I Am Playing Inversions Of The F Major And B Major Chords
. In other words for the F major chord you can play C-F-A. What Are The Chords To Happy Birthday On Piano. The three primary chords in the key of F and the three chords youre going to use in Happy Birthday are F C and B flat.
Reserve Your Seat Now. Happy Birthday Fake Sheet In C Major Easy Sheet Music Happy Birthday Piano C Major. Playing the melody to Happy Birthday with an E major key starting on the B and playing with a B7 is similar to playing two Bs simultaneously.
Save On Sheet Music PDF Downloads. New Different Way For Adults To Learn To Play Piano Fast. We have an official Happy Birthday tab made by UG professional guitarists.
The notes of the F major chord are F A and C. – Jazzy Piano Arrangement by Jonny May. Looking to sound fancy and level up your playing to sound like a Worship Piano Pro.
Check out the tab. The notes of the B major chord are B D and F. What Are The Piano Chords For Happy Birthday.
We traditionally play it in the key of F major so that is how we will learn it here. In a major chord C notes E notes and G notes make up. Keyboard Piano Notes Of Song Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Notes Happy Birthday Piano Happy Birthday Song House of the Rising Sun.
F A and C chords. Create and get 5 IQ. High-Resolution PDF Downloads Available In Any Key.
This timeless tune was written in the late 19th century in the United States. Ad Cross Playing Piano Off Your List For Good. Ad Sheet Music to Print with Fingering Reading Aids Audio Samples Easy to Expert.
Happy Birthday Piano Chords The Jazzy Version
Playing Happy Birthday like this is fine and dandy, but a way to take it up a notch is to jazz it up!
Making something sound jazzy can be quite simple: use seventh chords.
What are seventh chords? Its when you add a fourth note after your triad that is seven notes away from the root chord.
Now, heres an important thing to remember: stay in your key. Were in C Major, which means no sharps or flats, so dont add a note that gets a sharp or flat onto your seventh. Here are the chords well use:
Add The Cocktail Stride Left Hand
The next step is to add the Cocktail Stride left hand. The best way to do this is by jumping from the root note to either a guide tone or a rootless voicing.
For example, on an F Major 7, I might jump from root to guide tone like this:
Or root to rootless voicing like this:
Its up to you which one to use, but if you are beginner, I recommend the guide tones, and if you are more on the intermediate side, use rootless voicings. For this arrangement, we will use a combination. Here are the first few bars with the left hand that I would play:
For a deep dive on rootless voicings and mastering them in all 12 keys, checkout the Rootless Voicings lesson.
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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.
Learn How To Play ‘happy Birthday’ On The Piano
Today we are going to learn to play “Happy Birthday”. It is a familiar song to very many people. We are going to learn to play it as an exercise on developing your ear. There are many cooler songs out there that I’m sure you’d like to play, but this is about developing your ear.
Let’s start on D and sing the song in our head. “Happy birthday to you”. Here is where we use intervals. It just goes up a bit. D D E D G F# are the notes of the fist verse. Now we want to try and figure out our key. The last note of that verse doesn’t really give us a resolved feeling. If we sing the song in our head, we’ll notice that the second time the line is sang, it ends differently. The second time the phrase ends with A G instead of G F#. The G at the end of the second line gives us that resolved feeling. That is a clue that we are singing the song in the G major scale. Another clue is that the song has an F# and so does the G major scale.
Since we started singing on D, we know that the first note of the song is the fifth note of the scale of the key that the song is in. Let’s finish picking out the melody using our ears. We end up with D D, then D an octave up, B, G, F#, E, then for the next line C, C, A, G, A, G. So, with the melody figured out let’s write some chords.
Visit the Piano Covers section for a complete list of song tutorials.
6 free video lessons to teach you chords so you can play popular songs!
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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.
How To Play Happy Birthday Very Easy Piano Music
1. Place hands over the notes, with both thumbs on middle C.
2. To prepare, ask the child to play and name the notes C, D, E, F, G with the right hand 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 both up, and back down again. Then do the same with the left hand going downwards C, B, A, G, F and back up again to middle C.
3. Look at the Happy Birthday sheet music and ask the child to work out the first note on Ha-ppy. This is G with the left hand finger
4. As they will know the tune already they should find it quite easy to work out the first phrase, but help them to notice what the jump is on to you. It is a 4th, this means they jump from 4 1 which is G C.
Practice One Phrase At A Time
4. The second phrase starts the same but point out the jump is one step higher from G D, using the right hand fingers 2 -1 on to you. Practice these first two phrases a couple of times.
5. The third phrase starts again on G Ha-ppy in the left hand with 4th finger, but the jump is a whole 8 notes up to the G Birth in the right hand finger 5. Practice finding this jump a couple of times. The right hand then plays 3 -1 on day dear and the left hand plays 2 3 on B A which is where you insert the name of the Birthday boy/girl.
