Trumpet Lesson: Learn How To Play Happy Birthday To You

In this trumpet lesson you will learn to play the melody of the Happy Birthday To You song without sheet music. It’s a melody worth memorizing for special occasions!

The most common trumpet is a transposing instrument tuned to Bb. That is the instrument that you are probably playing. This means that when you play a melody in C major on your trumpet, it will actually sound as if you were playing it in B-flat major.

In this trumpet lesson you will find the lyrics to the song Happy Birthday To You line by line in F major with the chord symbols written in E-flat major for guitar or piano or some other chord instrument. Chord symbols are placed before the syllable where it will be played.

Below the lyrics you will find the notes to play on your trumpet. In this lesson we will use the note names assuming you know how to play the notes on your trumpet. You will also find a system to display the length of the notes.

In case you need to update the notes and how they are played on your trumpet, you will find a fingering chart here for the notes we will use:

C4 = 000, D = 101, E = 110, F = 100, G = 000, A = 110, Bb = 100, C5 = 000 (1 indicates pressed valves and 0 not pressed)

Now we will begin this lesson by learning the melody of the first line of the letter:

Happy (Eb) birthday to (Bb7) to you

C4 CDCFE

The first note has the number 4 after the note name, indicating that it should be played in the lowest octave of your trumpet. The number four indicates that this is the fourth octave on a traditional piano keyboard.

I suppose you can play the rhythm of the melody from memory, but we will also use a system to show you the time value of the notes. Shorter notes are indicated by the number 1. In traditional sheet music notation, this would be an eight note.

The number two means that a note has twice the value of the length 1. The value 4 means that the note has four times the value of the number 1. Here come the rhythms corresponding to the previous melody:

1 1 2 2 2 4

Let’s continue with the melody and from now on I write down the rhythms below the notes:

happy (Bb7) birthday to (Eb) you

CCDCGF

1 1 2 2 2 4

Happy (Eb) birthday dear (Ab) …

CC C5 A4 FED

1 1 2 2 2 2 2

The note C5 is the note C in the next octave. After this note you have the note A4 which indicates that you will return to the lowest octave by playing the following notes in the same way.

Happy Birthday to you

Bb Bb AFGF

1 1 2 2 2 4

You have now played the entire tune. I suggest you memorize the melody line by line on your trumpet. You will never know when you have a reason to play the tune for someone!