Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

About this piece

Three chords, C, F and G, and a tune you already know. Pick the tune first: it lives on the first three frets, with the open strings doing much of the work. Then strum the chords with the island strum (down, down-up, miss, up-down-up), changing chord on beat 3 when two chords share a bar.

What it practices

• C, F and G chords
• the island strum
• picking a tune on open strings

Chords in this song

C · F · G

Each link opens the chord finder with more ways to play that chord.

Where the notes come from

Melody as in our piano version of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, which was checked against the theme of Mozart’s Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, maman”, K. 265 (Mutopia Project, public domain). The chords follow that version’s left hand. Our checking script compares the two melodies beat by beat.

How to practice with it

1. Listen first. Press Play and follow along. The note being played lights up in the tab, in the notation and on the fretboard, and the chord being played lights up in the row of chord diagrams.
2. Learn the chords. Press each diagram to hear it, then practice changing between them slowly, before you add the strum pattern under the tab.
3. Slow it down. Use − and + to set the tempo. 60% is a good place to start; the notes keep their pitch.
4. One part at a time. Choose Tab only to hear the tune alone, or the other part alone, then put them together.
5. Loop the hard part. Under More…, turn on Loop, pick the bars, and play them a few times in a row. Count-in gives you a bar of clicks before it starts.

Click a bar in the music to start from there. Space plays and pauses. Left-handed? Turn on the left-handed view: the chord diagrams and the fretboard are mirrored to match your instrument. Tab reads the same either way: the top line is always the first (highest) string.