What’s more fun than playing “Happy Birthday” at a party for your friends or family? I think every guitar player should be able to trot out this old chestnut whenever they want it. In the example I’m playing the melody in the chords but if you’ve got folks singing along with you, just play the chords! Your friends and family will do all the heavy lifting, melody-wise.
Also it’s not a bad exercise at all for some basics, since you already know how the tune goes! In tab, the melody and chords look like this:
It’s also instructive, if you’re interested in it, to be able to move the tune around through the keys. the chord relationships are the same no matter what key. If you start in G like the example the chords move like this G / D / G / C / G / D / G . If you were to move up a whole step to A now, the chords would be A / E / A. /D / A. / E / A .
…And sounds like this:
and on the staff, it looks like this:
If you’re interested in learning guitar or learning to play guitar better, I’m your guy. I live in New Jersey but teach online guitar lessons coast-to-coast. If you’d like to see if I’m a good fit for you, the first online lesson is free! Nothing to lose except a little time, and we’ll both enjoy meeting a fellow guitar enthusiast. The blog here has song video, chord and lyric sheets, tablature, audio and midi files, musescore files, and traditional notation… a little something for everybody. If you’re lookign for guitar lessons Let’s chat!