Demonstrating some basic intervals.
Music Theory 101 - Intervals
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Simply put, an interval is the distance between any two notes. We have 12 notes in western music and the distance between any two of these notes has a specific sound and a corresponding name. The notes are named after the letters in the alphabet A through G. When you reach the 12th note, the next note higher is the first note again.
Now obviously, G is only the seventh note in our alphabet. So what about the other five notes? Well, in between some of the notes are other notes called accidentals. These are known as sharps and flats. Sharps go up in harmonic value while flats go down. For example: The note between A and B is either A Sharp or B flat. Don't worry about why... just understand that they are the same note and that sharps go up and flats go down. Sharps are notated by “#” and flats are notated by “b”. There are only two places in our 12 notes where there are no accidentals and that is between B and C and E and F. Therefore, the 12 notes we have at our disposal are:
A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab
And the intervals are as follows:
- Tonic or octave - two of the same notes. ie: C and C - written as 1
- Minor second - one fret or note above the tonic. ie: C and C# - written as b2
- Major second - two frets or notes above the tonic. ie: C and D - written as 2
- Minor third - three frets or notes above the tonic. ie: C and Eb - written as b3
- Major third - four frets or notes above the tonic. ie: C and E - written as 3
- Perfect fourth - five frets or notes above the tonic. ie: C and F - written as 4
- Augmented fourth or diminished fifth - six frets or notes above the tonic. ie: C and F# / Gb - written as #4 or b5
- Perfect fifth - seven frets or notes above the tonic. ie: C and G - written as 5
- Minor sixth - eight frets or notes above the tonic. ie: C and Ab - written as b6
- Major sixth - nine frets or notes above the tonic. ie: C and A - written as 6
- Minor seventh - ten frets or notes above the tonic. ie: C and Bb - written as b7
- Major seventh - eleven frets or notes above the tonic. ie: C and B - written as 7
You must also realize that you can start on any tonic and make the same intervals. For example: the distance between C and G is a perfect fifth... and so is the distance between A and E... or D and A. Get used to finding each of these intervals on your fretboard and pay attention to the sound of each of them! We will use these intervals to make all of our sounds in the future and we will call them by their specific names. SO MEMORIZE THEM NOW!
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Did a single take. It’s not perfect, but I’ll keep practicing.
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Me trying to memorize intervals and accidentals.
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That was an easy lesson. :) A welcome change of pace from the last one. I didn't actually practice this lesson before making the video, but will this week play around with finding intervals. It will help me continue to map keys to frets.
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An attempt at intervals on two strings.
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I found I lost my way a little on the G string.. Its one thing to recite it but I need to practice this every day to really embed it into my soul!!!!
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Note names I was familiar with before, these interval names were completely new for me. Terms I've heard thrown around, but never really truly knew what they meant until now. I'll keep reviewing these until it becomes more second nature to recognize them.
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I feel slow on the B string lol.
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My first video upload! Hope to make this a regular occurrence and truly believing this will be hugely conducive to my progress as a guitarist. Will spend another day or two focusing on cementing this foundational knowledge.
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I'm stuck at home with Covid today so I thought I would take some time to do this lesson. I hope my voice doesn't sound to bad. Thank you Michael the lessons are great.
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Like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time, lol. A real struggle.
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QUESTION: When you talk about needing to memorize this stuff, what do you mean specifically? Like how many frets there are to the perfect 4th and 5th notes or just where all the notes are in relation to each other? I think I understand but just want to make sure
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Demonstrating notes and intervals on two different strings. I've been working on identifying the intervals by ear with Earpeggio. Associating a song with each interval is helpful - just do a search for it. Hopefully it comes in handy at some point!
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I name all the notes on the 5th and 6th strings. I then tell you the interval names.
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Playing and naming intervals on the low E and A strings.
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Slow and steady!
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