There are some places where the chord rhythms are a bit more exciting, but you can find simplified versions yourself or simplify the rhythm of the chord pattern.

Try to stick to the first beat of each bar if it's out of your reach to begin with.

15. "Dark Horse" – Katy Perry

A very repetitive melody line that isn't boring but can mostly be played with one finger note by note is a great example of pop music to master.

The left hand is easy to handle, there are no big jumps to be made, and the rhythm is strong and steady.

16. "All of Me" - John Legend

Okay, so there are some flourishes that a beginner might need to forget entirely.

Still, the progression is mostly easy, the two hands don't play anything radically different, and the tempo is comfortable if you're just learning to sight read.

17. "Someone Like You" – Adele

As with most pop piano ballads, this one focuses on a typical pop chord progression, but the flourishes and execution set it apart from any other song that uses identical chords.

Some of these parts should be skipped. But any beginner who focuses on the basics should be able to handle this basic, no-nonsense chord progression.

18. "The Addams Family"

With such a classic and familiar melody, this fun song is easy to pick up at the beginning of your piano learning progress.

The bass line is great to play, it takes a little more work than holding a root for four beats of a bar, but it's a nice boost.

You don't have to make big jumps and it's a lot of fun. It also has good appeal for younger students. Sheet music is just a click away when you search the web.

19. "A Whole New World" - by Aladdin

If you want something to brag about with more than 4 repeated chords, this easy piano song for beginners is perfect for you.

“A Whole New World” has great dynamics, the melody is interesting and the chord changes are unpredictable.

It even has a modulation that takes everything to a new pitch. It's definitely a slow learner at your own pace. But it will make you feel very successful.

20. "My heart goes on" - Celine Dion

With an easily recognizable repeating melody, this is a theme song that has been simplified to be learned on most instruments including the piano.

It's easier than it looks as most of the hard work is left to Celine. This popular song contains the notes E and F.

How to learn a song on the piano

The most reasonable way to learn and practice easy piano songs is the guide as described in ourThe best way to learn pianoArticle.

This can be with a private tutor, sheet music, within an educational institution, online, or through books, apps, and software.

But at the end of the day, you need help, feedback, and fixes along the way.

As we mentioned in our introduction, most lesson plans start with a song that won't interest you. As you progress, you can look for resources of your own to reinforce your weekly lessons.

What do I need to know before learning songs?

Before you can see the song suggestions we have here, you should at least be able to;

• Identify notes on your piano or keyboard.
• In several simple rhythms, play at least one root note independently with your right hand.
• Being able to hold a 3 note chord and play the notes independently in an arpeggio style.

Your opportunities will be far greater if you can too;

• Identify notes on a staff for both hands.
• Read and study rhythms.
• Memorize a few basic chords for contemporary pieces.

The truth is that it takes a bit of music theory to study a song on any instrument. You can try extracting the notes by ear, but it's a time-consuming process and requires well-trained ears.

It might work for simple piano music, but without an in-depth knowledge of chords, it's not quick to edit all the held notes at once.

In fact, with pop songs, you only need to learn 8-10 popular chords to play most progressions.

Pop is a genre with a fairly simple musical accompaniment. It is based on catchy lyrics and interesting vocal melodies. The piano is there to support the superstar, so to speak.

In fact, there are many easy piano song tutorials online showing that with just 3-4 chords you can already improvise renditions of hundreds of popular songs.

Where can I find easy songs to play on the piano?

If you move on and accept that in order to read music you have to learn, then the world is yours.

You can buy your own songbooks in stores or online, or google for websites with a good sheet music library.

On the other hand, you can search YouTube for tutorials and learn how to play the piano, many of which are taught in real time with the visual aid of backlit keys.

This means that you don't need to be fluent in sheet music to be able to read sheet music. Most will first slow down the action and then speed it up.

Some are even better at giving piano lessons, where a teacher speaks and plays the piano to demonstrate it. They use a good video perspective of hands on the piano as they play.

The good news is that most free online instrument learning resources are geared towards beginners. Most will teach you to become familiar with using notes and learn to play the piano.

That means there's no shortage of easy piano versions of some of your favorite songs.

In addition to the list we've put together here to point you in the right direction, you'll no doubt find plenty of useful information elsewhere.

In fact, there are several big onesOnline Piano Lessonsand apps that teach classical and contemporary music as part of the course content.

Piano songs selected for beginners are typically not taught using official sheet music, but rather using a proprietary arrangement created specifically for the app or platform.

Music will be a basic presentation appropriate to the level being taught as the student progresses.

We analyze the most dominant top websites for you.

A commendable option for rapid musical progress is Simply Piano, which ends each lesson with a song once you've completed your basic courses.

Other sites likegame sessionsThey'll teach you over 500 songs as you progress, then give you unlimited access to one of the largest interactive music libraries on the web.

What makes a piano song easy to learn for beginners?

repetitive parts

You want to pick a song where the melody doesn't change for the most part.

The repetition means you really only need to study one verse and chorus, and although the song is 3-4 minutes long, you only need to understand a minute of playing time to finish it.

simple chord progressions

Find a song with 3 or 4 chords. It's fine if they add a 5 or 6 for a bridge later, but keep things simple in the beginning.

Sustained chords/heavy vocal parts

Sustained chords for the entire duration of a bar are easier to play than chords with a repeating rhythm.

When you play for the first time, holding a chord gives you time to read the next one without pressure and properly think about hand transitions and finger placement.

Arpeggien

a song withArpeggienor broken chords is a very easy option instead of big melody lines and big musical sweeps.

Playing a broken chord rhythmically is a good improvement over a sustained chord.

driving rhythms

When the rhythm is "impulsive" it tends to be on beat, which is pretty easy to keep with the left hand, while the right hand takes the brunt of the harder part.

without skipping octaves

Simple melodies for piano practice for beginners should have a relatively small pitch range, you don't want to scale from lower to higher octaves right away.

You also don't want to jump around, as this requires fumbling between the keys and your music until you develop muscle memory.

effortless left parts

In the beginning, one of the most difficult things is probably getting the left and right hands to work separately while playing the piano at different tempos.

So find a song with simple bass parts. If the notes are tonic, played only on the first beat or on the first and third beats, then you're good to go. A root and a fifth can also be very easily stimulated.

Single line straight parts

If you're not going the strict chord progression route, look at single-line melodies.

This way you only have to tap one finger at a time with your right hand instead of managing 2 or more.

Of course, if something you want to learn doesn't fit the above criteria, it can be simplified.

final thoughts

With just a little music theory, you can quickly play entire songs, even a stripped down version.

The resources available online are immense. There are many songs that can be easily learned as a beginner. Perhaps you have inspired some of our suggestions.

We hope that at least with the criteria we have set out for you and the guide we have provided you have the tools you need to start looking for easy piano music to learn to play .