How To Play Happy Birthday On Guitar With Pictures

Below is the chord progression to “Happy Birthday”. Happy BirthdayHap-py |(C) birth - day to |(G) you. Hap-py | birth - day to |(C) you. Hap-py | birth-day dear |(F) (na-ame). Hap-py |(C) birth - day (G) to |(C) you. A few important things to note about “Happy Birthday”: The song uses a 3/4 (waltz) beat. This means that there are three beats per measure and that the quarter note gets one count. This is easy to observe in the first measure: if you follow the lyrics, “birth - day - to”, each syllable gets one beat. The song starts with two pickup eighth notes. In other words, the “Hap-py” at the start of the song occurs before the first beat as the chords don’t kick in until “Birth-day”. You can use any strumming pattern that’s comfortable for you. A simple one that works well is to simply use a down strum for each quarter note (three per measure. )

An open C major chord is played like this: Open CHigh E string: Open (0)B string: First fret (1)G string: Open (0)D string: Second fret (2)A string: Third fret (3)Low E string: Not played (X) You can keep from playing the low E string by muting it with one of your fretting fingers or simply avoiding hitting it with your strumming hand.

An open G major chord is played like this: Open GHigh E string: Third fret (3)B string: Open (0)G string: Open (0)D string: Open (0)A string: Second fret (2)Low E string: Third fret (3)

An F major chord is played like this: F MajorHigh E string: First fret (1)B string: First fret (1)G string: Second fret (2)D string: Third fret (3)A string: Third fret (3)Low E string: First fret (1) Note that the chord above is a barre chord. This means that it uses the side of your index finger to fret all of the strings on the first fret. Beginners can find this difficult to do, so, if you can’t quite get it to sound right, try this alternative instead: “Easy” F MajorHigh E string: First fret (1)B string: First fret (1)G string: Second fret (2)D string: Third fret (3)A string: Not played (X)Low E string: Not played (X)

You may have trouble switching between these two chords so quickly if you’re a beginner. Practice this measure by itself and don’t give up as you want your finger motions to eventually become second-nature.

Congratulations! You’ve just played “Happy Birthday. " Practice the steps above until you’ve gotten the hang of it, then try singing over the chords!

The note you’ll want to start with here is the one you get by playing the open G string. Play one note for each syllable in “Hap - py,” like this:High E string:—————-B string: ———G string: 0-0——— D string:——–A string:——–Low E string:——– For this section, since there’s not an easy way to represent staff music or tablature on WikiHow, we’re going to proceed measure-by-measure. For a traditional inscription of the melody, visit a site like start-playing-guitar. com. [1] X Research source

Each beat gets one note, like this:High E string:——–B string: ———-1G string: 2–0 D string:——–A string:——–Low E string:——–

B gets two beats and the two G eighth notes get one, like this:High E string:——–B string: 0——G string: ——–0-0 D string:——–A string:——–Low E string:——–

The third measure is the same as the first, except that the final note is two frets up, like this:High E string:——–B string: ———-3G string: 2–0 D string:——–A string:——–Low E string:——–

The fourth measure is the same as the second, except that the first note is one fret up, like this:High E string:——–B string: 1——G string: ——–0-0 D string:——–A string:——–Low E string:——–

The G you start on here is an octave higher than the G you’ve used earlier. The next two notes descend from this G, like this:High E string:3–0–B string: ————–1-G string: ——— D string:——–A string:——–Low E string:——–

The B you start on here is made with the open B string and the final Fs are played as eighth notes on the high E string, like this:High E string:———1-1-B string: 0——–G string: —-2—— D string:——–A string:——–Low E string:——–

Start on the open high E string here, like this:High E string:0——————B string: —–1–3——G string: ———- D string:——–A string:——–Low E string:——–

Finally, hit the first fret on the B string to bring the song to a close, like this:High E string:—————-B string: 1——–G string: ———- D string:——–A string:——–Low E string:——–

In musical terms, we’d say that the first eighth note in each “Hap - py” is a dotted eighth note and the second is a sixteenth note.

In musical terminology, holding a note at the end of a piece or phrase in this way is called a fermata.

For example, here is the original chord progression for “Happy Birthday” from the top of this article with 7 chords substituted in: Happy BirthdayHap-py |(C) birth - day to |(G) you. Hap-py |(G7) birth - day to |(C) you. Hap-py | birth-day dear |(F) (na-ame). Hap-py |(C) birth - day (G7) to |(C) you. For reference, a G7 chord is played like this: Open G7High E string: First fret (1)B string: Open (0)G string: Open (0)D string: Open (0)A string: Second fret (2)Low E string: Third fret (3)