I’m frequently asked ‘What’s the easiest way to get started playing piano?’ Well, I have a great little quick tutorial here that will get you started playing piano lickety-split! This tutorial is going to show you how to get started singing and playing piano right now!
The method I’m going to teach requires that you only play a single note on the piano while you sing one note at a time. I’m going to show you both how to work with sheet music that has the chords written in and sheet music that does not have the chords written in.
How to sing and play piano when the chords are written in:
- Play the name of the chord with just one single note on the left hand
- Always give yourself your first note and then sing and play
- Try to keep your left hand somewhere down below middle C i
How to sing and play piano when the chords are not written in:
- Go through and identify the name of the first beat in the bar at the bottom note of the left hand — this will give you a clue as to what the chord is
- Write in the name of that note and just play that – the first beat of each bar and sing along
- If you want to play a little bit more, then you can play each of the lowest notes in the left hand and sing along
- Always remember to give yourself your first note so you can start and sing in the right place
If this is new for you, start off four bars at a time or eight bars at a time until you’re able to do it. If you’re a voice teacher or a choral conductor you can do some of the grunt work for your students by writing in the names of the notes as needed or as an extra theory assignment, you could have them do it for you.
I hope that this tutorial is going to be great for you to start to sing and play piano at the same time. Want to learn more about piano? Check out this post.
Want to level up your piano skills?
Check out this video on how to sing and play piano with TWO notes.
How to prepare your audition book.
Ready to learn piano? Check out Piano Skills for Singers – my signature online courses! Available through my online platform:
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