Piano Music Intervals – Do You Know All Five Kinds?

Good morning. This is Duane. Today I’d like to talk about music intervals and the role they play in music, and the different types of interval. An interval, as you know, is the distance between any two notes. If I start on middle C and go up to the next note, that’s called a second. There’s different kinds of seconds. There’s a major second and a minor second. I want to spend a little time talking about the difference between those kinds of intervals.

This is called a major second because it’s in the major scale. Here’s the C major scale. A major second is one whole step above the root or above the note below it – one whole step, not a half step. If it’s a half step that’s a minor second. What would that be is the third note of the major scale so that would be a major third, wouldn’t it? If I lowered this to that that would be a minor third. Let’s take it that far: major second, minor second, major third, minor third.

Now the next interval you would think that would be a major fourth, but it’s not called that in music theory. It’s called a perfect fourth. The reason it’s called a perfect fourth is because those two notes have a perfect relationship. What do I mean by that? F is in the scale of C but C is also in the scale of F, isn’t it? That’s only true of two intervals: the fourth and the fifth. It’s not true of a second because while D is in the scale of C, C is not in the scale of D. Here’s the D major scale. See that’s the seventh [inaudible 00:01:49] major scale in D. They don’t have a perfect relationship. Therefore they’re called major. Major second, minor second; major third, minor third; perfect fourth. Why? Because they have a perfect relationship, those two notes.

Now if I go up another step that’s called an augmented fourth, augmented fourth. Augment means to widen it so I’m widening the interval by half a step, augmented fourth. This is a perfect fifth, and again it’s a perfect fifth because C and G have a perfect relationship. G is in the scale of C, isn’t it, and C is in the scale of G. Like the fourth, a fifth has a perfect relationship.

Now if I lower the G a half step that’s called not a minor fifth but a diminished fifth, diminished fifth. You can see that an augmented fifth and a diminished fifth are the same same sound, but it depends how they’re written on paper. If on a sheet of music it says C and F sharp, then that’s an augmented forth. If, on the other hand, it says C and G flat, then that’s a diminished fifth. Got that? This can be a little confusing at first but you’ll catch on.

Let’s back up a little bit. Major second, minor second; major third, minor third; perfect fourth, augmented fourth; perfect fifth, diminished fifth. Now let’s go ahead. That’s a perfect fifth, as you know. What would this be? Right, that’s an augmented fifth. You’re widening the perfect interval a half step, so that’s an augmented fifth. This is a sixth, one two three four five six, because it’s the sixth note of the C scale. If I lower that top note it’s a minor sixth, isn’t it? Wait a minute. We just said that that note was an augmented fifth. How can it be a minor sixth? Because they’re in harmonic, aren’t they? In other words, that depends who that’s written. They sound the same but if it’s written as a G sharp above C, that’s an augmented fifth. If it’s written as A flat, that’s a minor sixth.

Now if I go up another half step that’s called a minor seventh. Now this gets confusing because there’s a chord called a minor seventh, but it has nothing to do with the chord. That’s just the interval between C and B flat is a minor seventh. Excuse me just a minute. There’s C and B natural. That’s a major seventh. We have a minor seventh and a major seventh. Then if I go up another half step that’s a perfect eighth, isn’t it? We know it’s perfect because they’re in each other’s scale. Is C in the scale of C? Yeah. Is C in the scale of C? Yeah, so there’s three kinds of perfect intervals. There’s a fourth, a fifth, and an octave. There’s major intervals – major seconds, major third, major sixth, major seventh – and there’s minor intervals – minor third, minor sixth, minor seventh. There’s diminished intervals. There’s a diminished fifth. I could have a diminished fourth. It’s not used very much because a diminished fourth is the same thing as a major third, but if it was written that way, if that was written as C in F flat then that would be a diminished fourth.

Sorry about my voice. It just keeps catching. That’s it for today, just a little music theory about intervals. Of course we use intervals … You can’t play any kind of music without dealing with intervals like that. There’s a major seventh. There’s a minor seventh because that’s the seventh note of that scale, and so on. Got to be aware of those things because they help you out over time. Thanks for being with me. If you’re not already signed up for our free piano tips be sure and do that. Come on over to playpiano.com and sign up. Thanks. Bye bye for now.

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