Learn to play piano with Harry Styles

Start playing along with Watermelon Sugar, As It Was, Sign of the Times, and some of Harry’s own favourite songs today.

16 May 2026

For the devoted Harry Styles fans out there — and there are certainly a lot of those — the man needs no introduction. And that’s likely true enough for the rest of us, too. Since his days on the UK’s The X Factor and subsequent time with One Direction, his face and voice have become ubiquitous.

If you really have been living under a rock, it should suffice to say that Styles is one of the biggest musical stars globally, and has been for some time now. He was initially discovered on the aforementioned TV talent show in 2010 by Simon Cowell, who hastily combined him with four similarly aged teenagers to form One Direction — a band that, despite not winning the show, became one of the biggest acts in the world almost overnight.

It would be a full seven years before Styles struck out on his own with “Sign of the Times” (more on that below), and since then, he’s become a household name worldwide. Firmly avoiding any claims about “manufactured success” that followed One Direction in their early days, Styles has followed his own eclectic sensibilities to carve out a distinct space for himself in the pop sphere — pushing boundaries with his musical and sartorial choices in equal measure.

Below, we take a closer look not just at the Harry Styles tracks you can learn right now in the ROLI Learn app, but also at a few iconic songs that inspired the man himself to write his own in the first place.

Watermelon Sugar

2019’s undisputed song of the summer, “Watermelon Sugar” is as uplifting a place as any to get started tackling Harry Styles on piano. The song reportedly took Styles and his co-writers a great deal of time to get right, but the effort paid off when it landed him his first-ever Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance.

On piano, this one’s all about the groove: a few simple chords, played with just the right degree of insistence to propel the song to the top of the charts. Get it right, and you’ll feel the difference — it’s easy to play, incredibly satisfying to master.

As It Was

Written with the same team as “Watermelon Sugar”, the spark for this song reportedly came from Styles noodling around on a (drool-worthy) Moog One synthesizer. It hit similar heights of success too, becoming the most-streamed song of 2022.

“As It Was” is based on a II-V-I-IV progression, which ought to be familiar to anyone with a jazz background. Like many songs based on classic chord sequences, though, this one manages to sound fresh and modern thanks to sparkling pop production and Styles’s dream-like vocals floating above it all.

If you’re feeling put off by all the Roman numerals and talk about jazz… don’t be. This one is available in the ROLI Learn app as a Quick Play song, which means you ought to be able to jump right in and start playing along, no matter your level of experience.

Sign of the Times

A throwback to 2017 now, with Styles’s debut single. Fresh from his time with One Direction (then officially “on hiatus”), “Sign of the Times” marked a real departure from his work with the band. A six-minute glam rock ballad that nods towards David Bowie and Pink Floyd in equal measure, “Sign of the Times” came as something of a surprise at the time. In hindsight, it would have been far more surprising had Styles taken a more conventional approach to announcing his presence as a solo artist.

More than the previous two songs, “Sign of the Times” is piano-driven, making it easily recognisable when played for friends. The song takes a textbook ballad approach of building up from a chord sequence that already carries an emotional weight of its own, making this one especially satisfying to learn.

Learn to play some of Harry’s own favorite songs

As one of the most popular musicians of recent years, it’s no surprise that Styles is often asked about the music that inspires his own — and he’s been generous with sharing his thoughts. He’s even curated his own edition of Meltdown festival, kicking off this summer in London.

Below are two songs Harry Styles has famously covered, and one that he’s previously spoken of having an obsessive devotion to.

Sledgehammer — Peter Gabriel

“Sledgehammer”, taken from English musician Peter Gabriel’s 1986 album, So, is one of Styles’s long-time favourites. He recorded part of his new album Fine Line at Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Wiltshire, and — naturally — wanted to hear this iconic track at full blast in the control room. This led to him performing a faithful cover of Sledgehammer on the Howard Stern show in 2020.

The original track is musically best remembered for the horns, but the fact that it’s written in E-flat minor gives away its likely keyboard origins; the notes of this key fall mainly on the black keys, making it particularly comfortable to play in — good news for us! Like “Watermelon Sugar”, you’ll need to focus on timing and feel to find the funk and nail your very own Sledgehammer cover.

Toxic — Britney Spears

Styles’s cover of this classic Britney track stands in stark contrast to his pitch-perfect radio rendition of “Sledgehammer”. Performing while dressed as a clown for his “Harryween” shows at Madison Square Garden in 2021, he initially struggled with the song’s key. Early sections seemed too low for the bottom of his vocal range, while others seemed out of reach at the top. Eventually, he found his voice and pulled together an inspiring performance.

The takeaway? Even artists at the very top of their game make mistakes and struggle at times. It’s the effort that counts — as evidenced by the rapturous applause he received from the enormous MSG crowd.

Arrow Through Me — Wings

As far as we can tell, Styles hasn’t performed this song live or on record (not yet, anyway), but he has spoken extensively about it and his love for Paul McCartney in general. While spending time in Tokyo, Styles had begun hanging out in a particular listening bar. This period coincided with the peak of his Wings obsession, and he ended up buying Back to the Egg on vinyl for the bartender simply so he could hear this specific song every day.

From the opening of this bouncy tune, we can see what Styles was getting at. “Arrow Through Me” uses the classic pop trick of happy music paired with heavy lyrics and elevates itself with a funky keyboard backing, infectious horn melodies, and a jazzy approach to harmony and arrangement that rewards repeated listens. Yet again, for piano learners, a song that rewards close attention to groove above all.

Learn to play piano with Harry Styles

Ready to tackle some of your favourites from the list above? With the ROLI Piano System, the notes of your favorite Harry Styles songs cascade, video game–style, off your screen and onto the glowing keys of ROLI Piano or Piano M. Add in Airwave to unlock new dimensions of learning — it tracks your hands in 3D space to enable conversational feedback on your technique, personalized learning recommendations, and more.

Discover ROLI Piano System

Back to Learn