“Essential Intervals” Article Sample Pages

Essential Intervals Familiarization Plan

An interval is a musical distance.  It is measured from one pitch through another pitch.

There are quite a few of them when fully listed.  Some of these intervals, however, are far more commonly used than others.

These more common intervals would be those constructed from the pitches or degrees (relative positions) in a Major and minor scale.

Intervals are measured using the concepts of whole steps and half steps. A whole step equals the distance spanned by three adjacent keys on a keyboard, accordion, organ or piano.  On a fretted string instrument, such as a guitar, bass guitar, mandolin or banjo, a whole step equals the distance spanned by three adjacent frets.  On a fretless stringed instrument, such as the violin, viola, cello or upright bass, a whole step equals the distance spanned by the stopping fingers (that is, string pressing fingers) in producing the same two pitches as on the other instruments just mentioned.

A half step equals the distance spanned by two adjacent keys on a keyboard, accordion, organ or piano.  On a fretted string instrument, a half step equals the distance spanned by two adjacent frets.  On a fretless string instrument, a half step equals the distance spanned by the stopping fingers.

Here are the intervals from a Major scale and their definitions.

Unison    Two soundings of the same pitch simultaneously.
Major 2nd    Two pitches separated by a whole step.
Major 3rd    Two pitches separated by 2 whole steps.
Perfect 4th    Two pitches separated by 2 whole steps plus a half step.
Perfect 5th    Two pitches separated by 3 whole steps plus a half step.
Major 6th    Two pitches separated by 4 whole steps plus a half step.
Major 7th    Two pitches separated by 5 whole steps plus a half step.
Octave    Two pitches separated by 5 whole step plus 2 half steps.

Note:  the Major 7th interval might be considered less essential than the other Major scale intervals just listed.  For the sake of simplicity and thoroughness, it is included here.

Each interval has a characteristic sound quality, regardless of the pitches involved.

Chords are built out of intervals.  Melody and melodic improvisation is largely drawn from scale tones and their interval relations.  Bass lines can be understood as a series of intervals.  So, being sensitive to and capable of discerning various intervals is universally applicable in musical activity.  It improves your awareness of musical relationships and thus, your ability to make intelligent and tasteful musical choices.

 

Here are the intervals from a minor scale and their definitions.

Unison    Two soundings of the same pitch simultaneously.
minor 2nd    Two pitches separated by a half step.
minor 3rd    Two pitches separated by a whole step plus a half step.
Perfect 4th    Two pitches separated by 2 whole steps plus a half step.
Perfect 5th    Two pitches separated by 3 whole steps plus a half step.
minor 6th    Two pitches separated by 3 whole steps plus 2 half steps.
minor 7th    Two pitches separated by 4 whole steps plus 2 half steps.
Octave    Two pitches separated by 5 whole step plus 2 half steps.

Note:  the minor 2nd interval might be considered less essential than the other minor scale intervals just listed.  For the sake of simplicity and thoroughness, it is included here.

A good way to get to know the characteristic sound of each interval is to play multiple examples of each, using different sets of pitches.

Here is a practice sequence to accomplish this.

Begin the following exercises at the lower tones on your instrument.  This will provide you with the greatest number of intervals available to you that you can sound.

Note that you may run out of available tones more quickly when you work with larger-sized intervals.  Just do what you can with what is available.  What’s most important is that you focus on listening to the intervals’ respective sounds.

If you are playing a stringed instrument, you will probably find it easier to first create the various intervals on the same string.  Once that is familiar and relatively easy to do, move on to creating intervals across neighboring strings.  You will find this approach to be more necessary as you advance into the more lengthy chains of intervals introduced further on in this guide.