Choosing a few easy piano songs to play can be a rewarding part of our piano practice. We may wish to learn some easier repertoire for various reasons. For example, we can quickly expand our current repertoire. Perhaps we have been asked to play for an event in a few weeks. A couple of new simpler pieces can shore up our repertoire list without putting too much performance stress on ourselves.
Another reason to learn simpler music is in order to study a particular style or genre. We can tease out a style’s characteristic melodies, rhythms and even some arrangement techniques while learning its repertoire. An anthology of a particular style becomes an encyclopedia of its idioms to mine and digest.
An anthology of easy piano songs can also be a great and inexpensive source of sight reading material. A big fat mixed piano anthology of a few hundred simple pieces will provide a variety of sight reading situations for as many practice sessions as pages.
We have many sources of simple repertoire available to us. Collections like the Royal Conservatory of Music (R.C.M) repertoire and study books offer several graded anthologies of music to choose from. The R.C.M. updates its syllabus every five years or so. There is nothing wrong with an earlier edition if you are using it solely for expanding and varying your repertoire. If you are familiar with the system, a good rule of thumb is that you should be able to sight read material near tempo at two or three levels below your current grade of study.
Major music publishers have large catalogs that are filled with anthologies organized by level of difficulty, genre, and even artist. Focusing on simpler repertoire with familiar titles, these types of anthologies try to appeal to a wide playing audience. Collections in popular styles are professionally arranged and fingered.
Many famous composers have also written method books and instructional pieces, another great source for easy piano songs. Robert Schumann, J.S. Bach, Johannes, Brahms, and even Ludwig van Beethoven all wrote piano pieces for their own students at a modest level of difficulty. Another favorite composer among piano students is Carl Czerny, who provides us with a wealth of piano sonatas that most intermediate piano players can sight read or bring up to performance level with a little bit of practice.
In order to get you started in your search for easy piano songs, the following provides a short list of some well-known works from the piano repertoire. They all should prove to be fairly easy to learn for the intermediate player. Each work or collection is from a famous composer representative of a different traditional style period in western art music: Baroque, Classical, Romantic , and Modern (20th century to the present).
Baroque (1600-1750)
J.S. Bach’s music epitomizes the Baroque style and ushers in the beginning of modern harmony. He presented his second wife two collections of keyboard music both known as the Notebook for Anna Magdalena. Many of their short pieces form part of the student repertoire and they are a great source for keyboard study.
Classical (1750- c.1820)
Beethoven’s music straddles the Classical and Romantic worlds. Most intermediate piano students will learn his famous Für Elise, and Moonlight Sonata at some point in their studies. Für Elise was probably written for one of his students who was rumored to be a love interest. Even non-musicians will recognize both of these works.
Romantic (1800 – 1910)
Mendelssohn’s Op. 19. No.4 from his first book of Songs Without Words, is a beautiful romantic solo work that is accessible to any intermediate level player. Do not let the score’s appearance intimidate you. It is rated as a grade six piece in the Royal Conservatory of Music system, which most students reach in their first three years of study.
Modern (1900 – present)
Bela Bartok is an important twentieth century composer. He provides the piano student with over a hundred and fifty modern pieces in his six volume work Mikrokosmos. The musical style in this collection may not be to everyone’s taste. Nevertheless, they are an important part of the repertoire. Its short pieces reflects Bartok’s sensitivity not only as a great composer, but also as a great music teacher. He organizes the volumes progressively from very easy to quite demanding. The pieces provide the player with unique rhythmic and harmonic challenges, which many students enjoy working on like musical puzzles.
