How To Play The Simple And Beautiful Happy Birthday Piano Chords
There is no song more instantly recognizable in the western world than Happy Birthday on piano chords, and it is an occasion celebrated by groups of people multiple times a year. Now is the perfect time to learn your Happy Birthday piano chords so that you can play it any time you need to impress or celebrate with friends or family. The Happy Birthday chords piano are simple, effective and come up in many other situations. Learning to play Happy Birthday on piano chords is such a simple and effective way to bring joy into a holiday, and this little skill will last a lifetime, and create memories that will endure.
Tips
- The chords for Happy Birthday piano are simple triads
- There happy birthday piano chords are played only in the left hand
- Happy Birthday is played in 3 / 4 time signature, which means there are three beats each measure
- Instead of playing chords for this song, the left hand will play just bass notes
- The first two notes happen almost before the beat, this is called a pick-up, it is when everyone starts singing with you
- Remember to stay confident in time when playing with others, so you must practice this song using Skooves metronome
Learning the Happy Birthday piano chords has never been easier than with Skoove!
The Funky Blues Version Happy Birthday Piano Sheet Music
Now this is where things start to get interesting.
Have you ever heard happy birthday, played on piano, in a blues style?
Well take a look at the sheet music just below.
As you can see the left hand starts alone.
And you get the blues feel right away.
Dont forget to click the play button to hear what it sounds like
Happy Birthday Piano Easy Version
I have kept the notes of the easy piano version as simple as possible. The key signature is in F major . This is a good key to learn to play Happy Birthday in because the melody will be at a pitch range that most people can sing. The choice of key is a really important thing to consider when learning to play any piece that people are going to sing along with you dont want to spend a long time learning a piece to find that it is far too high for anyone to be able to sing!!
The time signature is 3/4 so there are 3 quarter note beats in every bar. However, there is an upbeat as the melody starts on the last beat of the bar.
The right hand notes follow the melody line. The right hand can remain in its starting position for all of the 1st line. It is only when you get to the first note of the second line birth that you need to stretch to place your 5th finger on the top C note.
The left hand Happy Birthday notes in this arrangement are also very simple. You can keep your left hand in its starting position for the whole piece. Make sure you watch out for the B flat in Bar 6. There is a pause symbol on the second beat of bar 6. When performing the song remember to pause at this point to build up for a big finale this will certainly encourage people to sing loudly!
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How To Play Happy Birthday On Piano
Want to serenade your mates while they make a wish and blow the candles out? Here is a quick and easy guide to playing Happy Birthday on the piano.
In this mini blog post, we will break down Happy Birthdays simple, universal melody. We will analyze the tune one phrase at a time to help you understand what it takes to play it on the piano.
How Do We Test Happy Birthday Easy Piano Sheet Music

First, we test the accuracy of the happy birthday easy piano sheet music by inputting a variety of songs and analyzing the results. We then compare the results to other happy birthday easy piano sheet music on the market to see how it fares. Finally, we gather feedback from users to see what they think of the happy birthday easy piano sheet music and if there are any areas that could be improved.
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The Meaning Of Verse Two
“Happy Birthday to you — Only one will not do!”
“Born again” means Salvation How many have you?
Below is a version for brave beginners who want to be able to play all of Happy Birthday themselves, even to the octave stretch and the chords.
It is pretty easy, but kids need a bit of background in chord-playing first, such as.
Happily for young players, this is one of those easy chords songs:
Please scroll down the page for the download links.
With these small chords, I like to tell my students “This is a D ‘pinch’ chord” . “This is a ‘little’ C chord” .
Happy Birthday Guitar Tabs Piano Sheet Music & Lead Sheets
Happy Birthday, with two new late elementary/ early intermediate arrangements perfect for singalongs, as well as for my favorite student exercise – transposing!
Also:
- guitar tabs in two different keys!
- with an easy chord piano arrangement that uses helper notes – notes with letters inside!
- In addition, other arrangements of Happy Birthday are offered here in multiple keys for all instruments, and with several arrangements for piano.
Your students can learn it with this free, printable sheet music.
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Transpose / Free Music Notes
Michael Buble Its a Wonderful Dayfreethe viewertranspositionscoresprior to making your online purchaseOriginal, 1 Semitione, 2 Semitnoes, 3 Semitones, -1 Semitone, -2 Semitones, -3 Semitonesprintsave as PDF.Quick Fact About Us
We provide most popular sheets at affordable prices. You will also find various tutorials and covers of the songs for faster and easier learning.VAT Free zone & No Shipping Costs!