6. The fourth phrase is played by the right hand with the 4th finger on F for Ha-ppy then 3, 1, 2, 1, E C D C on Birth-day to you!
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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.
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.
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Happy Birthday Piano Chords The Easy Version
The easiest way to play Happy Birthday is to play the melody on your right hand and the chords on your left. Weve written our lead sheet in C Major, but pay attention the song actually starts on G!
If youre new to chords, you may want to scroll through How to Play Piano Chords or, if youre more hands-on, try Chord Hacks, our free intro to chords course.
Otherwise, here are all the chords youll need in root position.
Before you go further, we recommend practicing the easy version of Happy Birthday a few times first. Get to know these chords.
If you find this key too high or too low to sing, keep reading to learn how you can transpose it.
Learn How To Play Happy Birthday On The Piano
Good morning. This is Duane, and today were going to take a look at playing Happy Birthday. No matter what key you play it in it just takes three chords. Now if you want to stay with just the white notes then you probably want to play it in the key of C, but the trouble with the key of C is that it gets awfully high if you play it there. Thats really hard for a person to sing.
Generally Happy Birthday is played in the key of F, which is based on the scale of F, which goes like this. The key of F has one flat in it, that B flat. The three primary chords in the key of F, and the three chords youre going to use in Happy Birthday, are F, C, and B flat. Now if youre just starting out probably an easier way to do that is to just play the B flat chord like this. Leave your little finger on F but play an inversion of the B flat chord. Thats the B flat chord in second inversion upside down, in other words. Because that way you can just move from there to there.
Same way with the C chord. Leave the C on top but move the two bottom notes down one white one. thats the C chord. If you want a 7th in it, which is proper, you can put a B flat in there. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear person. Happy birthday to you. You see that?
***For lots more good stuff on piano playing come on over to my website at and sign up for our free piano tips Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!
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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!
Difficulty: The Dissociation Of The Two Hands
The greatest difficulty when you start learning piano is to play both hands at the same time. This is called hand dissociation.
This work is not easy because it requires our brain to disassociate to play two different melodies at the same time.
This is why we have made you play first the right hand and then the left hand. This is the technique most used by beginners to learn the song step by step.
This part will inevitably take time because it is a matter of work. Our brain being used to symmetry, dissociation is not something its used to process. You will therefore have to be patient and work rigorously. But dont worry, it comes quickly! There are a number of techniques that will allow you to dissociate your hands faster.
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Happy Birthday Piano Chords
Happy Birthday Piano Chords Step by Step Tutorial on how to play the happy birthday song on the piano. Easy piano lesson for beginners, tabs included.
Learn Happy Birthday Piano Chords, and youll be able to surprise anyone at a birthday party! Next time youre at a birthday, and someones looking for anyone to play birthday song on the piano, you can give the performance to cheer everyone up! Its also a nice feeling to know how to play the birthday song when you celebrate the birthday of your children or family members. You can wish them by playing happy birthday on the piano, getting everyone to do a singalong with you.
A good part about playing the birthday song on the piano is that it is the most straightforward melody to learn. You dont have to be a piano player or understand the in-depth knowledge of music modes and themes to play the song. Here we present a simple method, that is ideal for most beginners to start playing the birthday songs on the piano to perfection.
Learning How to Play Happy Birthday on the Piano
Even if you have little idea of the chords, you can put your worries to the side and consider the simple layout below:
Start with the Left Hand:Notes G G A G C BFingering 4,4,3,4,1,2
Continue with the Left Hand:Notes G G A GFingering 4,4,3,4Notes D C A GFingering 2,1,3,4
G G using Left handG E C using the right handB A using the left handHAPPY-BIRTHDAYDEARName)
F F E C D CHAPPYBIRTHDAYTOYOU!
Learning to Play:
A Tip:
Chapter 6 Play Your First Piano Melody: Happy Birthday
We now come to the 5th chapter of this ultimate pianists guide, dedicated to the first real melody youll play on piano Happy Birthday! In this chapter, we will build on what we have seen in the previous chapters, especially Chapter 4 Piano Basics and Chapter 5 Basic piano chords.
We will work together on the notes you need to play, one hand after the other, so that you can play quickly one of the easiest piano songs: Happy Birthday.
Note: you can learn Happy Birthday very easily and at your own pace on our application dedicated to online piano learning for beginners.
Joris, the author of this article, recommends the following resource: Piano tutorials: learn the 10 easiest songs
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Happy Birthday Easy Piano Music
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.
So Happy Birthday is a great choice, as its one of the first and most important songs a child will learn, it has such a special significance and is of course one that that they will come to sing many times every year. So naturally it makes a great piece for young pianists to play. They always love being able to play it for their friends at birthday parties and it goes down so well with Granny too!
