Intervals can seem daunting if you’ve had little or no musical training but, as with a lot of theory, you’ll probably find you understand them subconsciously already.
Every time you sing or play along to the radio, you’re using intervals. They’re just the measurements we use to describe the distance between notes, or the relationship between a note and the root note (’tonic’) of its key.
Knowing a bit about intervals is really useful if you want to arrange backing vocals and instrumental harmonies. However you choose to practise intervals, try and have a keyboard of some description in front of you to see the what different intervals look like and listen to how they sound. If you learn to match the sound to a mental image of the keyboard you’ll be able to visualise the interval in the future, even when you don’t have access to a instrument.
You can work out the intervals from scale tonics using the Piano World chord tool - select a scale and count the notes between the two notes you’re playing, including those two notes themselves.
If that’s a bit abstract, we’ve put together an audio file of common intervals:
Some intervals are easy to remember because they crop up a lot in famous songs:
- The major third is the most common vocal harmony in popular music. Listen out for it in duets: Lennon and McCartney used thirds all the time in Beatles songs, as do Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on their album Raising Sand.
- Octaves (eighth intervals) are easy if you keep one of these two famous examples in mind: the ’somewhere’ from Somewhere over the Rainbow and the third ‘happy birthday’ in Happy Birthday To You.
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