Song Title: Piano Man
Artist: Billy Joel
Key Of Original Recording: C
Harmonica Key Suggested: C – first position
Piano Man is pretty popular song to learn on the harmonica. It’s a popular song in general and has the iconic harmonica part interspersed throughout, so it’s a popular song to try and learn on harmonica.
The good news is that Piano Man is mostly pretty easy to learn on the harmonica. The good thing about playing Piano Man as a beginner is that the whole harmonica part is made up of double and triple stops (i.e. you’re playing two or three notes at once) rather than having to be able to play single notes, which may be difficult for complete newbies.
However, the challenge for harmonica beginners in playing Piano Man is the occasional bend. That being said, you can mostly get away with playing Piano Man without bending. It will sound close enough for learning purposes and close enough to say to a family member “hey, look what I learned” as an early song to play.
Finally, the other challenge from Piano Man is that it’s in 3/4. Most popular music is written in 4/4 and, while 3/4 isn’t unheard of for popular music, it’s not nearly as common as 4/4. I guess this is just something to be aware if you’re new to music and trying to count the beats.
Anyway, I’m presenting Piano Man as it’s been recorded. Very often I’ll provide melodies and riffs in alternative positions from my handy harmonica position changer, but in this case, it’s not really needed for a few reasons:
- Certain double and triple stops can’t be played in alternative positions.
- It makes the song unnecessarily difficult to play.
- The likelihood that you’re going to want to play Piano Man any way other than the way it was recorded is low.