Guitar Tricks Online Guitar Lessons

Happy Birthday To You, Pt. 4

 

Now it's time to review and combine all the different pieces of this song.

It's perfectly okay right now to play it all with downstrokes like we've been doing until now, but if you're hungry for an extra challenge, then you can try using some upstrokes in your right hand. The best way to go about this is to use all downstrokes except for when you sing 'happy'. Every time we have the word 'happy' we'll do a down, then up. Everything else is downstrokes.

The cool thing about the upstrokes really shows when you play the melody a little faster. Cause at that point it can sound and feel somewhat uncomfortable to do downstrokes in a row. It's actually more work than just hitting the string on the way back up. But if you prefer to play all the notes with downstrokes I'm fairly confident the birthday-person won't mind.

Let's practice the whole melody together really slowly. Remember to come in on beat 3. Feel free to just watch and listen before you start playing along yourself. Then after we practiced it slowly, let's try a proper performance of it. So pretend like you have a captive audience in front of you, and let's try to perform it the best we can.

I hope you've had fun with this melody. I know it's not exactly rock'n'roll we're playing yet, but you have to start somewhere, and you're learning so much more than just these melodies right now. You're learning scale patterns that can be used for thousands of songs, single note technique and left and right hand coordination. And it's both more fun and productive to work on all that within a melody that you know!

Anders Mouridsen
Instructor Anders Mouridsen
Tutorial:
Extending The Major Scale
Styles:
Any Style
Difficulty:
print notation download lesson open guitar tuner
Happy Birthday To You, Pt. 4 song notation

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Questions & Answers

6 months ago
Hi, how important is it for me to learn this using an upstroke only on the "Happy.."? I only ask as I've learned this using alternate up and down strokes as it helps me find my way from string to string. Is this getting into a bad habit?
Mike Olekshy 6 months ago

Hello - thanks for the great question! It is indeed more ideal to practice your single note picking as noted in the lesson - downstrokes on the beat, and upstrokes on the "ands" in-between the beat. If you commit to practicing it this way, you will find it much easier down the road to play all sorts of single note rhythms and lines. "Bad habit" is a bit of a strong phrase, but it may make it more difficult down the road if you've burned that into your muscle memory. Hope this helps!

11 months ago
When I play the first part and move my index finger from the 5th fret to the 4th one on the G string, this movement on the string makes a little noise as the string is "threaded". I try to lift it up perpendicular to the fret but even the slightest movement can be heard. Is there any technique for that?
Josh Workman 10 months ago

Do you mean "fretted?" As far as the sound goes, if it's a squeak, that's just part of the charm of playing guitar.

11 months ago
When I was playing the the third part, I need to jump from the fifth thread of d string to 8th thread of b string, but after my index finger left the D string, there will be some sort of sound still lingering, it will not stop as clean as the teacher plays, what should I do? I play a electric guitar
Josh Workman 11 months ago

Try not taking your index completely off of the D string when grabbing the G octave on the B string. Instead, roll your index slightly over the G string to mute it as you grab the high G note on the 8th fret of the B string. Look closely at Anders' left hand. The index doesn't pop up until he plays the high G on the B string. This is so he can mute the open G string.

1 year ago
I don't have a pick. when i play my upstrokes with just my thumb, the sound is not great. is this just due to lack of practice/skill? or do you strongly recommend a pick for upstrokes?
Josh Workman 11 months ago

Hi, Not too many people get a great upstroke sound with the thumb. The exception was Wes Montgomery. If you don't want to use a pick, you could explore fingerstyle. You could also do all downstrokes with the thumb. It couldn't hurt to try out a pick. You can also do what's called hybrid picking, where you use either a flat pick or fingerpick and fingers.