Vote for March PIYW (Popular)

rsl12

The next Play It Your Way is due to be announced on January 16, so let's vote on what we should learn together! The genre is Popular music, i.e. genres that would normally show up in a Billboard Top 40 list, including pop, rock, country, R&B, soul, hip hop, etc. The suggestions below came from the suggestion box:

Lean On Me (Bill Withers)
The Long and Winding Road (The Beatles)
Ordinary People (John Legend)
The Longest Time (Billy Joel)
Please Please Please (Sabrina Carpenter)

Vote below. You are not limited to just these suggestions, but if you add a new one, please be prepared to help me find links to sheet music if your selection wins!

PS. Feel free to submit ideas to the suggestion box for future PIYWs. Here's the tentative schedule for the next few months:

Announcement/Publication date:
(Feb 2026: Recital)
Jan/Mar 2026: Popular
Feb/Apr 2026: TV, Movie, or Showtune
(May 2026: Recital)
Apr/Jun 2026: Blues or Traditional
May/Jul 2026: Classical

rsl12

To vote, please copy & paste this message and increase the number in front of each piece you are voting for. Multiple votes allowed. Add any new suggestions to the bottom of the list.

1 - Lean On Me (Bill Withers)
1 - The Long and Winding Road (The Beatles)
1 - Ordinary People (John Legend)
1 - The Longest Time (Billy Joel)
1 - Please Please Please (Sabrina Carpenter)

I'm okay with anything on this list! But if I had to choose one (which I don't), I'd love to be able to play "Ordinary People" for others.

twocats

rsl12 it always feels to me like one should sing pop songs and accompany on piano 🙂

I'm voting for the one song where I feel that I could try playing and singing (that would certainly be a new skill!). We sang Lean On Me in choir in 8th grade and in theory I know the words already and the accompaniment doesn't sound like it would be too difficult! And also adding Imagine to the list.

2 - Lean On Me (Bill Withers)
1 - The Long and Winding Road (The Beatles)
1 - Ordinary People (John Legend)
1 - The Longest Time (Billy Joel)
1 - Please Please Please (Sabrina Carpenter)
1 - Imagine (John Lennon)

rsl12

twocats I'm voting for the one song where I feel that I could try playing and singing

I was leaning toward not singing because I'm afraid of not getting the emotions right for most of these songs, though I could probably manage Lean On Me or Imagine. But I agree with you singing makes sense for pop songs, and they often sound a little empty when arranged into an instrumental version. So I hope you sing no matter what gets picked!

keff

Has to be Beatles for me. I did have it in mind to make either a different Beatles song , or perhaps Abba or even Burt Bacharach song suggestion but I can never find the suggestion thread when I need it. Long and Winding Road is a lovely Beatles song and therefore receives my vote.

2 - Lean On Me (Bill Withers)
2 - The Long and Winding Road (The Beatles)
1 - Ordinary People (John Legend)
1 - The Longest Time (Billy Joel)
1 - Please Please Please (Sabrina Carpenter)
1 - Imagine (john Lennon)

rsl12

keff I can never find the suggestion thread when I need it.

Aw, I try to link it very often too! It should be at the top of every single PIYW discussion I start.

twocats

rsl12 So I hope you sing no matter what gets picked!

That's a scary prospect 😂

I think I would have to know the lyrics really well to be able to do that! Depending on what pans out I may skip this PIYW as I'm not so much into playing pop music on piano. But I hope others participate!

WieWaldi

Almost missed this thread. My upvotes in bold (no worries, if you copy&paste, formatting is gone).

3 - Lean On Me (Bill Withers)
2 - The Long and Winding Road (The Beatles)
1 - Ordinary People (John Legend)
2 - The Longest Time (Billy Joel)
1 - Please Please Please (Sabrina Carpenter)
1 - Imagine (john Lennon)

rsl12

Just a few days left to vote! "Lean On Me" is currently leading (a fine choice, in my opinion, in terms of being a catchy, popular tune playable by all levels), but there is still time. I'll close voting on January 14.

