Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Guitar Chords and Tab

Learn how to play this timeless children’s classic in three different ways with an easy to read Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab.

Over 250,000 guitar-learners get our world-class guitar tips & tutorials sent straight to their inbox: Click here to join them

In this free lesson, you will learn:

• 3 easy ways to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star chords guitar
• How to play across strings
• How to play this song in another key
• How to play the melody & the chords

Learn This Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Guitar Tab For Your Kids!

If you have or are near children, particularly the little ones, this lesson is for you because today it’s time to learn some “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” guitar chords and tab!

This song is as fun as it is mandatory; the little ones love it when they hear a song that they know.

“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” is timeless and even more popular than “Baby Shark.”

Well, here’s hoping, anyway.

• At the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to play the melody of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” at least three ways on your guitar. You’ll be able to strum chords so that you and your little ones can sing together.
• You’ll also have some good ideas to take this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab to the next level.

But first, a very quick introduction to guitar tabs.

The Quick Tablature Primer

Guitar tablature, much like the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab in this article, works as a way to read music.

Using horizontal lines as strings and numbers on those lines to represent the fret you should play, tablature gives us the guidance we need to start picking away at songs and their melodies.

The strings are “upside-down”, meaning that the high sounding E is the highest line on your tablature. A zero (0) means you play the string open without any fingers on any frets.

If you would like to delve a little deeper into how to read tabs, check out this helpful lesson:

How to Read Guitar Tabs

You’re ready to play through this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab with that sorted out!

Playing The Melody

Tablature is used in a few common ways.

• One way is to express the melody of the song.
• There are many ways to play the melody of this song on the guitar, but we will focus on a few useful approaches to the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab to get you started.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Guitar Tab – One-String Melody

The simplest and most efficient way to play this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab is on just one string.

• You can get the job done quickly and see how melodies work on one guitar string.
• With this version, you’ll start on the open G string, and all of the notes are on the G string.

It doesn’t matter which finger you use because you are sliding up and down the G string to perform the melody.

• One advantage of learning to play this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab this way is that you can see how melodies move in pitch.
• The higher the note, the closer to the soundhole.
• This is an excellent way to begin to learn songs by ear, selecting the starting note and then moving up and down the neck of the guitar to try to find the next note.

Playing Across The Strings

A much more efficient way to play this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab is by finding the same melody notes across different strings.

One such version, with the exact same notes as the one-string version, is below:

The great thing about playing this version of the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab is that you don’t need to slide your hand up and down the neck of the guitar.

Keeping your hand in one place decreases the risk of missed notes!

The downside is that tablature does not tell you which fingers to use, only which frets to play. For this tab, you can use the same finger as the fret number, but not all tab operates on the first three or four frets of the guitar.

Playing Up The Neck

This version of the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab contains the same notes as the other two versions. Similarly, it moves across the strings, but it does not use the open strings.

• Open strings resonate on the acoustic guitar a little bit differently than fretted strings do.
• Although it may not make any difference to you at all, here is an option that avoids the open strings:

Pro-Tip: The great thing about tablature that does not involve open strings is that you can change the key with some math.

You can move the melody elsewhere on the same strings, keep the mathematical distance between the frets the same, and play the same melody!

Singing & Playing

If you would like to sing and play simultaneously, here’s how to do it.

You can play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in the key of G using these chords:

G (320003)

 

C (x32010)

D (xx0232)

 

You can find easy versions and other versions of this twinkle twinkle little star guitar chords in these three helpful and detailed lessons below:

4 Easy Ways to Play the G Chord on Guitar

Easy Ways to Play the C Guitar Chord

3 Easy Ways to Play the D Chord on Guitar

Playing The Chord Chart

There are several ways to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar chords. This is a very simple version, suitable for absolute beginners.

G                       G C           G

Twinkle twinkle little star, How I wonder what you are

D                    D D                      D

Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky

G                                     C G

Twinkle twinkle little star, How I wonder what you are

To get the full effect of chords on the melody of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, give this one a try below:

The chord changes sound a bit better, but they’re also faster.

G                     |C G | C G |        D G|

Twinkle twinkle little star, How I wonder what you are

|G     C|     G D|     G C | G       D|

Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky

G                     |C G | C G |        D G|

Twinkle twinkle little star, How I wonder what you are

With either the simple or the more complex chord progression, you’ll have the song memorised with some repetition, which children love. Play it until you know it, and then play it some more!

• If you wonder how to strum the song, you can start by either strumming each chord once or strumming each chord once for every syllable you sing.
• Once you get comfortable with the chord changes, you can make the strumming pattern in this song a little bit more detailed by strumming a constant down-up strum.

For more complex strumming patterns you can use to play along to this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab, check out this great article with a video lesson. Strumming Patterns: 5 Essential Patterns

Accompaniment For Your Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Guitar Tab

There is also a Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab. Here is one example:

Try playing this version with your thumb picking all strings on the D, A, and low E strings.

Use your index finger to pick the G string, the second finger for the B string, and the third finger for the high E string.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Guitar Tabs: Playing In Other Keys

So far, we’ve focused on playing the current Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab in the key of G, with the G, C, and D chords.

This is because the guitar chords are easy, and it is a good key for most people to sing the song.

• To sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in the key of G, you’ll start singing the word “Twinkle” on a G.
• Play the open G string to find your beginning note.
• If this is not a good key for you to sing in, find a good beginning note, and there’s your key!

That’s not how every song works – they can start on any note, but that’s how this one works.

You can easily play this song in any key you choose simply by using a capo.

If you would like some guidance on how to use a capo to find a specific key for your song, please refer to this excellent lesson:

How to Use a Capo

There are also versions available in other keys.

• Here is one such version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on Ultimate-Guitar.com.
• It’s in the key of A.
• If you REALLY want to go down the rabbit hole on how to change the key of a song, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” is an excellent song to begin learning how to do it.

Check out this great lesson on guitar keys!

Guitar Keys: An Essential Guide

Teach This Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Guitar Tab To Other Parents & Their Kids!

When you’re playing and singing any folk song like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” one time around is never enough.

In the folk tradition, try mixing and matching versions of this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star guitar tab by singing through once, playing once through with just the melody, strumming and singing through another time, and switching back and forth until you have a two-minute version of the song.

Have fun singing and playing with the kids. They love this song!!

Recommended Resources

If you enjoyed this free guide from the National Guitar Academy, you would love the other resources we have for you below!

• 3 Easy Ways To Play The A Chord On Guitar
• Am Guitar Chord For Beginners
• Guitar Tabs For Beginners: 20 Easy Songs That Sound Great
• What’s The Best Beginner Guitar?
• 14 Easy Guitar Chords For Beginners