LESSON #622
​Using Melodic Triads to play Happy Birthday

▶️ Click to watch free video lesson​

Hey there, my friends... new lesson for you to kick off the weekend! This one spontaneously found itself in my playing rotation after my daughter’s birthday celebration last week.

The topic here is triads, where I use the good ole’ familiar song Happy Birthday as the melodic inspiration.

I’ll show you TWO ways to play the melody to Happy Birthday using triads. For the most part, this is all done with two chords (G and D), but we’ll need to use several triad positions (up and down the neck) to let the melody notes shine through.

As usual, you can get my print-friendly tabs over on my lesson webpage. You'll also find the Part 2 tutorial, as well as two different zoomed play-through clips (with tabs on screen) for you to reference.

A Triad-Heavy Recommendation

Of all the lessons I've made, one of the most fun (when it comes to using triads to play a familiar song) is lesson #174, where I show a Sultans of Swing-inspired riff which makes heavy use of minor triads:

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If you want more Sultans of Swing but can take-or-leave the triads, check out lesson #555 where I teach a fingerstyle approach to this Dire Straits classic:

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Thanks and Enjoy!

Long-time audience members may realize I actually taught almost the exact same thing (Happy Birthday using Key of G triads) back in lesson #312... which is something I didn't fully realize until late into production for this new lesson!

But fear not, this new lesson takes a mostly different approach – and I think does a much better job. I hope you all dig the new lesson!

Until next week,

David
​Browse all my lessons at songnotes.net​