May 21, 2021 By Sara Mullett
Here are two Happy Birthday easy piano music arrangements for young pianists. The first one is for children who have only just started to play, with just the simple melody line centered on middle C so theyll find it really quick to master. And the second is an easy piano music arrangement for both hands together which is more suitable for someone whos been playing a little longer.
If youre new to teaching piano to kids, do take a look at my First Piano Lessons eBook which is filled with teaching tips, tricks and games for teaching young children the piano in an engaging way.
When kids first start learning any instrument, the challenge is to get them hooked. And while of course its very important to make sure that they learn the correct theory and technique, its also really important to make sure that they are having fun and enjoying the experience of playing pieces that they want to play both for themselves and for others.
Learn Happy Birthday Cocktail Jazz Piano Style
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Have you ever been at a friends birthday party with a piano nearby, and you thought, I wish I could play a nice jazz rendition of Happy Birthday?. Well, today Im going to teach you how to play Happy Birthday in a classy Cocktail Jazz Piano style. Youll learn how to color the chords, add chord extensions, alterations, use guide tones, rootless voicings, and more!
Lets dive in.
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Also Check: Piano Songs With Letter Notes
About ‘happy Birthday’ Or ‘happy Birthday To You’
Happy Birthday, or Happy Birthday to You, was written 1893 by Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill who were sisters and American kindergarten school teachers. The original version, Good Morning to All, was written as a song that would be easy for children to sing. Their students enjoyed the song so much that they would spontaneously begin singing it at birthday parties. Eventually the lyrics were changed to Happy Birthday. “Happy Birthday to You”, or “Happy Birthday”, is now considered to be the most recognized song in the English language according to the 1998 Guinness World Records.
About Happy Birthday To You
Happy Birthday, or Happy Birthday to You, was written 1893 by Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill who were sisters and American kindergarten school teachers. The original version, Good Morning to All, was written as a song that would be easy for children to sing. Their students enjoyed the song so much that they would spontaneously begin singing it at birthday parties. Eventually the lyrics were changed to Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday to You, or Happy Birthday, is now considered to be the most recognized song in the English language according to the 1998 Guinness World Records.
Read Also: Joy To The World Piano Notes
What Are The Notes Of Happy Birthday
Prepare by naming the notes, D, E, F, G with your right hand 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,, and ask the child to play and name the notes C, D, E, F, G with the right hand 1, 2, 3, 4, After that, take the same position with your left hand going downward and go back up from middle C to middle B, A, G and up again ) C, B, A, G, F and back up again to middle C.
Tips For Playing Level 2 Happy Birthday:

This is Level 2 of Happy Birthday for piano. Please find a hand position on the tutorial page after you download it. There are fingering numberers provided on every note on the music score. Youll be playing its melody line and harmony by coordinating your right and left hands for this level. Therefore, it sounds fuller than Level 1 Happy Birthday but more challenging.
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This Is The Approach I Started With As A Student
My piano teacher began her students with this “bass note, chord, chord” approach, using all root-position chords instead of inversions. This made understanding basic chords and even the 7th chords very easy.
Below is the melody of Happy Birthday as a lead sheet, for any instrument. Verse two uses words I heard in Sunday School as a child, but did not understand until I was an adult!
Please scroll down the page for the download links.
Play The Jazz Version Of Happy Birthday On The Piano
Trying to define jazz is kind of mission impossible: everyone has his own conception of it, you cant describe every style, sub-style, and sensibility of it without forgetting something and everyone agrees to disagree about it. Created at the end of the 19th century from blues and ragtime, jazz became the American genre by excellence.
The main reason for its constant evolution over time was that right from the beginning, jazz was the result of a mix of cultures. Originating from African American communities of New Orleans, the genre was influenced not only by the variety of West African tribes that composed it, but also Caribbean, Creole, French instruments and cultures- as well as any other you could find in New Orleans at that time. Born from popular backgrounds with the initial wish to make people dance, jazz later became much more static with seated concerts and clubs. It is now a multitude of different styles, born from all the cultures it touched on the path of its success, way beyond the limits of the US.
All variations have something in common though: the will to have music based less on fixed sheet music and more on improvisation, with some solo parts changing at every interpretation of the piece. So if you want to make your friends birthday party sound like an elegant club, play the jazz version of Happy Birthday piano sheet music with Tomplay, accompanied by its orchestra backing track, and amaze the rest of the guests with your style!
