Play along

Happy Birthday to You: guitar chords and tab for beginners

United States, 1893

Happy Birthday to You

by Patty and Mildred Hill

Tempo: 100beats per minute
Count: 3beats in each bar
Key: C majorthe home note
Level: 1 of 3easiest

Bar 1:1 of 9Tap play to turn sound on

Speed 100%Slower is fine. Start at 60%.

Key C major

Higher or lower, to match a voice.

Tempo100beats per minute right now

RepeatStart over when the song ends.

Level 1. Strum one chord per beat. Start here.

Chord names above, strum arrows below. Down arrow = strum down toward the floor, up arrow = back up.

Where your fingers go● press here · the number is which finger

Hold this chord

Numbers are fingers: 1 index, 2 middle, 3 ring, 4 pinky.

Space bar plays and pauses. Left and right arrows jump a bar.

The chords

The chords in Happy Birthday to You

3 chords, all open shapes: C, G7, F. 3 beats in each bar, 100 beats per minute, in C major.

About the song

Two sisters, Patty and Mildred Hill, wrote the tune in 1893 as a classroom song called Good Morning to All. It is now public domain everywhere. It uses three chords and the melody never leaves the first three frets, so it is a good second song.

Happy Birthday to You: guitar chords and tab for beginners