In this trumpet lesson you will learn to play the melody of the song Happy Birthday To You without sheet music. It’s a tune well worth learning by heart for special occasions!
The most common trumpet is a transposing instrument tuned to Bb. That’s the instrument you’re probably playing. This means that when you play a C major tune on your trumpet, it will actually sound as if it were played in Bb major.
In this trumpet lesson you will find the lyrics of 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 stringed instrument. Chord symbols are placed before the syllable on which you should play them.
Below the lyrics you will find the notes to play on your trumpet. In this lesson we will use note names assuming you know how to play the notes on your trumpet. You will also find a system to show the length of the notes.
In case you need to update the notes and how they are played on your trumpet, here is a fingering chart for the notes we will be using:
C4=000, D=101, E=110, F=100, G=000, A=110, Bb=100, C5=000 (1 indicates pressed valves and 0 not pressed)
We will now begin this lesson by learning the melody of the first line of the lyrics:
Happy (Eb)birthday to (Bb7)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 guess 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. The shortest notes are indicated by the number 1. In traditional sheet music notation, this would be an eighth note.
The number two means that a note has twice the value of length 1. The value 4 means that the note has four times the value of number 1. Here are 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 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 EDF
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 go back to the lower octave again 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 full tune. I suggest that he memorize the melody line by line on his trumpet. You’ll never know when you have a reason to play the tune for someone!