When you’re starting out, finding easy piano pieces can be tricky if you don’t know what to look for. Often we have our goal pieces of music in mind that we want to learn as soon as possible, but we don’t know where to start. Whatever style or genre of piano music you’re interested in, these tips and suggested pieces should help you on your way.
The great thing about beginning classical piano is you have so much choice! There will be pieces you have heard many times before, and others that will be brand new. It’s always helpful to know how a song goes when you’re learning, and Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” is a popular choice for this reason. The piece ticks a few boxes for nice piano pieces because there are lots of arpeggios (broken chords), there is a repetitive rhythm, and lots of parts that repeat, and most people have heard it before.
Prelude To The Well-Tempered Clavier by JS Bach is another piano players’ staple piece for similar reasons. It sounds very impressive, when it’s actually a study in chord progressions played as arpeggios. Again, it’s a lovely piece that has the ‘wow’ factor for any piano beginner.
If you’re looking to the pop world, you’ll definitely find a lot of potential in The Beatles back catalogue. Simple melodic pop songs such as Let It Be, as well as John Lennon’s Imagine are instantly recognisable from the first few bars, and are an excellent way to work on simple block chords, inversions and driving rhythms. They’re also great songs to combine singing and playing piano early on!
Other modern and soundtrack pieces worth mentioning are Comptine d’un autre ete by Yann Tiersen and River Flows in You by Yiruma. These are similar because they both have an ostinato part in the left hand that repeats while the right hand carries the melody, which is an important piano technique to practice.
If you’re not quite at the level to master these pieces by yourself yet, don’t worry! Piano Marvel have developed specific tools and techniques to help you learn, whatever your skill level. You can watch tutorials and find instruction and piano sheet music for these pieces at:
However you are learning piano music, PlayScore 2 can help you practice your pieces effectively and independently. With the PlayScore 2 app, you can see and hear your sheet music playback exactly as it should sound. You have the option of muting either hand of piano music by moving the volume controls, looping sections while you practice, and slowing the tempo till you are ready to speed up. You can use PlayScore 2 to help you learn piano pieces one hand at a time, in easy to manage sections at your own pace.