I’ll stick with the strum at this point I think!
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I thought I would drop this from my routine as soon as I could play it from memory, but to my surprise I have kept it in. I still do 1 min on it every day. I have it fully memorised, can play it at tempo, and rarely flub a note, so why do I keep going? Now that stuff is out of the way, it seems like a good piece to work on the quality of my fingerstyle playing. I am concentrating on getting the “feel” I want out of the strings. Especially when plucking two strings at the same time (thumb + finger), trying to get the right balance between the two.
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I spent about half of my first practice session on learning this song and was surprised that I was able to sight read through this with only 1 mistake in about 30 minutes. I atribute that to prior practice in classical guitar and playing 2 strings at a time and learning the song Blackbird from TAB about 30 years ago and playing it several times a year ever since.
I thought that a few examples of how I have approached the song might help some other guitarist who were struggling with this arrangement of the song. I have never created an ASCII tab so I thought this would be a good exercise for me also:
Here is the ASCII TAB for the Happy Birthday song melody with the harmonized notes highlighted in Red.
Then I listed the TAB for the 2 note chords (dyads or diads) for the harmonized notes and finally the combined TAB:
I played through the melody a couple of times.
Then I played through again and considered each red note as an anchor point for a 2 note chord with one finger.
Then I placed the other finger down to form that 2 note chord and plucked with thumb and finger.
If you go through slowly you are able to see that other note (the note that harmonizes with the red melody note) is mostly on the 5th or 6th string, particularly the 3rd fret, you don’t have to search far for the note.
I had to focus my concentration on the F chord notes since that is a little different. I haven’t added the chord notation or the timing notation since you can go back to Justin’s tab or that info.
I hope this way of playing the song will help some to learn the song a little more easily.
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Every once in a while Justin seems to throw in something that is unimaginably much harder than anything we’ve done before. This is one of those. Just can’t get past the fifth note, and Justin’s fingers never seem to move much while mine are contorting and flying all around trying to find the right string/right fret.
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@60sguitar I just noticed your post and wanted to recommend to others. When I started memorization, instead of just reading the TAB, I really had to focus on the melody notes at first. I probably played through the melody over and over for about 15 minutes until I could play without much thinking. Then I started adding the bass notes. Notice that the TAB in the Learn More page below the website video is in 3:4 time and almost all the bass notes are added on the first beat and are the same note on the 5th or 6th string as the chord listed above the notes.
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@kitshef1 Your comments made me go back to look at the video again. I noticed that unless you look at the tab, you sometimes can’t tell what notes are being fretted by the first and second fingers and the third finger is usually playing the bass note. I also learned something new or I didn’t hear the first time I watched the video. Justin starts with his third finger on the C bass note (5th string 3rd fret). He doesn’t move that finger while he plays the melody until he plays the G in the next measure. Then the big thing is that he continues to fret the same G bass note on the 6th string 3rd fret in the next measure. He is carefully using minimum movement of his fretting fingers and that is not something that beginners usually do unless you are copying someone like Justin.
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This is definitely the crux of this lesson. Combined this with the fact that I had less time to practice, I may end up spending a few months on this lesson.
But that’s OK. I’m in no hurry, I enjoy practicing, and maybe I’ll be better at other techniques, as well, when I finally finish. After all, I don’t stop practicing those.
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Hi Csaba,
Very good of you for not giving up and taking the time for this apparently very simple song…it’s almost funny to read how many people struggle with this in the first months…Almost, because I have too had my struggles with it,for weeks(and i have a lot of guitar time) … although I honestly thought it was funny that it cost me so much effort, and I like a challenge and it put me back on earth with both feet,
Feel free to go on the next challange ,…but keep coming back to this, because like a thunder from the blue sky you will have this dragon of a song under your fingers,…and look back on these days with a big smile…good luck to everyone who struggles with this 
, but above all lots of fun 
,
Greetings,Rogier
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I assume the reason why is this fingerstyle melody there is to give everyone equal chance to try out this style if it suits them. It is for sure demanding technique that requires a lot of dedication and every mistake is painfully obvious. Practice routines and exercises have a lot in common with classical guitar training.