Sophia

rsl12 a catchy, popular tune

It must be popular... I thought I had never heard of it (I'm a pop nitwit) and I just listened... yup! I know that one!

Not voting because I wouldn't know what to choose anyway. But Lean on Me is in my 50 Popular Pieces book, so if that gets chosen, I might (no promises!) give it a go.

twocats

rsl12 "Lean On Me" is currently leading

Uh oh, I hope I can actually play and sing like I said I would try if this was chosen! I think key matters too, what if the music I find is in a key that's awkward for my vocal range?

diretonic

Lean on me?.... (whining) oh...alright then..
Love Bill Withers' grooves (thanks to the peerless James Gadson) but his music can be quite repetitive/stifling, not a lot to play with for a piano cover. If arthritis takes a day off I should be able to cobble something together.

4 - Lean On Me (Bill Withers)
2 - The Long and Winding Road (The Beatles)
1 - Ordinary People (John Legend)
2 - The Longest Time (Billy Joel)
1 - Please Please Please (Sabrina Carpenter)
1 - Imagine (john Lennon)

diretonic

twocats Uh oh, I hope I can actually play and sing like I said I would try if this was chosen! I think key matters too, what if the music I find is in a key that's awkward for my vocal range?

Could you not transpose it? The original is in C if I remember correctly. I plan to pick another key just to get out of the staleness of C. (my staleness!, 'C' is blameless).

twocats

diretonic Could you not transpose it?

I have no transposing or improvisational skills! If it's already written in the desired key I'm pretty good at reading though.

diretonic

twocats I have no transposing or improvisational skills! If it's already written in the desired key I'm pretty good at reading though.

I can jot something out for you if you pick a key. It starts on the tonic. So choose a nice starting note...that's the key!

twocats

diretonic wow, thank you, that's very kind of you!! If it's selected I'll have to play around and see what feels best for my voice.

diretonic

twocats I can give you more info once you decide on a key but the basic idea is dead simple if you want to trial it first.
The main verse chords are all diatonic with a lone dominant 7 tacked on the end.

If you were playing this in Withers' key (C) you could literally play 90%+ of this with a plaster of paris hand.
LH: play a C bass note.
RH play a C major triad (notes reading up) E,G,C.
Now move that chord up following the C scale, the four notes moving in parallel, until you reach the F in the LH. Then reverse! The RH chords follow the melody closely but there are a couple of variations in the roots and a dominant 7 at the end.

But there's enough there to check your range. The PoP hand doesn't work quite so well for other keys! But whatever key you choose, you basically play chords moving up and down the diatonic scale. As I say, I can fill in the gaps later.

twocats

diretonic well this is awkward. Tried it with chest voice and head voice and I think it works best for my range with chest voice in Eb. I thought going up or down a semitone shouldn't make much difference but it does!

But if I have a score I can read anything easy and I don't have to think about it. Not sure about not thinking about it while singing though.

Anyway, will see if this song gets chosen! Thanks for offering to help 🙂 Btw if I recall there's a key shift in this song? Or maybe that was only in my choir's version.

diretonic

twocats Bill Withers stays in C on the recording.

rsl12

twocats well this is awkward. Tried it with chest voice and head voice and I think it works best for my range with chest voice in Eb. I thought going up or down a semitone shouldn't make much difference but it does!

Aw, at least it's not E! Checking my range, C is doable, but I'm near the top of my chest voice. I'm baritone, and I guess Bill Withers is a tenor? Bb is the most comfortable, but I'm choosing C to make the piano part as simple as possible, and I'll focus mostly on voice.

To start with, I'm going to copy Bill Withers' voice, to get the style right. It needs to be soulful, which I don't really know how to do. I found this isolated track of vocals, which seems helpful: