Piano Notes: Music Intervals: Consonant & Dissonant

An interval is the distance between any two piano notes, such as the distance between B and C. Intervals are named simply by the distance between the two notes, so B and C above it is called a 2nd. B and the D above it would be a 3rd, B and the E above it would be a 4th, and so on.

3rds and 6ths are called “harmonic intervals”, while 2nds and 7ths are “dissonant intervals.” If you play them, you will understand why. Intervals of 4ths and 5ths are usually considered harmonic intervals too — technically they are called “perfect intervals” because each note of the interval is in each other’s scale. For example, the distance between F and C above it is a perfect 5th — notice that F is in the scale of C, and C is in the scale of F. Perfect 5ths inverted become perfect 4ths, and perfect 4ths inverted become perfect 5ths.

An interval of a 3rd inverted becomes a 6th, while a 6th inverted becomes a 3rd. Try playing these intervals on your piano, and it will become clear to you.

Here is a transcript of the video in case you want to follow along:

Good morning. This is Duane, and today I’d like to talk about intervals, piano notes and intervals, harmonic and dissonant and the inversions of how they work and all. No matter how complex we get in our playing, it all comes down to notes, piano notes, and we start with intervals. We have chords, of course, but an interval is two notes, the distance between two notes. This is a second. That’s a second, because one-two. This is a second, too. It’s a different kind of second, which we’ll talk about in a minute, but it’s a second. This … What do you think that is? That’s a third, isn’t it? One-two-three. What’s that? Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth. Okay, and that’s a ninth, tenth, and so on, but we’ll stay within the confines of an octave today.

Let’s get down to the difference between dissonant and consonant. Dissonant, of course, means it sounds harsh when played together, and the dissonant intervals are seconds and sevenths. They kind of grate on your nerves. A third is a harmonic interval, and a sixth is a harmonic interval, so there’s two harmonic intervals. That’s a harmonic interval. There’s six. Harmonic there, thirds. We have harmonic intervals of thirds and harmonic intervals of six, while we have dissonant intervals of seconds and sevenths. What about fourths and fifths? They’re technically called perfect intervals, because they fit in each other’s scale, and I won’t go into the details of that right now. G is in the C scale, and C is in the G scale. They’re called perfect intervals, so they’re neither harmonic or dissonant, but they’re more harmonic than dissonant. They don’t grate on you like the dissonant intervals.

In addition to seconds and thirds and so on, we have different kinds, like that’s called a major second, because that’s in the major scale of the bottom note, of the C note. D is a member of the C scale, so it’s called a major second. That would be called a minor second, wouldn’t it? That’s a third, so that would be a what? Minor third. We’ll skip fourths and fifths for now and go to sixth. That’s a major sixth. Why? Because A is in the scale of C, while A-flat isn’t, so that would be a minor sixth if I move there. That’s a seventh, and that’s a minor seventh. Technically call this a dominant seventh, but again, we won’t go into that. We’ll just say it’s a minor seventh for now. We have major thirds and minor thirds, major seconds and minor seconds.

We also have augmented and diminished intervals, like this is an augmented fourth, and this is an augmented fifth, but if I start on the fifth and come down a half step, that’s a diminished fifth, so we can have diminished intervals and augmented intervals as well as major and minor intervals, four different kinds of intervals, in other words, of characters. We have dissonant intervals, consonant intervals, and then we have major and minor diminished and augmented intervals in addition to the numbers of the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth. All that should be remembered as you get into more complex playing, because you use those every day. When you plan any kind of interval, you’re playing a consonant interval or a dissonant interval. That’s a dissonant interval. I like the sound because it’s kind of complex. That’s a dissonant sound, isn’t it?

That’s my little lesson for today. If you enjoy this kind of thing … This is all under the title of music theory, by the way, and you should use as much music theory as you can, because it helps in your piano playing or whatever instrument you play a great deal, because you can understand what’s going on instead of just playing random notes. That’s my little tip for today. If you enjoy this kind of thing, come on over to PlayPiano.com and sign up for our free newsletter on chords and chord progressions. Thanks for being with me, and we’ll see you again tomorrow. Bye-bye for now.

Here is the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVkFlIO9aUQ&feature=youtu.be

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_(music)
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