How to Work with Popular Sheet Music

Learn to cope with the differences between popular sheet music and your piano lesson books.

I suspect many, if not most, of you pianists and piano students have had the unpleasant experience of bringing home your brand new piano sheet music and then having trouble playing it well. Possibly it made you wonder if you had missed something in your piano lessons. Maybe your teacher missed some part of your instruction - or worse, maybe you are missing some talent. Today I have a positive message for you all - it's NOT your talent. It's your knowledge, which can be fixed.

There are a number of critical differences between the music in your piano lesson books and pieces of popular sheet music. It is these differences which are causing your troubles and once you know how to handle them, your troubles should end.

The piece of music you have on your piano music rack is just too hard

If you have just begun learning piano, chances are you will not be able to easily master much of any popular sheet music. It's not a lack of talent, it's a lack of training. Adult students possess vast musical knowledge from a lifetime of intense listening. Unfortunately, this exposure to music does nothing to give you the ability to manipulate the piano keys properly. This "gap" between the head and the hands can be painful and frustrating, and sometimes leads the beginning piano student to attempt to perform familiar music that is just too hard for their level of skill. If there is any one point in piano lessons where patience is needed, it is here. Keep at your lessons. Get better, and unless you have a deep affection for very hard classical or jazz, you WILL be able to play what you want - in due time.

There are, however, some ways to cut down this time.

“Easy Piano” Arrangements are easier

Many arrangers make their living helping adult piano students play favorite music by putting many of favorites in sheet music “collections” labeled “Easy Piano.” All have the words “Easy Piano” right on the cover. Please note, however, that “easy” is a relative term and even an easy arrangement might be hard work for a beginner. Also, each arranger and even each publishing house has a bit different idea of what skills are “easy.” If you find a specific person who does easy piano arrangements that work for you, stick with that arranger.

Popular song arrangements are usually easier than classical piano

The reason for this is that popular songs are written to be singable, and the human voice has a limited range. Classical piano music is limited only by the possibilities of the piano. This tends to make classical piano more difficult than popular song arrangements, especially easy piano arrangements. Naturally, there are exceptions but this is generally true.

However, a couple things about popular sheet music can cause the piano student enormous, perhaps unsolvable trouble.

Popular sheet music usually has no pedal instructions and limited or no fingering instructions

If you are used to just following the orders on the page and there no orders are available - well, you'll have trouble. This is a very, very good reason to insist that your instructor help you understand how to make up your own orders, at least as far as pedaling and fingering are concerned. You should know how to pedal any piece. Also, you should know enough about fingering that you can devise a fingering that works for you. A good piano instructor knows that the student must be made independent of written directions in pedaling and fingering.

You will probably have to do some arranging yourself, since nobody is actually singing the music

With a song, a very large portion of the music is the words and their meanings. When you play a piano arrangement of the song, you might find yourself playing each verse over and over and the music becoming monotonous because the lyrics are missing. The solution is to decide to only play so many verses, so many choruses, etc. Say the song has four verses (each with different lyrics) and three choruses (each with the same lyrics.) You, as a pianist, might just limit your rendition to two verses and two choruses.

No one will be there to play it so you know how it “goes”

Way too many pianists fooled their teachers into giving them the timing of the music by ear. Upon request of the student, the foolish teacher played the tune enough times so the student memorized the timing and then just repeated what they had heard. This might have succeeded in earning the praise of parents but did nothing to help make a pianist who can learn songs on their own. The solution is to make sure you know how to COUNT your music yourself and are fully willing to do so. This is one skill that every pianist who wants to play for a lifetime must have.

You can see that the key is to insist that your piano instructor ensures you have the skills you will need to play popular sheet music on your own. You must become an INDEPENDENT learner.