Introduction to Intervals

Now it’s time for a little more music theory. But don’t worry, I’ll try to make it as painless as possible! Besides, you’re going to need this stuff to build intervals and chords, two very important components of all those cool songs that you’ll soon be playing.

An interval in music is the distance between two notes. We already got to know some intervals in the earlier chapters, such as the half step and whole step. Now we’re going to derive some larger intervals, based on the distance between the notes on the staff. Let’s look at the following interval:

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The first thing we need to determine is the interval number . To do this, we count up from the bottom note (starting at 1), and include all the letter names in between, including the top note. So, if the bottom note (C) is “1,” then D (2), E (3), F (4), G (5), and finally, A (6), thus we have a sixth. Now be aware that there are different types (qualities) of sixths, the most common being major and minor, but we’ll learn more about interval quality later.

Use the same technique to find the interval number for any two notes. The simplest is the second , which are always adjacent letter names. Skipping one letter name is a third , etc. When going from one letter to the same letter up or down, it is 8 or the octave . Some intervals that go beyond the octave such as 9ths, 10ths, and 11ths are named as such. When we get to an interval such as a twelfth, we can label this as a fifth plus an octave, etc.

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You remember the C major scale that we built in Chapter 7? Now we’ll look at all of the intervals created between the starting note (C) and the other notes in this scale:

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Play each of these intervals on the piano to get the different sounds “in your ear.” Since the notes are placed one above the other, or vertically, they get played at the same time try this (intervals whose pitches are played at the same time are called harmonic intervals. More about this soon!) For the second line, you’ll want to play one note in each hand.

Notice that the interval numbers are shown with an interval description, which is either major or perfect. The 4th, 5th and octave (and 11th, 12th and two octaves) are the perfect intervals, and the remaining intervals are major. Again, don’t worry too much about these interval descriptions just yet. For now, just remember that from the first note of the major (In Other Words) scale to all other notes will produce either major or perfect intervals.