Intervals

What makes certain notes sound the way they do in a song has absolutely nothing to do with the note itself. The G note sounds somber or melancholy in the key of E, very dissonant in the key of C#, and just the standard root note in a song in the key of G. These qualities aren’t determined by the note or even specifically what key the song is in, but rather the note interval between a particular note and the root note. This is why songs still sound the same when played in a different key. A good example of this is comparing the original Kinks version of “You Really Got Me” to the Van Halen cover. Not only are both in different keys, but they use different chord voicings as well. Despite this, as soon as the rhythm riff plays for the first time, they can tell immediately that both are the same song.

Playing these intervals over and over is a good way to start becoming familiar with how the various intervals actually sound, which is extremely beneficial when you actually go to transcribe songs by ear. This does take awhile to develop, and you may not feel like you are making progress, but eventually it does become quite clear. If you just play through them once, you won’t get much out it. However, playing them as part of your warm up can be quite useful, without necessarily being too grating if you can’t just sit and play the two notes over and over again.

It should be noted that there is more to intervals than simply the distance from the root note and the note being played. Notes within the scale also do interact with the previous note, and this gets quite important in chord progressions. This is more of a higher end compositional aspect, which you may want to look into later on. Still, before you can use those, you need to have a good understanding of the basic intervals before you can deal with those issues.

The following examples are all in relation to the root note of A. Standard notation is actually usually more useful for looking at intervals than guitar tab, but not really necessary to understand for this exercise. Since A minor contains all the natural notes, any intervals not in A minor would be indicated by ‘b’ or ‘#’ in the notation the first time that interval appears in the bar. Not important in this exercise, but the reason a lot of guitarists that can’t really read standard notation still like to have it is because those two symbols make it much easier to spot notes that are out of scale without having to play through it first.

Perfect Intervals: These are the intervals that have no major/minor changes.

Unison and Octave Unison simply refers to the same exact note. It is an interval in the same sense that adding 0 to a number gives you the same number. An octave is also the same note, but is higher or lower in pitch than the original note.

4^th and 5^th Most scales have both of these, and only a handful of rather weird scales have neither. The fourth is the only perfect interval that ever usually sounds particularly dissonant, and even then that is usually just in the lower register.

Imperfect Intervals: These intervals have major/minor changes, so each interval has two separate, different sounding versions. The order is from most consonant (3rd) to least consonant (7th).

Major and Minor 3^rd This note is really the one that actually indicates whether something is called major or minor. There are a few exceptions, but not very many.

Major and Minor 6^th

The major 6th diad frequently comes up in blues comping lines.

Major and Minor 2^nd

Major and Minor 7^th Even though it is usually the most dissonant imperfect interval, it is often one of the more frequent intervals to be used in many styles of music.

#4^th or b5^th This is not considered a perfect or imperfect interval, and is almost always very dissonant, it is still a useful interval used properly. This is the note that gives the Lydian mode its dreamy quality, and when used to good effect can be quite useful.

9^th and Larger Intervals These simply indicate an interval that is greater than an octave away. If you subtract 7 from it, it tells you want interval it is. Generally this is only used in chords, for two reasons. The first is that it distinguishes what specific pitch of a note is being added to the chord. The second is pretty simple, most melodies don’t jump more than an octave. It happens, but not enough that it is something that you will commonly hear mentioned.

Keep on rockin'!