If you want to prevent your family and friends from sliding off key at their next rendition of “Happy Birthday,” you can help everybody out by accompanying them on the piano.
Why Try Piano?
This isn’t just a great way to back up the singers at the party – it’s also the perfect thing to do to impress your birthday friend. Anyone can get up and sing “Happy Birthday” to a family member or loved one, but not everyone can take the time to learn how to play it on an instrument.
Some people just aren’t comfortable singing. Maybe you’re not feeling brave enough to step in front of everybody, even if it’s in a big group, and reveal your singing voice.
And if truth be told, some people just don’t have the range for this tune, which is nothing to be embarrassed about. There are some surprisingly unforgiving jumps hidden in this seemingly simplistic melody, which explains the traditional voice cracks that are a part of any complete “Happy Birthday” chorus.
Learning this simple tune on the keyboard or piano is one way to up your birthday game while giving yourself an excuse not to sing. But if you’re feeling courageous, there’s no reason you can’t sing and play at the same time – people have been doing it for centuries.
Keeping it Simple
Let’s take it in the key of C major, to make it easy. Once you’re a piano master, you can transpose this easy tune into any key you like to better suit it for your vocal range or for the people at the party. Playing to the range of your singers is one way to make the song sound exponentially better – as good as it possibly can, and at the very least, a bit less pitchy.
We’ll assume you already know the rhythm since most people have been sung this song involuntarily, and have doubtlessly sung it to others year after year. This is usually more than enough to have the tune permanently ingrained into anyone’s memory, copyright laws notwithstanding.
But on that note (pun absolutely intended), now that “Happy Birthday” is officially in the public domain, you no longer have to worry about videos of your candle-blowing-out ceremony being removed for copyright infringement.
It’s true that there are many birthday songs to choose from, but not nearly as many that fall in the public domain, and so they’re not able to be used quite so freely – at least legally. And it’s not always easy to tell what you can get away with at certain parties – you never know when the copyright police may be listening will come swooping in.
It’s best to play it on the safe side and go with a public domain choice, and thankfully, you no longer have to suffer through “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” anymore to have a totally above-board and fully musical birthday celebration.
Don’t worry about keeping up – we’ll take it one line at a time to make it easy for everyone. Fortunately, “Happy Birthday” is a song that doesn’t have a lot of lyrics that you have to memorize. The only thing you need to make sure you know the birthday person’s first name.
Now, on to the piano part.
The First Line:
“Happy birthday to you”
The notes are:
| G | G | A | G | C | B |
G–G–A—-G—C–B
Happy birthday to you
The Second Line:
(A reprisal of the first, capitalizing on its success.)
“Happy birthday to you”
The notes are:
| G | G | A | G | D | C |
If you’re having trouble with that so far, it may help to break up each line even further. Try dividing each line in half – when you look at it that way, the first half of the first and second lines are completely identical:
| G | G | A | G |
Once you see that, it may make it easier to hit the right notes without hesitation.
The Third Line
“Happy birthday dear [_________]” (Insert your name of choice here. We’ll use the name Ludwig because – why not?)
The notes are:
| G | G | G (up an octave) | E | C | B | A |
You may have noticed the use of a musical term that’s either no big deal to you or has confused you completely; in either case, you have nothing to fear. An octave simply refers to the same note that’s higher or lower in pitch.
You have probably noticed that there are quite a few Gs to pick from across the length of the keyboard. To play this last line, which includes the challenging interval for singers to hit, all you have to do is play the lower G – the one you’ve already been playing – twice, and move up to the higher G for the first half of the word “birthday.” Not a problem!
From there, you just make your way down from the E to the C, B, and then land on A. In the same way that this leap will be hard for your party guests to sing, it may be challenging to reach your fingers all the way across from G to G. If you’re experiencing difficulty, just remember that the more you practice (and the bigger your hands get, if they’re still growing) the easier it will be to make those big jumps across the keys.
For now, you can always lift your thumb off the low G in order to make it up to the high G – but just remember to use your pinky on the high G so your fingers won’t get stuck when you try to make your way back down at the end of this line.
The Fourth and Final Line…
One more rousing chorus of:
“Happy birthday to you”
This is everybody’s one last shot to make it count – at least until next year: one last chance to bless the birthday person with your well-wishes.
The notes are:
| F | F | E | C | D | C |
And there you have it! You can officially play the melody line from the “Happy Birthday” song on the piano.
Want to Get Fancy? Add Chords
When you play chords underneath the melody with your left hand, you’ll be adding a significant amount of depth and punch to the song. These chords help to provide more context to the notes in the melody line, creating a heightened sense of emotional depth and impact.
Luckily, there are only three chords that you need to learn, all of them major: C, G, and F. Here’s a breakdown of the notes in each chord:
C Major: C, E, G
G Major: G, B, D
F Major: F, A, C
All right – stretch out your fingers and get ready for one more rendition of “Happy Birthday,” complete with chords:
G—–C———–G–
Happy birthday to you
(G)—————C–
Happy birthday to you
(C)—————–G–F–
Happy birthday dear Ludwig
(F)—C——–G–C–
Happy birthday to you
Make sure to practice changing chords at the right time, and pay careful attention to which part of the word the chord change falls on. If you change chords too early or late, it will likely make the singers’ notes sound bad and might throw them off completely.
The song works best for names with two syllables, but there are obviously all kinds of names out there – every one of them deserving of a happy birthday. We can’t all be named “Ludwig.” Sometimes you just have to cram the name in there if it’s a long one (or stretch it out if the guest of honor has a name with only one syllable), in which case it’s not always as easy to figure out where to go from the G chord to the F chord.
If you listen carefully, you can usually follow the moment where the chords naturally want to change. And if you’re playing at a party where there’s a big group singing, there’s not much you can do besides follow along and listen for when the singers want to change notes. In the third line of the song, this is where you’re going from a B to an A.
The Party’s Just Begun…
And that’s all there is to it! Keep practicing because you’ll be able to use this number time and time again. You can even get together with your other musical friends and really surprise someone with a birthday band.
Once you’ve mastered playing the song in the traditional way, you may want to start experimenting with different styles: from jazz to heavy metal, “Happy Birthday” is a tune with infinite potential. And the great news is now that you’ve learned how to play it on piano, you can easily translate those skills to any number of instruments with the same keyboard layout. Whether you’re playing on an accordion, glockenspiel, or stylophone, you’re now fully equipped to play it the way you want.