5 Easy Piano Songs any Beginner Student Can Learn

Here are five easy songs for your beginner piano students.

5 Easy Piano Songs any Beginner Student Can Learn

Easy Piano Songs

Most piano teachers have experienced that moment of being with an excited child at the piano for the first time.

Perhaps it’s your own child. Perhaps you’ve overheard a child playing something by ear and come to join them. Perhaps they are just showing an eagerness to explore by “mucking around” on the keys.

Whether it’s a formal first lesson or just a moment in time at an event or family gathering, you want this moment to be fun, exciting and magical.

Therefore, it’s a good idea to have a few things up your sleeve and some easy piano songs that you can work through with the child, that doesn’t involve a method book and learning Middle C.

I call these moments “quick wins”.

They are activities that, in a really short space of time, will fill your child with joy and light a fire in them for more music-making fun.

One of the best quick wins is to quickly teach the child a familiar tune by rote. It’s quick, relatively easy and has an instant and lasting impact.

There’s a free download to accompany today’s post, so make sure to read through to the bottom, enter your details and grab your free handout. 

If you would like to see how I teach beginner piano students with no books, click here. 

You can also download my No Book Beginners framework without a TopMusicPro membership.

The Five Easy Piano Songs

Here’s a breakdown of the 5 easy piano songs that I have chosen for today’s post.

These are songs you can teach any beginner piano student. 

We have notated four of these songs for today’s free download. You can find that at the end of this post.  

1. Mary Had A Little Lamb 

Although it might sound boring and simple, for a student who has never played an instrument before, it can be fantastic. 

It’s not hard to play and it can be one you and your students work out together by ear too!

2. Heart and Soul 

An absolute favourite among beginner and new piano students! 

This is a crowd pleaser and one that is sure to put a smile on your students’ faces. 

It’s totally recognisable and will help build confidence in those new beginner piano students. 

3. The Simpsons Theme 

Another easy one to teach any student by rote, and it has some black notes and interesting rhythms too.

It’s again instantly recognisable to most children and the idea of this activity is to get your new students to see the magic of piano, this one will certainly help. 

4. Happy Birthday 

I think every student should be able to play this, and I love getting students to actually learn this by ear. 

This is a great activity and I would encourage all teachers to get their students to try and learn well-known tunes like this with their ear. 

Plus, what a great party trick for your beginner students to be able to play happy birthday at home or with their friends!

5. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star 

The final one is this famous nursery rhyme. It follows a very simple scale in C and you can work out this one by ear too. 

easy beginner piano songs

Enter your details below for today’s free download.

Today’s Free Handout

The idea of today’s blog post is to provide you with some easy piano songs that any student can play. 

If you’re not sure what to do in your first piano lesson with a new student, this is a great way to get a brand new beginner piano student exploring some keys and playing recognisable tunes. 

We have transcribed the melody of four of the five songs mentioned in today’s post. Unfortunately, we can’t show The Simpsons due to copyright, but what a great excuse to learn it by ear!

Enjoy!

Conclusion 

What famous tunes would you add to this list? Leave your thoughts in the comments section. 

Tim Topham

Tim Topham is the founder and director of TopMusic. Tim hosts the popular Integrated Music Teaching Podcast, blogs regularly at topmusic.co and speaks at local and international conferences on topics such as integrated teaching, creativity, business, marketing and entrepreneurship. Tim has been featured in American Music Teacher, The Piano Teacher Magazine, California Music Teacher and EPTA Piano Professional. Tim holds an MBA in Educational Leadership, BMus, DipEd and AMusA.

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  1. I am a beginner and trying to learn the piano. Thanks for sharing the list. I will try to learn these songs on my piano. I am following a piano course https://musicgny.com/piano-for-all-review/ I am on book 3. I will implement what I have learned and will try to play these songs.

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