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Hello, all!

I'm a primarily "by-ear" pianist, and I love figuring out how to play popular songs on piano - however, recently, I haven't been able to think of many new songs to learn.

I love 60s-80s music, but I'm only 18 years old, so the amount of songs that I know from that period probably only skims the surface. I feel like there are probably countless songs that I have never even heard that have great piano/keyboard parts.

Below I'm listing a few examples of the types of music that I have already learned. If someone were to ask me to play a popular song on piano, I might play one of these.

Examples of Songs/Artists that have great piano/synth parts
Billy Joel
Elton John
Coldplay
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Journey
Bridge over Troubled Water (Simon and Garfunkel)
Can't Fight this Feeling (REO Speedwagon)
Phantom of the Opera/Les Miserables music
Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
Jump (Van Halen)
I'm know lots of contemporary songs as well - All of Me by John Legend is one of my favorites right now.


I feel like for every song that I know, there are 10 more waiting to be learned, that I don't even know about yet. If you can let me know what some of your favorite songs to play are, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks in advance

Try this one sounds great on piano
Richard Marx - Right Here Waiting

You already have a great list, but some of my favorites are:

Desperado (Eagles)
Killing Me Softly (Roberta Flack)
Border Song (Elton John)
Moondance (Van Morrison)

Have you played Billy Joel's Root Beer Rag?

Good luck!

Steve Goodman's City of New Orleans.
Eagles' Hotel California (nice progression)
Jim Croce's Bad Bad Leroy Brown
Also many of I - vi - IV - V stuff. Anything from Unchained Melody, to Mr. Postman.
Then there's 12 bar Blues. (titles too numerous)

This is one of those songs that I've heard time and time again but never knew the name/artist of. Thanks for the suggestion!


Nope, I'd never even heard it before. I don't know if I have the technical ability to play it, and I'll probably end up resorting to sheet music, but I'll give it a shot!


That used to be one of my favorite songs to play, but your post made me realize that I haven't played it in ages..

Thanks for all of the suggestions, guys!

Have you tried "daydreaming" by "Dark Dark Dark" ? I learned it by ear recently, its not that hard and its really fun to play. Listen to it.

Take a look at michaelmusic.host22.com - might give you some ideas

There's also Leon Russell, Dr. John, & Prof. Longhair. While there may be no way to play the tune identically, there's much technique (licks) to steel, er, a borrow.

Here's some good ones:

Paul McCartney - Maybe I'm amazed
Bruce Hornsby - The Way it is
Any Beatles song sounds awesome on piano
David Bowie - Life on Mars
Styx - Come Sail Away
Kansas - Carry on my Wayward Son

Gordon Lightfoot, If you could read my mind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y363buoeY70

Was just gonna write Bruce Hornsby - The way it is but it was already mentiond above.

There is a free master class on this piece by Dave Frank.

Another cool piece is Just a two of us

Pink Floyd - Great Gig In The Sky

The Doors - Crystal Ship

John Lennon - Jealous Guy

Lynard Skynard - Call me the breeze, Tuesday's Gone

Any particular book recommended for the beatles

I just use a guitar book which has the chords and lyrics for every song. It's called "The Complete Chord Book". I'm sure there are plenty of strictly piano books available though, even eBooks at the Kindle store at Amazon. Just do a search and you'll find many great options.

i'm trying to learn many of Paul Simon's popular songs (google it), like Still Crazy... challenging chords and progressions. Some Cat Stevens songs are challenging (for me) like Wild World.

If you like the 70's and have the ability to figure out chords by ear, you can spend a lifetime mining the early stuff from these three:

Stevie Wonder
Steely Dan
Todd Rundgren

Bonus selection: "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc....beautiful chords

HERE'S MY SUGGESTION: I AGREE