Learning songs to sing and play on piano isn’t just fun. It’s a potent way to improve your skills on the piano.
You don’t need sheet music. You don’t need a ton of experience. And beginners can start learning this skill right away.
Knowing how to sing and play on piano isn’t just for singers, either. When you sing and play, your voice almost becomes a third hand! So it’s a fun and challenging way to master coordination skills.
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When all you need are chord charts, it’s fairly easy to find what you need for free on the Internet. Go to ultimate-guitar.com and you can find the chords to most popular songs. To figure out chord shapes on the keyboard, toggle the setting to “piano” on the chord chart of the song you want to play.
Chord charts are easy to read. Just follow the lyrics and change chords when they appear on top of the lyric.
Our first song is the classic “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley. This is an excellent song to learn first because its slow, easy tempo makes it sound fantastic even when you’re first learning. It’s also well-known to most people so your friends and family can sing along.
The chords are pretty simple. If you’re very new to piano, you can play fifths instead of full chords. That’s what C5, A5, E5 etc. mean.
We’ll walk you through the notes of each chord in this lesson. But if singing and playing becomes a frequent hobby for you (and it will!), something like a quick-reference chords poster can be useful.
You can sound very professional playing Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning” even though it’s mostly three chords. That’s because this song uses both seventh chords and the 2-5-1 progression, two common elements of jazz. Seventh chords automatically add depth and a touch of fanciness to pop songs.
One reason I really love the 2-5-1 progression is because when you use inversions, the chords fit so nicely under the hand. Try the progression like this:
You can also add some fanciness in your left hand by walking up chromatically back to D from C.
Reminder: you don’t need to be an amazing vocalist to benefit from learning how to play and sing! You can hum — or even talk — along with the song and gain all the benefits of developing coordination.
In this song, I’ll show you how to use chord inversions as shortcuts between chords.
The rhythm in “Stay With Me” is a little trickier because you change chords on the off-beat. It helps to know the song very well. Be able to sing it, then change chords when a chord appears on top of a lyric. And trust your ears!
You’ll find a Gsus4 chord later on. A sus chord is when you swap out the middle note of a triad for, in our case, the fourth note up from G.
Another new chord in this song is G#dim. Diminished chords sound crunchy on their own but add some colorful chromaticism to a pop song.
We love this song for several reasons: it’s in C Major (easy chords!), the rhythm is quite steady (easy coordination!), and the vocal part is epic (you can’t resist belting it!).
All three chords in this song are three of the most important chords you will learn. Add some octaves in the bass for some extra drama when you sing the chorus.
Most songs by Taylor Swift are beginner-friendly — not to mention catchy and fun.
“Wildest Dreams” is originally sung in C-sharp major. To simplify things, we’ve transposed our version down one half-step into C Major. This gives us all the easy chords!
Again, try using inversions to easily and efficiently move between chords.
If learning these songs has sparked something in you, but you want to level up your vocals, check out our free content on Singeo:
We also have tons of free tutorials for some of the best songs to sing and play on piano. Check these out:
Happy singing and playing!
Lisa Witt has been teaching piano for more than 20 years and in that time has helped hundreds of students learn to play the songs they love. Lisa received classical piano training through the Royal Conservatory of Music, but she has since embraced popular music and playing by ear in order to accompany herself and others. Learn more about Lisa.
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