If you want to be able to sit down at a piano and play for family or friends, it’s worth building up a repertoire of songs you know really well.
They don’t need to be difficult songs. In fact, some of the simplest songs are often the best ones to have ready, particularly if other people can sing along.
Here’s how I would go about putting a repertoire together.
Start With a List of Songs
Make a list of songs you’d enjoy playing.
Don’t worry too much at this stage about whether they’re easy or difficult. Just get a reasonable list together and then start looking for the chords and lyrics.
Sites such as Ultimate Guitar can be useful for this, although always check the chords yourself. Online chord sheets aren’t necessarily correct.
Make Your Own Song Sheets
I like having my own simple chord and lyric sheets.
You can make these in Word, with the chords written above the appropriate words. A fixed-width font such as Courier makes it much easier to keep everything lined up.
I also like putting the chords in red so they’re easy to see at a glance.
Print out working copies and play through each song, correcting anything that doesn’t sound right.
If you’re unsure about a chord, compare a few different versions online or check the original recording.
Find a Rhythm That Suits the Song
If your keyboard has built-in rhythms, try a few and find one that suits each song.
Make a note of the rhythm or style you’ve chosen on the song sheet. That way, when you come back to the song later, you don’t have to spend ten minutes trying to remember which one you used.
If you’re singing as well, you may also need to change the key to suit your voice.
Most keyboards have a transpose function, so if you’ve moved a song up or down, write the transpose setting on the sheet too.
It’s amazing how quickly you forget these things.
Get Everything Ready Before You Need It
If you’re likely to play with friends or family, keep your songs together in a folder and put them in a sensible order.
You could also print a couple of spare copies of the lyrics and chords. Then other people can sing along or someone with a guitar can join in.
A little preparation makes the whole thing much more relaxed.
Keep the Songs You Can Play Well
Your repertoire doesn’t need to contain every song you’ve ever learned.
I’d rather have twenty songs I can play comfortably than a hundred that I can only half remember.
If there’s a song where the verse is fine but you always come unstuck in the chorus, take it out of your main folder for now and keep working on it.
Put it back when you can play it comfortably.
Think About Who You’re Playing For
Different songs work for different occasions.
If people want to sing, familiar songs with fairly simple chord progressions and memorable choruses usually work best.
The Beatles, ABBA, Elton John and The Carpenters give you plenty to choose from, and it’s worth having some newer songs as well.
And don’t forget the really old songs. At the right gathering, something like Knees Up Mother Brown can be considerably more useful than your finest piece of Chopin.
Hey Jude is another useful one because once you reach the end, you can keep everyone going for as long as they’ll tolerate you.
Blues is useful too. A simple blues progression is easy to play, easy for another musician to join and gives you plenty of room to improvise.
Have an Easy First Song
If you’re nervous about playing in front of people, don’t start with the most difficult thing you know.
Start with something you can play almost without thinking.
Once you’ve played one song successfully, you’ll usually relax and the rest becomes much easier.
Include Something for Different Ages
If you’re building a repertoire for parties or family gatherings, it’s worth having music from different periods.
You might have some Beatles and Elton John, some ABBA, a few more recent songs and some old singalong favourites.
You don’t need dozens from every period. Just enough that you’re not completely stumped when someone twenty years younger or forty years older than you asks for something.
Keep Adding to It
Your repertoire will change over time.
Some songs will disappear because you never play them. Others will become favourites. Every now and then you’ll hear something and think, that would be a good one to add to the folder.
That’s really all a repertoire is — a collection of music you enjoy playing and know well enough that you don’t have to worry about it.
And that’s also one of the reasons I put so much emphasis in Pianoforall on learning chords and rhythm patterns that can be applied to lots of different songs.
The more of those patterns you know, the easier it becomes to hear a song, find the chords and turn it into something you can play.
A good repertoire isn’t really about showing people how clever you are at the piano.
It’s about being able to sit down and make some music when the opportunity arises.
Need a beginner-friendly keyboard for these songs? Here’s how to choose one.
