Wednesday, 10th March 2010

Intervals

Before you can race ahead and learn the really high-tech stuff like what an F#7#11 chord is, you really have to know what an interval is. Chords are made up from intervals, so if you don't know them, then you won't have a hope with the chords. This is your bread and butter, nuts and bolts type stuff - the starting point of all chord theory.

Don't worry, it's not very hard to learn!! Here we go...

Intervals - Sound Shapes

The Major Scale Intervals

Minor, Diminished and Augmented Intervals

The Intervals in the Chromatic Scale

Interval Sounds

Intervals - Sound Shapes

An interval is a musical distance - the distance between two notes. As bass players, we're really lucky, because intervals convert to finger shapes or patterns on your bass - sound shapes. Most people learn how to play an "octave pattern" pretty early on in their bass career - this is an example of an interval.

If you're not sure how to play an octave pattern, have a look below. There is an other example of an interval or "sound shape" here as well, the major 2nd.

(They're played from C, in two different ranges, first as one note after the other, and then both notes together).

The Major Scale Intervals

There isn't really all that much to learn about intervals - there are only really 13 or 14 different ones, (although some of them can have a couple of different names).

All of the interval names are generated from your basic everyday major scale. For example , in the key of C major, you get the notes C D E F G A B C....

The "Major" or "Perfect" prefix describes the quality of the interval. We'll talk more about this later.

A little bit of bass general knowledge - the bass is tuned in perfect 4ths - that is, there is a perfect 4th interval between each of the strings.

Have a look below, and learn the names and "sound shapes" for the intervals in the C Major scale. Then join me down below the gif.

Minor, Diminished and Augmented Intervals.

As I mentioned above, the interval names are generated from the major scale. There are a few musical intervals that aren't contained in the major scale, so now we have to learn about these.

Minor

Minor intervals are found one semitone or fret space below major intervals. For example, a minor 3rd is found one fret below a major 3rd. Go back up to the Intervals chart, and learn the minor intervals.

Make sure you learn both their names and their finger shapes. Have a good listen to their sounds as well, and compare them to the major intervals. All intervals are very distinctive - they are like different colours. Some people say that minor intervals sound "sad" compared to the "majestic" major intervals.

Diminished and Augmented - the chromatic intervals.

These are the more obscure, less frequently used intervals. They are still very important to learn though.

Firstly, have a look at the chromatic intervals in the gif above - I've listed a few of them there. Then come back for an explanation of how the names work. There is a little bit of an interval hierarchy, which may seem a little bit pedantic to some, but hey, try to cope!. Here it is...

Here are a couple of examples. Play them on your bass for the picture to become a bit clearer....

C to A is a major 6th...C to Ab is a minor 6th...C to Abb is a diminished 6th..C to A# is an augmented 6th.

C to G is a perfect 5th...C to G# is an augmented 5th...C to Gb is a diminished fifth.

Here's a little diminished 5th/augmented 4th trivia - this interval is also known as the "tritone", as there are 3 tones from the root to the b5 or #4, and then another 3 tones up to the octave. It is the mid-way point between the first and the octave.

Perfect Intervals

You've learned these already, but I thought I'd better throw in a bit of a spiel about them.

All of this interval terminology is serious, heavy duty historical stuff. The interval names date back centuries and have quite a bit of a sacred background to them. Back when I was at Uni, I had to write a very exciting paper, on 13th Century Motets. There was a lot of talk back then about which intervals should fall into the perfect group and which should be major, depending on how "pure" they sounded. Very important theorists used to write very important theories on this topic! Anyway, to cut a very long story short, the Perfect Fourth was a borderline entry in the perfect category, and the major 3rd never quite made it. The major 7th wasn't even close to being a candidate.

The Intervals in the Chromatic Scale

This sounds a lot more complicated than it should. The chromatic scale is just a scale that contains every note/interval. For a bit of interval consolidation, have a look below and learn all the intervals in the G chromatic scales. Keep concentrating on the big three - shape, sound and name.

Interval Sounds

As a parting interval comment , I thought I'd just remind you about how individual each of the intervals sounds. Have a listen to each one, from different starting points. See if they remind you of a song. For example, the perfect fifth is the start of that famous military tune - Taps. The Major seventh doesn't sound quite right...it kind of wants to be an octave but doesn't quite make it.

Here are all of the chromatic intervals in midi files, for you to listen to once again. You should maybe save them to your hard drive and go over them every now and then....

If you want to practice recognising the interval sounds, then you should record them all and test yourself occasionally.

You can also get some really good software ear training programs on the net, for both Mac and PC. Sibelius Auralia is the best that I have come across, and there are also some free ones around. Have a bit of a surf and see if you can find one.