Happy Birthday chord melody?

Can’t you teach me to play a hipper tune that I will play on gigs?

Hang on, and picture this for a minute.

You’re out playing a gig with your combo.

You notice someone eagerly waiting to ask you something at the edge of the stage.

After the song has finished, the person approaches you and politely asks the following:

“It’s my friend’s birthday tonight, can you play happy birthday for us?”

You pause for a second and confront the rest of the band to ask if they know the song.

You then awkwardly reply to the person who requested the song:

“Sorry, I can’t play a happy birthday chord melody, but we can play Giant Steps in 7!”

In this lesson, I am going to show you how to play a solo guitar arrangement of happy birthday.

The song is a short melody which is only eight bars in length.

So, you can probably learn this in a short period of time.

Firstly, you will learn the melody and chords using a simple lead sheet for the song.

Secondly, you will a simple chord melody.

Lastly, you will learn how to add reharmonizations to the chord melody.

Besides learning a happy birthday chord melody, you will also learn how to turn a simple melody into a solo jazz guitar piece.

To fully understand the more complicated aspects of this class make sure that you check out:

Let’s begin!

Happy Birthday Chord Melody – Intro

The first task you need to know when learning any standard is learn the chords and melody.

As a result of this, you will have a deeper understanding of the composition.

You will have more options to make it your own.

Like, using alternate chord changes, for instance.

Happy Birthday is an eight bar melody in 3/4 time.

Every note of the melody comes from the parent major scale.

Harmonically, the song is a three chord (I, IV V) tune.

Happy Birthday Chord Melody – Add Chords

Ok, so you now know the melody and chords.

Let’s now harmonize each of the notes using the harmony suggested.

You should notice that I have now added seventh extentions to the chords.

Adding extentions to diatonic chords will typically give you a jazzier sound than triads.

Don’t worry about learning this arrangment note for note.

Instead, you need to see this as an exercise.

Yes, this is longer than showing you the end result.

But, you will learn the skills to create solo jazz guitar arrangements for yourselves.

Oh, there is a video of this arrangement been played here that you can use for refence too.

Reharmonize

You have a tune that you understand and can now harmonize.

Finally, we’re going to reharmonize to add greater harmonic potential to this arrangement.

You can always add a V chord to set up a I chord as shown in the pickup.

Besides this, I have now approached the V chord in bar 2 is by a semi-tone.

You can also get back to a I chord using tritone subs as I did at the end of bar 3.

You should hopefully be able to see that the last four bars are mostly the same as before at this point.

Reharmonize More!

The final version is the most advanced.

In other words, there’s the most chords.

I tranposed this arrangement to G as this key seemed a better fit for guitar.

The octave jump in the melody now stays in a lower register, for instance.

You should now spot that tritone subs are used in the pickup and at the end of bar 2.

I added a descending bass line in the opening figure to add more motition.

For the same reason, I added iii VI ii V variation is now used in bars 3 and 4.

You can always a delay a I chord with a #I diminished as shown in bar 5.

In conclusion, I hope that this lesson has done both taught you how to play happy birthday as a solo piece and the logic behind it.

You should now feel confident in using the techniques you learn on this site to create solo arrangements.

Yes, the last arrangement is complex.

But, I wanted to show you how you could transform a diatonic four chord song into a complex solo jazz piece.

You now more importantly understand the process behind this.

What are your thoughts on this solo arrangement?

Share your thoughts in the comment section below.