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About This Music Sheet
Happy Birthday To You is a song by Various.Use your computer keyboard to play Happy Birthday To You music sheet on Virtual Piano.This is a Super Easy song which you can also load and play on your mobile or tablet.The recommended time to play this music sheet is 00:20, as verified by Virtual Piano legend,.The song Happy Birthday To You is classified in the genre ofKidson Virtual Piano.You can also find other similar songs usingOccasion,Celebrations.
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Happy Birthday Piano Sheet Music
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Happy Birthday Sheet Music
Birthday Sheet Music
Complete the celebration with happy birthday sheet music from Musicnotes, home to the world’s largest online music catalogue with over 400,000 arrangements available to download and play instantly. From the classic happy birthday song sheet music to unique variations, medleys, and other birthday-themed songs, we have something in store to add to the festivities. To ensure the highest quality, every arrangement in our library has been sourced and reviewed by our team of experts. We offer songs for every skill level, including easy happy birthday sheet music for beginner players of a variety of instruments.
Download our free Musicnotes App for iOS, Android, or desktop to interact with your sheet music anywhere with in-app transposition, text and highlighter markup, adjustable audio/video playback, and much more.
Explore our newest and most popular birthday sheet music below to start the party.
Add Jazz Chords Using The 2
The next step is to make your chord progression more interesting by adding chords to the arrangement. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to add the 2-5-1 chord progression throughout the arrangement. Here is a basic 2-5-1 in the key of C Major:
As you can see, we can target a C Major chord by adding a D minor 7 , and then a G7 . The 2-5-1 is one of the most common chord progressions in jazz, so it will automatically make the arrangement sound more jazzy.
What is a secondary Dominant chord? A secondary dominant chord is a chord that can be added in front of any chord, and it is the dominant 7 chord built on the note a perfect 5th above the target chord. For example, if we go back to our 2-5-1 chord progression, there is a chord we can add before the 2 chord, the D Minor 7 chord. If we follow our secondary dominant rule above and we play a dominant 7 chord built a perfect 5th above the D Minor 7, then this is an A7 chord. Therefore, here is how we could use a secondary dominant chord before the 2-5-1 chord progression:
Now, with these two concepts , here is our new chord progression:
As you can see, measures 2-4 is a big long 2-5-1 in the key of F . The Ab13 on beat 3 is a dominant 7 chord with an added 13. Why does this chord work? It is a substitute chord for the secondary dominant chord D7, which leads us to Gm13. Specifically, it is a tritone away from D7, and we call this a Tritone Substitute chord.
Also Check: Piano Songs In C Major
Pick A Key And Transpose
Now, lets use these numbers to transpose our song.
Say C Major is too high for you . Lets transpose everything down two steps to A Major.
Heres the A Major scale:
A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#
So, our I chord becomes a chord built on the first note of the scale. This is the A chord .
Our V chord becomes an E chord .
Next, our IV chord turns into a D chord .
Finally, the ii chord is now Bm .
Thats all there is to it! Try it yourself. Transpose everything in the opposite direction: up two steps to E Major. Then, scroll to the bottom of this article to see if you got the chords right!
Encountering Black Notes In The Easy Arrangements

The version in G may be easier for your students to play, because with the key of F version, each hand has to deal with a Bb note. In the key of G version, only the right hand has a black note.
However, the G arrangement uses several bass clef ledger line notes! You will have to decide. I think the G version is easier.
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Play The Blues Version Of Happy Birthday On The Piano
Your friend is one of those people who always likes to go deep on every subject, even though he is a person of little words. And whenever he needs to express himself, he prefers to put his heart and soul into his instrument or sing and get some friends round for a session. Ever considered a bit of blues for his birthday?
Opinions diverge, but the term blues could be coming from the expression blue devils which meant melancholy and sadness. It got its origin from spirituals, songs from slaves of African culture where one voice would lead and others would answer in a call and response way of singing. Blues emerged from the feeling of hopelessness and injustice that ran through the African American communities in the Deep South states at the end of the 19th century. Slavery was ending, leaving those communities with a sense of freedom and many new questions on how to continue from now on.
Like jazz, blues expanded in a lot of different styles and variations, spreading all over the southern states and then past the borders of the US themselves. It is characterized by a cycle repeated all over the song, the most popular being 3 repetitions of 4 bars that give a 12 bar blues. This structure allows some freedom in the singing and playing, as the phrase can be interpreted in infinite possible ways. Want to give it a try? Learn how to play Happy Birthday on the piano, blues version, and get your friend to improvise on his own birthday wishes in style!
May 21, 2021 By Sara Mullett