What's the most beautiful song?

'Winter' by Tori Amos

🎹 Awesomeness.

The State Anthem of The Soviet Union. You will love it just listen once believe me I'm not communist or Russian or anything but this is the best Piano song ever

It changes week on week for me!

Musically speaking, at the moment I really like Perosi's SATB choral anthem 'O Sacrum Convivium'. I love how robustly structured it is, and the way it's masquerading as really old music (like Thomas Tallis or Johann Sebastian Bach) but surprises you with little modern touches.

For such a short piece I'm impressed at how the chord progression repeatedly creates tension then resolves it, sometimes in unexpected ways and with accidental notes thrown in for extra sentiment - even threatening to change key - and how the melody of the first two phrases keeps coming back. Every section 'counts' and takes the piece in one direction or another; no part is redundant. If you tried to take one or two lines or even a verse out, it would ruin the entire thing.

Overall it feels coherent and balanced and satisfying, but not in the sleep-inducing way some really old music does. You feel like it's picking you up and taking you on a scenic trip round the houses on a route you were not quite expecting, then dropping you off home safe and sound.

https://youtu.be/Sl97UZxKQ4o

I think Pachelbel's Canon is the most beautiful song.

I too play piano, lately I've been playing Freak On A Leash it sounds so good on piano.

its da cool sung calld "Doin' Your Mahm" by de homie Ray William Johnson dawg;3

I don't think there's just one most beautiful song.

Pink Floyd - High hopes.

Never fails to send chills down my spine. Absolute masterpiece!

Cristiforis dream by david lanz is an old favourite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRsnMGA5H1k

You're in Love - Joe Hisaishi
I reeaaly love this one and am learning to play it on piano right now.

and in general any song by alt-j cause they are all awesome and probably also sound nice on piano

https://youtu.be/4B6E0mijV5A

Wax Fang-Majestic

Polyushka Polye (https://open.spotify.com/track/6anybzWXu6zGUY0TF7Yk25?si=dDS7Hm3eS_a560SgU3xAEA&dl_branch=1)

Moskau (https://open.spotify.com/track/00A487682Fmw9Xzjq557EU?si=3UPU1JV1S1qyxlQHwL6BGA&dl_branch=1)

Green greens (https://open.spotify.com/track/25OLHZ0Og81PwntVVLZPLd?si=wlyCSeH7SYKSje_6hUOCaA&dl_branch=1)

Layla piano solo

Come sail away ( almost any “ hard” arrangement will sound pretty)

Satié

Write your own music

Not sure how it would sound as a piano solo.
But if I just want to lay back and dream for me it is The Odyssey by Neil Diamond from the sound track of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

By the way, if you're into rock + haunting melodies, I have a nostalgic soft spot for Evanescence, and I don't just mean the 2003 one-hit wonder that was 'Bring Me To Life'.

On balance I think that their best compositions originate from that early era and you can tell the lead Amy Lee thinks so too, since a considerable number of the songs on her comeback album 'Synthesis' are remakes of her early output (with much better vocals in the comeback - she has clearly invested in training her beautiful voice over the years and it shows).

Piano-friendly Evanescence favourites of mine are 'My Immortal' and 'Hello', and they're accessible to beginning piano players, too.

Also, if you like rock/metal, some Metallica songs sound amazing on acoustic instruments. I'm thinking of 'Nothing Else Matters' and 'One', played by the Finnish 'cello band, Apocalyptica.

I'm not sure if they would work quite as well on the piano, but that's for you to decide.

OP, you might want to have a listen to Ludovico Einaudi's piano pieces. You might even recognise some of them from films and advertisements. All of them are gorgeous and relaxing, and many of them are accessible to lower-level players. Einaudi is a textbook example of a minimalist composer. Every single note is meaningful.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Einaudi's music for calming MY jumpy teenagers - and me, too. This is rhythmic, textured music that creates a mood and sets a serene backdrop to wherever you are and whatever you're doing, and helps keep you sane. Some of my English students really liked it and one or two played it with their piano teachers.

There are loads of classical piano compositions that I like, but if you're talking about popular music, then the song that immediately comes to my mind is "La Mer" by Charles Trenet. I've loved that from the time I first heard it as a kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fztkUuunI7g

I'm not a musician, so I have no idea how difficult it is to play. To my untrained ears, it sounds simple, but I understand that apparent simplicity in music is often an illusion.

I really like the swing versions of the song (Bobby Darin's is obviously the one the most people will have heard), but I find Trenet's original arrangement and vocals poignant and yet happy.

I'm not a pianist, but if you wanted to go down the classical route, some of my favourite classical solo piano pieces are:

*Scott Joplin - Bethena. The most gentle, plaintive ragtime waltz I know. It sounds quite easy, but then I'm not a pianist. It was a favourite of my old school teacher for calming down jumpy teenagers. She played it as schmaltzily and as luxuriously as possible - not at all true to the ragtime style - but I loved hearing it played that way.

*Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata, Mvt 1. This surely needs no introduction. It was another favourite of my old school teacher for calming down jumpy teenagers. She played it much as she played Bethena.

*Beethoven Appassionata Sonata, Mvt 3. Not for the faint of heart. If you like to play 'fast', this is your jam.

*Beethoven Pathétique, Mvt 1. Perhaps more forgiving than Appassionata (and I really hate listening to versions of it that are played too fast), but again - not for the faint of heart.

*Saint-Saëns - Le Cygne (Carnaval des Animaux). This practically begs to be played with a cello but there are beautiful piano-only versions too and it doesn't sound too difficult for an intermediate player. Also, there are other piano-friendly pieces in the Carnaval des Animaux suite.

