There’s something rather special about someone sitting at a piano and singing.

It can be a huge performance — Elton John hammering away at a grand piano in front of thousands of people — or someone playing three quiet chords in the corner of a room. Either way, there’s something wonderfully complete about it.

You have the harmony, the rhythm and the voice all coming from one person. You can speed up, slow down, leave a pause, repeat a chorus or change the key. There’s no backing track to keep up with and no band wondering what on earth you’re doing. The piano follows you because you’re playing the piano.

And the nice thing is, you don’t actually have to be a brilliant pianist — or a brilliant singer — to do it.

You Don’t Need to Play a Complicated Piano Part

I think this is where people often make singing at the piano much harder than it needs to be. They hear Elton John, Billy Joel or Alicia Keys and imagine that they have to play something equally elaborate.

You don’t. If you can play a few chords in a steady rhythm, you already have the beginnings of an accompaniment.

Think of a guitarist singing around a campfire. Nobody expects the guitarist to play the vocal melody as well. The guitar provides the chords and rhythm while the voice provides the melody. You can do exactly the same thing at the piano.

Play a C chord. Hold it while you sing. Move to F when the chord changes. Then G. Perhaps add a simple rhythm when you feel comfortable. That is already accompanying yourself.

Why Singing and Playing Feels So Difficult at First

There is, however, one slightly alarming moment that almost everyone experiences. You learn the piano part and you can sing the song. Then you try doing both together and suddenly you can do neither.

Your left hand stops. You forget the words. Your right hand plays something peculiar and your brain appears to have left the building.

This is completely normal. Singing and playing are two separate activities that your brain initially has to supervise. The trick is to make the piano part so familiar that it needs much less conscious attention.

It’s a bit like learning to drive. At first you’re thinking about the clutch, gears, mirrors, steering and indicators individually. Eventually you can do all of that while having a conversation. The piano part needs to reach something like that stage.

Get the Piano Part Automatic First

If you want to sing over a chord progression, practise the chords until you can play them without having to think too much about what comes next. You don’t need perfection. You just want the basic movements to feel familiar.

Try talking while you play. Count aloud, say the chord names or recite the alphabet. If your hands immediately stop when you open your mouth, the piano part probably isn’t automatic enough yet.

Keep playing it. Once your hands can continue while your attention wanders slightly, adding the vocal becomes much easier.

Start With the Simplest Possible Accompaniment

Don’t begin with a complicated rhythm. If the song has four beats in a bar, try playing the chord once at the beginning of each bar and simply holding it while you sing. That’s enough.

Once that works, perhaps play the chord twice in each bar. Then try a simple rhythm. Later you can add broken chords, bass notes and little fills.

This is another example of something I use throughout Pianoforall: Divide and Conquer. Don’t try to coordinate a complicated piano arrangement and a vocal at the same time. Get the simplest version working first and build from there.

You may even discover that the simple version sounds better.

The Voice Doesn’t Have to Follow the Piano

This is where things start getting interesting. Once you’re comfortable singing and playing together, you can stop treating the piano like a metronome.

A singer naturally stretches phrases. You might hold one word a little longer, come into the next line slightly late or leave a pause because it feels right. When you’re accompanying yourself, the piano can follow you.

You can slow down at the end of a verse, leave a moment of silence before an important line, play more strongly as the chorus builds and then drop right back for the next verse. That’s a lovely freedom.

You’re not simply playing chords underneath a song anymore. You’re accompanying a singer — who happens to be you.

Some of the Greatest Singers Have Done Exactly That

Think of how different the piano feels in the hands of different singer-pianists.

Ray Charles could make a simple chord progression groove like an entire band. Nina Simone, with her classical background, could make the piano almost another voice. Carole King often sounded wonderfully direct — song, chords and voice without anything unnecessary getting in the way.

Then you have Elton John, who can make a piano sound enormous, and Norah Jones, who shows the opposite: how effective understatement can be. Billy Joel, Fats Domino, Alicia Keys — they’re all singer-pianists, but they don’t approach the instrument in the same way.

