One of the first things an aspiring piano player wants to find is some easy-to-learn piano songs! There’s no sense trying to dive into one of Beethoven’s symphonies as a beginner with hardly any knowledge of how to even use a piano.
Fortunately, there are a lot of songs that you can learn as a beginning piano player. In fact, some of the most popular songs throughout history have been notoriously simple, and consist only of a few chords. Don’t worry – as long as you’re taking professional lessons, you’ll be able to learn simple songs within days.
What are some easy to learn piano songs?
Every piano teacher must, eventually, have their students learn their first song. Sometimes, in more advanced piano classes, the teacher might not let the student practice a full song until they’re quite far into their lessons.
This method requires that the student learns and uses musical notation before actually playing any music, which allows them to jump into something quite complicated as their first song.
Fortunately, for most aspiring musicians, this isn’t the case. Many piano teachers like to teach their students a simple song right off the bat – being able to play their first song often hooks students and leaves them feeling accomplished.
These songs are simple and use only the most basic applications of musical theory, so they are a great way to introduce people to playing piano. They will gently ease the student into the use and relationships between chords, melodies, and rhythms.
Smoke on the Water – Deep Purple
This is a great song that everyone’s heard, and despite its raging popularity (or possibly what caused it) it’s very simple to play. The song only uses four chords A, C, D, and E flat, all very simple to play.
This song is also – sometimes exclusively, according to some teachers – taught as an introductory song, at least for guitar players. It’s got a simple rhythm and uses very few chords, so it’s a good song for people to learn, regardless of what instrument they’re playing.
Mary had a Little Lamb
This is more of a folk lullaby, but nonetheless, it’s a tune that’s extremely popular and has been sung for more than a hundred years.
Mary had a little lamb is an easy to learn piano song that teaches new piano players how to make use of the individual keys of the keyboard. They will begin to understand which notes are played by which keys.
This song also has a bass accompaniment which can at first be left out, or played by another student or the teacher on the sam piano. The students can switch up practicing bass and melody until they’re comfortable with both, then learn to play both at the same time – something that can take a lot of practice.
Being prepared – these tips make it easy to learn piano songs!
Even great pianists had to start somewhere, and those who have continued to play piano after many years are good sources of advice – we can learn from their mistakes. It’s good to take these suggestions to heart if you’re planning on learning to play piano!
Ergonomics
It’s actually quite easy to injure yourself playing piano if you don’t do it properly, and learning the right techniques in the beginning will make it much easier for you to learn piano songs.
Hand position.
Make sure your hand position is proper! This is vitally important – playing piano with your hands in the wrong position might not hurt immediately, but it sets you up for your tendons to degrade over the years, ultimately leading to things like arthritis and carpal tunnel.
Posture
Posture is important, and ensures that you’re able to comfortably reach all of the keys on the keyboard without having to strain yourself at awkward angles.
Proper posture also ensures that you won’t develop injuries down the road – a slouching stance is one of the leading causes of spinal injury in adults Even just a few hours of sitting improperly every day can have drastic effects on the human body.
Listen to music!
If you want to play piano well, you should make sure you listen to lots of music, and lots of different genres. One of the most important parts of being able to play an instrument, is your ability to play by ear.
If you listen to lots of different music, at different tempos, rhythms, genres, from different cultures, played with different instruments, you’ll become accustomed to identifying the different notes of scales. Being able to identify notes and scales by ear is a huge skill for musicians, and makes playing along with music, or learning songs by ear, much easier.
In conclusion
For someone who already knows a few chords, it can be pretty easy to learn piano songs during your early lessons. As you progress through your education, though, you’ll find that one piano songs get pretty damn complicated.
The most important thing is making sure that you enroll in informative, reputable piano lessons. This way you’ll learn more than just playing simple songs – you’ll learn the foundations of song making, and you’ll be able to write your own songs!
