There’s a Reason Why “Happy Birthday” is So Hard to Sing
It’s one of the most popular songs to sing as a group… and also one of the most difficult
One of my favorite scenes in the 1999 classic film Office Space is the one in which the office workers sing Happy Birthday to Lumbergh, their boss. While most fans of that scene love the fact of Milton once again not getting a piece of birthday cake, the gem in the scene for me is simply the bland, joyless way in which the song is sung by the bland, joyless workers.
Because even in the cheeriest of circumstances, Happy Birthday almost always sounds terrible when sung in a group. Which, given that the song ranks among the most commonly-sung in history, can seem a bit odd. You’d think we’d have gotten it down by now, wouldn’t you?
But I contend that there is a reason why it is hard for a group of people — typically amateur musicians at best — to sing this particular song. The song is, quite frankly, darned near impossible to start properly. And given that the song takes a mere 20-ish seconds to sing, a bad intro can ruin the entire number.
When to sing that first note
For starters (pun intended) it’s difficult to get everyone to hit that first note at the same time. The metre of the…
