Learn Piano piece by piece
Discover a simple, structured way to learn the pieces you love, understand how they work, commit them to memory, and remember them for years to come.
What Is PianEasy?
PianEasy was created to make learning the piano simpler, more enjoyable and more effective. Whether you’re just starting out, returning after years away, or looking to take your playing further, the aim is the same: to build piece by piece, section by section, segment by segment, committing your favourite music to memory chunk by chunk.
If you’re a complete beginner, that means bypassing the mountain that for generations has stood between beginners and the music they want to play: the idea that we must first master reading music before we can begin making music. Instead, you’ll dive straight into real pieces you love from day one using carefully crafted follow-me video tutorials.
Reading music and understanding theory are still summits waiting to be explored – but they’ll become summits you choose to climb because you’re already playing the music that inspired you to learn in the first place, rather than obstacles standing in the way.
That’s why every piece in the ever-expanding PianEasy Library is broken down into sections and subdivided into bite-sized segments, allowing you to build one manageable step at a time. Alongside the Library’s segment-by-segment tutorials, the Foundations Course will help you discover the chords, scales and patterns that make music far easier to learn, understand and remember. Meanwhile a growing collection of Practice Strategies videos will help you practise more effectively, learn more efficiently, and accelerate your progress still further.
As well as learning at home through the online Library, there is also the option to join a Piano Retreat in southern France for a week of immersive learning in the foothills of the Pyrenees, where expert guidance will help you channel your attention and transform your progress curve into a near-vertical line.
How It Works
1. Choose a Piece You Love
Bach, Satie, Beethoven, Mozart? Start by choosing a piece you love from the ever-expanding PianEasy Library. Learning is far easier when you’re excited by what you’re playing.
2. Follow the Roadmap
Every piece begins with a short overview explaining how it’s been divided into sections and bite-sized segments, followed by an annotated performance so you can see and hear exactly where each segment fits into the whole.
3. Learn One Segment at a Time
Each segment lesson focuses on just a few bars, giving clear note-by-note and finger-by-finger guidance until the entire piece comes together naturally.
4. Understand the Music
Along the way you’ll gradually discover the chords, scales and musical patterns that make pieces far easier to learn, remember and play. If these ideas are new to you, the free Foundations course explains everything from the beginning.
5. Play with Confidence
Before long you’ll find yourself playing complete pieces from memory, understanding what you’re playing rather than simply copying notes.
Explore The Library
The PianEasy Library begins here. Section by Section. Segment by Segment. These four launch pieces are the first steps in a collection designed to grow for years to come. Every piece follows the same carefully structured approach: a roadmap and a fully annotated performance that identifies each section and segment as the music unfolds, before a series of bite-sized lessons guides you through building the whole piece one step at a time. The result is a learning experience that is clear, achievable and enjoyable, helping you build with confidence, deepen your understanding, and retain what you’ve learned.
J.S. Bach
Prelude in C
Learn how simple chord changes create extraordinary music through one of Bach’s most memorable preludes.
LISTEN
Erik Satie
Gnossienne No.1
Learn how an entire masterpiece grows from just three simple chords.
LISTEN
Edward McDowell
To A Wild Rose
A slow, lyrical miniature full of satisfying harmonies and elegant simplicity.
LISTEN
The Foundations Course
Understand What You're Playing
The PianEasy Foundations Course isn’t about mastering music theory or learning to read music. Instead, it introduces just a handful of simple musical concepts that transform the task of memorising music. Long strings of seemingly unrelated notes suddenly make sense as nothing more than movements from one chord to another and back again, dramatically reducing how much you need to remember.
Built around seven short videos averaging just ten minutes each, the course takes everything one small rung at a time, explaining everything in a clear, concise and logical way, with no prior knowledge assumed. No overwhelm. Just the essential ingredients that will quietly transform the way you learn every piece.
In just over an hour, you’ll discover the surprisingly simple concepts of Scales & Chords—the building blocks that underpin the music you love and, once understood, dramatically strengthen your ability to memorise.
Once you’ve laid those foundations, you’ll also discover a growing collection of short Practice Strategies videos sharing methods and habits that make learning even easier, progress even faster, and the whole process even more enjoyable.
Retreats
Most of us try to learn new skills like the piano in the spaces left over after work, family and everything else. The PianEasy Retreats reverse that equation. For one week, you give yourself permission to focus on one thing. Immersed in music you love, concentration deepens, confidence grows, and the momentum that usually takes months to build begins to gather in just a few days.
Spend the week alongside a small group of like-minded learners, following a thoughfully balanced programme of guided practice, individual tuition, workshops, Scales & Chords sessions, and time to rest and recharge, all designed to maximise concentration.
Whether you’re taking your very first steps at the piano, returning after years away, or simply looking to take your playing further, you’ll experience the same carefully structured approach that underpins the entire PianEasy project: breaking everything into simple, manageable steps, practising with purpose, understanding what you’re playing, and gradually building pieces in a way that feels clear, achievable and genuinely enjoyable.
Nestled in a quiet hamlet in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, the retreat offers mountain views, a shaded garden, and the rare luxury of genuine peace and quiet—an environment deliberately chosen to minimise distraction and accelerate learning.
When the week ends, the retreat doesn’t.
You return home with the PianEasy Library, the Foundations Course, and an ever-expanding collection of pieces and Practice Strategies that keep the momentum alive.
So if the Library is where your journey begins, the Retreats are where the progress curve truly achieves escape velocity.
Meet James
Hi, I’m James Gosling—award-winning film composer, piano obsessive and late piano bloomer.
After studying music at the University of London and earning an MA in Music for the Screen from the National Film and Television School and Royal College of Art, I spent many years composing for film and television. My work has included the BBC’s Merlin, LEGO’s Nexo Knights, and the feature film The Hallow, which won the Golden Skull Award for Best Score at Screamfest in 2015.
But the piano has always been something more personal.
Like many people, I started lessons as a child, lost interest, and gave up. Years later, after returning to the instrument, I discovered practice methods and ways of thinking about music that transformed what I believed was possible. Suddenly, pieces that had once seemed completely out of reach became achievable, and learning became not only more effective, but far more enjoyable.
Over the years those discoveries have grown into the method I’m sharing here—a collection of practical approaches, strategies and habits that help remove the obstacles and frustrations that seem to stand in the way. One by one, the limitations that once felt so real simply dissolve. Mirage after mirage.
If you’ve ever thought, “It’s too late now,” it isn’t. You can start from where you are. And you can almost certainly go much further than you think.
The Accidental Pianist
A newsletter about acquiring new skills
Piano may be the catalyst, but The Accidental Pianist is really about the art of acquiring new skills. Through stories, discoveries, experiments and the occasional rabbit hole, I explore the habits, strategies and ideas that make progress feel almost inevitable.
Most recently, that curiosity led me to buy a professional darts board to explore a simple question: how well do the learning strategies developed in the piano laboratory transfer to a completely different skill?
Along the way you’ll also hear about new PianEasy tutorials, retreats, repertoire and whatever I’m currently experimenting with next.