Traditional
Happy Birthday chords
Happy Birthday by Traditional is a beginner song in G, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 5 chords (G, D7, C, C7, D) across 3 sections: Verse → Bridge (the "happy birthday dear ..." line) → Final line (optional lift). Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength. It sits at roughly 100 BPM.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: D7 → G, 5 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Gwith no capo
- Tempo
- 100BPM
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 5all open shapes
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in Happy Birthday
Frets read low E to high E, x means leave that string out.
Chord sheet
One chord per bar in this practice sheet. Follow the time signature shown beside each section; dots mark the remaining counts in the bar. Tap a bar to hear its chord, or loop the section to practise the changes.
Verse3/4 · ♩=100
GHappy birthday to you,
D7Happy birthday to Gyou,
Bridge (the "happy birthday dear ..." line)3/4 · ♩=100
CHappy birthday dear C7friend,
GHappy Cbirthday to Gyou.
Final line (optional lift)3/4 · ♩=100
GMay you Dlive a D7hundred Gyears,
GHappy Cbirthday to Gyou.
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday is the song you will actually be asked to play more than any other, and the plain version needs only G, D7 and C. Learn it this week and you will never be caught empty-handed at a party again. The richer version below adds C7 and D, which is what turns it from a chant into something that sounds like an arrangement — and C7 is the chord that matters, because it is the one that pushes the tune back toward G.
The melody fits over a simple waltz feel — one chord per bar, three beats each. The D7 lands on the words “to you” and creates the classic pull back to G. The second line adds C for the lift on “birthday”.
The strum is a gentle “bass, strum, strum” pattern in 3/4: hit the lowest note of the chord, then two light downstrokes. If the room is full of singers, a single downstroke per beat is enough.
For Am, retain C’s B string at fret 1 and D string at fret 2, then move the ring finger from the A string at fret 3 to the G string at fret 2. Lifting the A-string finger alone would give Am7, not Am. For C7, keep the C grip and add Bb on the G string at fret 3. These are different changes, so practise each pair separately.
How to practise Happy Birthday
Four steps computed from this sheet: the order the shapes are easiest to learn in, the changes that really occur in the progressions above, where each chord turns up, and the tempo ladder up to the speed marked here.
Learn the shapes easiest first
G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner) → D7 (x-x-0-2-1-2, beginner) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → C7 (x-3-2-3-1-0, beginner) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner)
5 of the 5 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
D7 → G5×G → D75×C → G3×G → C3×
These counts come from the progressions on this page, so they are the changes you will actually play, not a generic list of pairs to practise.
Know where each chord turns up
- Gevery section
- D7every section
- Cevery section
- C7Bridge (the "happy birthday dear ..." line)
- DFinal line (optional lift)
Climb the tempo ladder
Start at 60 BPM and move up only when a full pass is clean: 60 → 75 → 90 → 100 BPM. The tempo marked on this sheet is 100 BPM, and the last step is the one that always feels like a jump. Stay at 90 for longer than feels necessary.
Practise each section's chord changes slowly, then play the sheet through at a steady tempo without pausing between sections.
Playing Happy Birthday with a capo
This sheet needs no capo. Each card shows what you would finger at that capo position so the song still sounds exactly as written. Useful when the shapes above are awkward, or when you want to sing it higher without learning new chords.
No capoas written
G D7 C C7 D
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 1
F# C#7 B B7 C#
1 of 5 stay open
Fret 2
F C7 Bb Bb7 C
2 of 5 stay open
Fret 3
E B7 A A7 B
4 of 5 stay open
Fret 4
Eb Bb7 Ab Ab7 Bb
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 5
D A7 G G7 A
5 of 5 stay open
Fret 6
C# Ab7 F# F#7 Ab
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
C G7 F F7 G
3 of 5 stay open
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If Happy Birthday clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More beginner songs to learn after this one: Sweater Weather, Payphone, The Scientist, 505.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in Happy Birthday turns up across all 104 songs on this site, and what it most often moves to next. The counts come from the sheet library itself, not from theory.
509bars of this chord across the songbook
77songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 89×.
45bars of this chord across the songbook
12songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 22×.
420bars of this chord across the songbook
70songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.
12bars of this chord across the songbook
6songs use this shape
Most often followed by F, 6×.
323bars of this chord across the songbook
58songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 52×.