Musical Intervals: What Piano Players Need To Know About Them
Musical Intervals: What Piano Players Need To Know About Them
Good morning. This is Duane and today I’d like to talk about musical intervals. No matter what kind of music you play, whether it’s jazz or rock or gospel, whatever you play you need to know about intervals because intervals are like the atoms, the DNA the molecules of music because chords are build out of intervals and scales are build out of intervals. Every musician needs to know about intervals.
There’s three things you need to know about intervals. You need to know the distance of an interval whether it’s a second or third, you need to know the type of interval whether it’s a major or a minor or diminished or augmented and we’ll go through that in a minute, and you need to know whether it’s harmonic or melodic. Three things to know about intervals.
Let’s think about the distance first of all. That’s called a second because it’s the second note up from the bottom note. That’s a second two but it’s a different kind and we’ll talk about that in a minute. This is a third, one, two, three. That’s a third too but a different kind of third. This is a fourth, this is a fifth. That’s a different kind of fourth and a different kind of fifth but we’ll talk about that in a minute. This is a sixth, one, two, three, four, five, six. This is a seventh, that’s a different kind of seventh, of course. This is an eight or an octave. Past the octave then of course we just continue ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, but we seldom talk about anything pass the thirteenth. If you can master second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh through the thirteenth then you’ve really mastered the whole scale.
The second thing you need to know about intervals are the type of interval and there’s major intervals, that’s the intervals that make up a major scale, and there’s a major interval in the second as a whole step. That’s a minor in a whole because the second is lower at a half step. That’s a third and that’s a minor third so you need to know the difference between a major third and a minor third. Big difference in sound but they’re both harmonic and we’ll talk about that in a minute.
This is a fourth and it’s not a major fourth, it’s not a minor fourth, it’s called a perfect fourth. Fourths are perfect if it’s a scale fourth and fifths are perfect, so that’s a perfect fifth. We have major second, major third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth. That’s a major sixth, that’s a major seventh and that’s a perfect octave, perfect eight. In a major scale all we have is major intervals and perfect intervals.
We don’t have any minor, augmented or diminished intervals in a major scale. However, when we get to the half steps, and we do, for example that’s a minor second, that’s a minor third. When we get to a fourth that’s a perfect four so that would be an augmented fourth. That’s a perfect fifth, that would be a diminished fifth. We don’t call it minor we call it diminished when we’re dealing with perfect intervals. That’s a sixth therefore that would be what? A minor sixth. That’s a seventh and that would be a minor seventh. The interval would be a minor seventh. That of course is a perfect octave. So much for the type of interval.
Now intervals come in two shapes obviously. They can harmonic intervals, in other words play together, or they can be melodic intervals played separately. What is this? That’s a melodic interval because it makes up a melody of some sort, right? Any melody is made up of melodic intervals whatever it is. Those are melodic intervals. This is a harmonic interval. Again, those are harmonic intervals because they’re played together.
Certain kinds of intervals are called harmonic and certain are called dissonant. Thirds and sixths are called harmonic intervals but seconds and sevenths are called dissonant intervals and you can see why. That’s not a very pleasant sound. There’s something about that that great [inaudible 00:04:32] particularly if it’s repeated. Not that we can’t use it, we can use it beautifully but that’s called a dissonant interval. Thirds and sixths are the harmonic intervals so if you’re going to harmonize something what are you going to use? You’re going to use thirds and sixths because they harmonize the melody.
That’s it for intervals. Get a grasp on the number names of intervals, seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, the kind whether a major or minor or augmented or diminished, and whether they’re melodic or harmonic and whether they’re harmonic intervals like that or dissonant intervals like that. Okay, that’s really all you need to know about intervals but that’s quite a bit. Try to get a grasp of that and that’ll help you understand chords better too because chords are made out of obviously major intervals and minor intervals and diminished intervals and so on. To know the intervals is to understand chords better.
That’s it for today. If you like this sort of thing come on over to PlayPiano.com and sign up for a free newsletter. We cover all kinds of chords and chord progressions and music theories of various sorts like this everyday so sign up for that. We’ll see you tomorrow with another video so bye for now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmscnFcoe-o
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