*Edward Elgar - Salut d'Amour. It seems accessible for intermediates. Again this piece begs for a violin soloist to accompany, but it is so popular you can get it as a solo piano piece and you can still make it sound gorgeous. It doesn't get more old-style British than Edward Elgar, so PLEASE don't play it too fast and at the expense of lyricism, and please contrast the passionate parts with gentlemanly subtlety elsewhere.

*Chopin and Schubert - nothing specific, but whenever I hear some particularly gorgeous piano music on the radio, it's normally by one of them. Some of Chopin's Etudes sound fiendishly difficult, though.

The theme from the French film Amélie and the Glasgow Love Theme from Love Actually are a must-play, but the Amélie music is done to death. You could call it a rite of passage, though. The Glasgow Love Theme is probably very accessible to pre-intermediate players on a technical level, but the musicality of your interpretation (or lack thereof) can make or break it.

One other beautiful but underrated piece of piano music is the piano version of the theme music from the old Australian soap 'Neighbours'. It's hardly classical, though!

I have no idea what your level is or whether you're a beginner or semi-professional or what. Please forgive me if I have come across as patronising.

'Teardrops' - Massive Attack
'Fake Plastic Trees' - Radiohead
'Pearly Dewdrop Drops' - Cocteau Twins
'Hafsol' - Sigur Ros
'Gold' - Chet Faker
'You Turn Me On I'm A Radio' - Joni Mitchell
'What Are They Doing In Heaven Today' - Mogwai

Most of these aren't very piano-ee. But they all make me stop and listen.
Cheers.

If you ever play the piano around people (like on those random public pianos you find at train stations and in city centres), my advice is to draw up a playlist of the kind of music people like to sing along to AS WELL AS more serious solo performance pieces. I love to think of musical performance as a form of community art. You could really give a lot of people a good time that way and momentarily relieve them of their loneliness, and to do that, you don't even need to play particularly well.

My shortlist of 'singable piano pieces' is as follows. They are all melodically very beautiful as well as being favourites for singers and having notable or satisfying piano parts - with the exception of 'Shallow' perhaps, but there is a version of it floating around YouTube with Gaga singing to a piano accompaniment...

*Lewis Capaldi - Someone You Loved
*The Beatles - Yesterday
*Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah
*Boubil and Schönberg - On My Own (Les Misérables)
*Adele - Someone Like You
*Tears for Fears - Mad World
*Rodgers and Hammerstein - You'll Never Walk Alone (Carousel). The version that most of your audience will try to sing unless you show them otherwise is probably the Gerry and the Pacemakers version - which is (I think) in 12/8 and is guitar- rather than piano-led. You'll need to rein them in really firmly.
*Journey - Don't Stop Believing
*Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice - Don't Cry for Me, Argentina (Evita)
*Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper - Shallow (A Star is Born)
*Adolphe Adam - O Holy Night

The list wouldn't be complete without Schubert's Ave Maria but I personally really hate it.

One of my music students (who plays piano) played the 'Howl's Moving Castle' theme on our class performance day. It was absolutely gorgeous.

The OST is here: https://youtu.be/UwxatzcYf9Q

I loved the piece anyway but it was so moving to see him do it, and all the others being lost in its entrancing dream world. His dynamics were absolutely on-point. He took the rubato a little far for my liking though and seemed to slow down at the parts that were more difficult (as do we all), and it got in the way of the nostalgic waltzing style. I chose to ignore the bum notes. Given that he had never played that particular piano previously and hadn't known he would be playing that piece until another student requested it and the others egged him on, he did it marvellously well.

I also really love this: https://youtu.be/nzxJtqKQ8Mo

It's Gauthier Capuçon playing Marguérite Monnot's song 'L'Hymne à l'Amour' on the cello, in a video filmed on the Eiffel Tower. I don't know who is playing the piano, but the composer Monnot was a pianist and composed it on the piano. The song was originally sung by the iconic French singer Edith Piaf (1915-1963) in 1950.

Here is a piano-only version: https://youtu.be/LS2w2VtOflE

I like it because it just cements my idea of what 'old France' must have been like in the mid 20th century, after the war and the fascist era but before the world became a homogenised 'global village' spammed with mass culture, when a frightened, fragile France got to work 'canonising' new national heroes by weaving them into the new identity narrative it created for itself. In 2021, that narrative is now coming apart at the seams...

I'm not even French, and listening to/watching this video alongside Jacques Brel makes me feel nostalgic for a heritage that isn't mine or my family's. It's a homage to simpler but harsher times. That's the power of music for you.

On piano? Or anything?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D5U1ndFiYLh4&ved=2ahUKEwj4gK_97MfxAhUWkWoFHUyiC-YQwqsBegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw1tIfCRWLWYFLQh82whSrSm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f4zJQ-G4QE
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqtHwRnskqs

Con Te Partiro’ by Francesco Sartori sung by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman.

https://youtu.be/J9_T6cewa50

https://youtu.be/4CssZjs6M54

Here you go. If you want the sheet music for either of those, or just the original midi, I can (attempt to) provide it, especially for the second one.

'The Holly and The Ivy' by George Winston.

https://youtu.be/k1BneeJTDcU

That's what's up

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxU

This is my favorite. It’s like a content melancholy.

[OP] Not that Queen isn't pretty, by the way. A lot of their songs are, I don't wanna *just* play rock, yunno?

And GN'R can be too iii];)'