Learning the Intervals

I know I said my next lesson would be the minor scale, but I’ve concluded that the understanding of intervals is something that will help understand these scales better.  These intervals are described by the number of semitones apart, which was touched on in the previous lesson.

(S-t = Semitones)

# of S-t     Name                                  Example
0                  Perfect Unison (P1)         Happy Birthday
1                   Minor Second (m2)         Jaws Theme
2                   Major Second (M2)         ”Do-Re”
3                   Minor Third (m3)             Smoke on the Water
4                   Major Third (M3)             When the Saints go…
5                   Perfect Fourth (P4)         Amazing Grace
6                   Tritone (aug4/dim5)      The Simpsons’ Theme
7                   Perfect Fifth (P5)             Twinkle, Twinkle…
8                   Minor Sixth (m6)             Across the Stars
9                   Major Sixth (M6)             NBC Theme
10                Minor Seventh (m7)       Star Trek Theme
11                 Major Seventh (M7)       Pure Imagination
12                 Perfect Octave (P8)        Over the Rainbow

So there are the intervals, listed with their number of semitones and an example (some of which are rather poor.)  These are the examples provided by one of my teachers, so if you have any you would like to add, or need better ones, leave some comments. 

On a side note, a brief history of the tritone (since history is one of my other passions.)  It is seen as dissonance in Western Music.  (Latin dis-, “apart” + sonare, “to sound”, or something considered unstable and used mainly for transition.)  Because of this, it was rarely used throughout most of the middle ages.  Up until the end of the Renaissance it was nicknamed diabolus in musica, or “the devil in music.”  The dissonance (along with association with the devil) led to the Western world to associate this interval with evil.  To this day it still conjures an evil feeling, and can be found in many metal songs such as Black Sabbath’s self titled song, YYZ by Rush, and many songs by Slayer.

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