That’s worth remembering. There isn’t a correct way to accompany your voice.

Learn From Great Singer-Pianists — But Don’t Copy Them

It’s well worth watching good singer-pianists closely. Don’t just listen to the song; watch what the hands are doing while they’re singing. You may be surprised by how little they’re sometimes playing.

Notice when the piano becomes busy and when it becomes quiet. Listen for fills between vocal phrases rather than underneath them. Notice how the left hand establishes the rhythm and how often a chord is simply allowed to ring.

That’s much more useful than trying to copy every note. You’re learning the job the piano is doing, and then you can use the same idea in completely different songs.

Choose Your First Songs Carefully

For your first attempts, choose songs with fairly predictable chord changes and a vocal melody you already know extremely well. You don’t want to be learning the words, melody, chords and piano rhythm simultaneously. Give your brain a fighting chance.

Songs such as Let It Be, Hallelujah, Make You Feel My Love and many simple ballads can work beautifully because they don’t need an elaborate accompaniment.

But really, the best first song is one you already know inside out. If you’ve sung it a hundred times in the car, that’s ideal. Half the work has already been done.

Change the Key to Suit Your Voice

This is another enormous advantage of accompanying yourself at the piano. You don’t have to sing the song in the original key. In fact, you probably shouldn’t unless it happens to suit you.

Move the song up or down until you find the part of your voice where it comes alive. If you’re using a digital piano, the transpose function makes experimenting particularly easy.

I’ve written more about this separately because finding the right key can make a remarkable difference to your singing. But the important point here is that you’re in charge. The original recording is a reference, not a set of instructions.

Leave Some Space

As your piano playing improves, there’s a temptation to put more and more into the accompaniment — more notes, more fills, bigger chords, cleverer rhythms. Sometimes that’s wonderful. Sometimes the best thing your right hand can play is absolutely nothing.

If you’re singing an important line, let the voice have the room. Play the chord and listen. When the vocal phrase finishes, perhaps that’s the moment for the piano to answer with a little fill.

Think of it almost like a conversation. The voice sings, the piano answers, then the voice comes back.

Once you begin thinking like that, singing and playing stops feeling like two unrelated jobs you’re desperately trying to perform simultaneously. They begin to work together.

You Don’t Have to Be a Great Singer

This is perhaps the most important point. A lot of people won’t sing because they don’t think they have a particularly good voice.

But there’s a big difference between having a technically impressive voice and being able to put a song across. Some of my favourite singers would probably have been thrown out of a television talent show in the first round. Bob Dylan didn’t let that stop him.

What matters is whether you can communicate the song. And sitting at a piano can actually help. You’re choosing the key. You’re controlling the accompaniment. You don’t have to compete with a backing track. You can sing quietly if that suits you.

You’re creating the conditions that allow your voice to work.

Why Chord-Based Piano Is Perfect for This

This is one of the reasons I teach chords so early in Pianoforall. You don’t need to wait until you can play elaborate arrangements before you can accompany yourself.

A handful of chords and one simple rhythm can be enough. Then, as your piano skills develop, the accompaniment develops too. You can add broken chords, different rhythm styles, bass patterns, fills and little melodic ideas.

But underneath all of that is the same basic skill: you know the chords, you know the song, and you know how to make the piano support your voice.

That’s a wonderfully useful thing to be able to do.

To Sum Up

If you’ve always fancied singing at the piano, don’t wait until you think you’re a good enough pianist. Choose a song you know well, find the chords, put it into a comfortable key and play the simplest possible accompaniment.

Get the hands comfortable first, then add the voice. It will probably fall apart the first few times. That’s part of learning it. Simplify the piano part, try again and gradually let the two things come together.

Later you can add rhythms, fills and more interesting arrangements. But you may find you don’t need very much.

Because when a voice and piano are working together, three well-placed chords can sometimes say far more than three hundred notes.