Happy Birthday to You

• Rangeoctave
• Notes25, 8 different
• ScaleMajor, no accidentals
• Length hereabout 16 s

About Happy Birthday

The tune was written by the sisters Patty and Mildred Hill, a kindergarten principal and a pianist in Louisville, Kentucky, and published in 1893 as a classroom greeting called “Good Morning to All”. The birthday words attached themselves to it in the following decades.

For most of the 20th century the song was claimed under copyright and licensed for a fee. A US federal court found that claim invalid in 2015 and the case was settled in 2016, since when it has been treated as public domain in the United States.

Play Happy Birthday on your instrument

24 of the 27 playable instruments here have every note it needs. 24 play it where the library writes it; the rest move it to another key or octave, and each page says which. Every page has the instrument itself, with the song loaded, above the notes.

• Kalimba tabsas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Piano letter notesas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Mbira tabsas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Oud notesas written · G3–G4 · octave
• Violin notesas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Cello notesas written · G3–G4 · octave
• Erhu notesas written · A4–A5 · octave
• Dulcimer tabas written · A4–A5 · octave
• Xylophone letter notesas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Marimba letter notesas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Glockenspiel letter notesas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Steel Drum letter notesas written · C5–C6 · octave
• Harmonica tabsas written · G5–G6 · octave
• Trumpet notesas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Clarinet notesas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Saxophone notesas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Flute notesas written · D5–D6 · octave
• Recorder notesas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Tuba notesas written · F2–F3 · octave
• Euphonium notesas written · F3–F4 · octave
• Trombone notesas written · F3–F4 · octave
• Accordion letter notesas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Harp letter notesas written · G4–G5 · octave
• Lyre tabsas written · G4–G5 · octave

Instruments that cannot play it

• Guzheng — it would need C♯5, G5, which it does not have in any size or key here.
• Handpan — it would need G3, B3, which it does not have in any size or key here.
• Ocarina — it would need G5, which it does not have in any size or key here.

Happy Birthday letter notes

Written in C major, from G4 to G5, with each note’s number in the scale under it — the form that transfers to any instrument. A dash holds a note another beat, an underline is half a beat, and each line is one phrase.

Where these notes come from

Melody "Good Morning to All", Patty and Mildred Hill, 1893. The lyric copyright was ruled invalid in 2016 (Rupa Marya v. Warner/Chappell) and the song is public domain in the US.

No lyrics are printed on this page or any other here: these pages are about a melody and how to play it.

More folk & traditional songs

• Yankee Doodle18th century
• When the Saints Go Marching In1896 (in print)
• Amazing Grace1835
• Sakura SakuraEdo period
• Mo Li Hua (Jasmine Flower)18th century
• Linstead Market1907 (in print)
• Auld Lang Syne18th century