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Everything has been a breeze for me up to this point but this one has been kicking my butt! It’s like I’ll remember a part, then forget it! Ugh, I guess this is my first sticking point!
Nothing to do but grind through it.
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Quick note: on the lesson description, there’s a typo: sleeping, instead of keeping, near the bottom of the page.
[mod note: thanks for the alert, typo now fixed]
I’ll admit, I’ve been leaving my finger style playing in the dust. This is a good song to learn on, and a good one to have under my belt.
In my humble opinion being able to find a melody on the fretboard requires that we build a connection between mind-ear-guitar…it is in this seemingly never ending process of forgetting and remembering that I believe this connection is built. The good news is that mussel memory will help! It takes time and dedication, but it’s all worth it if playing melodies is something that you really want to achieve.
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Yes , you are right ,…if you are just starting out this could be a …BEEP…(hey ,sencure through my own keyboard 
) ,…it took me quite a while ,. …I also quite often take a week, and month or much longer break with really difficult songs,… but i think you have figured that out by yourself so good … 
…luck and above all have fun,…
Ps:Welcome here
Greetings,Rogier
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Was going to report the error in the tab below the lesson, but I see that others have already mentioned that, so just thought I’d mentioned that the last chord in the tab as written actually kinda works if you want a jazzy ending, as it’s a Cmaj7 (though it would work better to play a D instead of the high B or C to get the C9).
And also, in case this amuses anybody, I wanted to mention that I initially misread the name of this lesson as “Happy Birthday, Finger Style!” as if Justin were wishing a Happy Birthday to finger style playing.
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If it doesn’t hurt your brain too much, I recently discussed how the 3rd and 7th can be the most important notes in a chord here:
[I]f you are playing with a bass player who is already covering the root, the need to play the root is lessened considerably. And for many rock/pop songs, the 5th is often more important than the 3rd for chords where your ear can tell by context of the previous chords whether this chord is supposed to be major/minor. For jazz (or blues sometimes), the 7th or even 9th might become more important than the 5th, depending on the chord and the context within the song. Perhaps more than even the root if you have a bass player, meaning the 3rd and 7th are often the two most important notes. But sometimes this is so even without a bass player in an extremely traditional non-jazzy song, as you can see in the 2nd-to last note in “Happy Birthday” that’s coming up soon in this module).
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I came into this lesson with both excitement and apprehension as I quite like the sound of fingerstyle but am really awful at arpeggios even with a pick or on the keyboard due to poor motor skills. I just spent the last half an hour struggling through this (till power savings on my PC suddenly kicked in) but am realising that I’m enjoying the grind. Still suck at it, mind, but what a joy.
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It is a good idea to introduce finger picking at this stage even if I am not a fan of the acoustic and finger picking.
Yet, I learned this song in 30 minutes and this is how it sounds now.
Admittedly, it is more difficult than one would think at first glimpse.
Now it is time to perfect the pace, rhythm and the clarity of the tones. 
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4 hours of grinding and I can now play this under a minute with some mistakes and hesitations. Hopefully I can get this sounding decent after a couple more hours. This and REM’s Everybody Hurts took up at least 7 hours of my weekend.
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Oh I forgot to come to this thread to say that I played Happy Birthday for my father in law on his birthday about 2 weeks ago. It was just my in-laws, hubby, and me. As we were discussing life, the subject of me playing my FIL a song for his birthday came up, and so I popped up with “I actually can piddle my way through HB.” I had to have my hubby go get the guitar because I just couldn’t move my legs from the nerves that came right after I offered to play it, and after warning them that it would be slow, out of timing, and possibly a mistake in there somewhere bec I’d only started learning it a few weeks prior, I did muddle through and my MIL actually sang along. Nevertheless, he loved it. Progress! Of course now I can play it much better but birthdays are over!
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jeez louise man i spent almost 12 hours learning this
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