48.90Apply it to “Happy Birthday”

This becomes an extreme transformation.

Keep the harmony almost embarrassingly simple.

Phrase 1

melody recognizable, ordinary 4/4.

Phrase 2

accompaniment begins a 3-sixteenth cycle.

Phrase 3

melody fragments become 5-sixteenth cells and drift across the barline.

Phrase 4

everything seems metrically unstable.

Then the final familiar phrase suddenly returns squarely to beat 1.

You get a dramatic homecoming without changing key.