10 Easy Piano Songs for Beginners

You don't need tons of practice to play piano songs that you love. Here’s our selection of easy-to-play pieces for beginners, plus a few key tips to set you up for success.

Last updated on 18 Sep. 2024

If you're a beginner piano player or getting back into learning after a long break, you might have run into a problem: you want to find easy piano songs that are quick and fun to learn—without losing all the beauty and emotion that draws you to them. This article is our answer to that dilemma: it includes 10 piano songs from various genres that are easy to play while still sounding impressive. 

You'll also find our basic tips for learning piano songs, including how to choose the best pieces to start with, how to play with both hands, and how to use speed and repetition to perfect your playing.

Looking for the best way to learn the songs you love? flowkey has beautiful arrangements for players of all levels.

10. Tetris

The showstopping retro video game classic

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Tetris

Russian Traditional

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This theme to the classic 1989 video game Tetris has its roots in the 19th-century Russian folk song “Korobeiniki.” The folk song is already quite playful, mimicking a flirtation between a peddler and a peasant woman, but the Tetris adaptation adds an urgency that mirrors its frantic gameplay.

flowkey's beginner-level arrangement maintains the song's signature intensity while breaking it down into a short, simple, and joyful learning experience. The right hand plays a steady melody while the left hand plays one note at a time in accompaniment.

9. Can't Help Falling in Love With You

An Elvis Presley classic with roots in 18th-century France

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Can't Help Falling in Love With You

Elvis Presley

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This sweet, soulful wedding staple is actually based on "Plaisir d'amour," a popular French love song from 1784. The lyrics of the French original came from a poem with the lines, "The pleasure of love lasts only a moment, / The grief of love lasts a lifetime"—a far cry from the idealistic love described in "Can't Help Falling in Love." But the melancholic melody remains in both songs, reflecting love's ups and downs with a moving combination of major and minor chords.

It's impossible not to feel something when you play this song, and flowkey has beautiful arrangements of it for all experience levels, from beginner to pro. There's also a wedding version that combines it with Pachelbel's Canon and Bach's Air, in case you're feeling ultraromantic.

8. Clair de Lune

A dreamy, hauntingly beautiful piece by Debussy

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Clair de Lune

Claude Debussy

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“Clair de Lune” (“Moonlight”) is one of the famous composer Debussy's best-loved piano pieces, and it's easy to understand why once you hear its hauntingly beautiful melody. While the song gets more complicated from the middle section onward, its famous introduction is much easier. At the start, your right hand plays a slow melody while your left plays some simple, broken piano chords.

Even just perfecting the opening of this gorgeous piece may be enough to give yourself—and any listeners—goose bumps. Learn the song for free with flowkey.

7. Bring Me to Life

Evanescence's epic love song

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Bring Me to Life

Evanescence

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Evanescence's smash hit “Bring Me to Life” is a great piece for channeling your inner rock star on the keys. This song is longer than most on our list, starting with some trickier right-hand melodies and ending on a repeating left-hand pattern. It will take some practice to get both hands playing together fluidly, but once you get the hang of it, you'll appreciate the challenge.

6. Amazing Grace

The timeless, hopeful hymn

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Amazing Grace

John Newton

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This famous, soaring hymn is easy for piano beginners to master. Our beginner-level arrangement—which is free to learn on the flowkey app—has the song's right-hand melody gently floating over soft, broken chords in the left hand.

“Amazing Grace” is short, simple, and sweet, which provides an excellent opportunity for improvisation. Play the song slower, faster, with and without a pedal, to discover its many moods and create your own version of the classic. Learn “Amazing Grace” for free with flowkey.

Tips for Success

These tips will get you playing new songs quickly and with ease. We've built our app to support this learning method. You can try it out for free here. 

  1. Learn each hand separately—first your right, then your left, and then put both hands together once you're confident.
  2. Start slow. Mastering a song at a slower speed will get you to a great-sounding full speed faster. 
  3. Repeat small sections. Play a small section of a song over and over again. Once you've mastered it, move on to the next section, then put the two sections together. Continue to build the song in this way.
  4. Find a song that lights you up. It's easier to stay motivated when you play the music you love. Browse flowkey's library and choose from thousands of songs for all experience levels.

5. Where Did You Sleep Last Night

The chilling folk song made famous by Nirvana

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Where Did You Sleep Last Night

Nirvana

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Nirvana made an instantly famous cover of this song in 1993, inspired by Lead Belly's 1944 recording, but did you know that the original version dates all the way back to the 1800s?

Besides having a fascinating history, “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” makes for a great easy piano song. The right-hand melody moves along nice and slow, with just a scattering of accompanying notes in the left hand. Its simplicity allows you to really dive into the emotion of the piece, whether that be through singing along, playing loud and hard, or whatever else you feel compelled to do. 

4. Gymnopédie No. 1

Erik Satie's contemplative piano solo

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Gymnopédie No. 1

Erik Satie

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This piece's name is probably the most difficult thing about it! Satie composed it as part of a three-song series titled Gymnopédies; these are among the best piano songs for beginners to learn because they're slow and simple.

There's a great emotional depth to “Gymnopédie No. 1”—a wonderfully contemplative, melancholic vibe—which is no wonder given the composer's note that the piece should be played slowly and sorrowfully (“lent et douloureux”). For such a simple song, it carries a lot of complex emotion, which makes it incredibly rewarding to learn—and memorable to play.

3. Joe Turner Blues

W.C. Handy's deceptively lighthearted blues classic

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Joe Turner Blues

W. C. Handy

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This signature song by W.C. Handy from the early 1900s exposes the kidnapping and enslavement of Black men in America. The lyrics come from their wives' point of view: “Joe Turner” stands for the man who took their husbands.

The song's heartbreaking beginnings bounce against its relatively lighthearted melody—simple and swinging in the right hand, with a few broken chords in the left. This complexity and depth make it a fantastic song for exploring the emotional possibilities of piano, all while being easy to learn for beginners.

2. Take Me Home, Country Roads

John Denver's nostalgic hit

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Take Me Home, Country Roads

John Denver

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This classic country song is so famous that it became one of West Virginia's official state anthems—and has since been covered by other artists at least 150 times, in multiple languages. Something about this song, with its sweet, simple, slightly sad melody, speaks to that specific longing for home to which so many of us can relate.

flowkey's beginner-level arrangement strips “Country Roads” back to its basics without losing any of its signature charm. If you're looking for a song to get people talking—or singing—this is an excellent choice.

1. Moonlight Sonata

Beethoven's brooding masterpiece

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Moonlight Sonata – 1st Movement

Ludwig van Beethoven

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Beethoven's “Moonlight Sonata” is one of the composer's best-known pieces and has been featured in countless films. The famous first movement is especially powerful—and surprisingly accessible for beginners.

The melody follows a gentle, repetitive pattern, and there are just a few sharps that you need to keep an eye on—we've made these easy to spot in our beginner arrangement. Because the song sounds harder than it is, it's a good one to play when you're looking to boost your confidence or impress others.

Learn these songs (and many more) with the flowkey app

flowkey makes learning Tchaikovsky songs fun and easy. A collection of drills and in-depth tutorials created by professional musicians will help you read sheet music, learn to play with both hands, and master chords and time signatures. You will also learn to play famous songs from genres like pop, jazz, film music and classical. Get started with flowkey today to start learning.

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