intervals

[lyghtningrod]

I'm taking Music Theory and harmony at a local 2 year college. It's great having ear training every morning, trying to hear it rather than play it. It's different having to figure it out without an instrument to check yourself.

 

So he gave a list of songs for most intervals. Such as Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star as a perfect 5th. But a couple examples are a bit obscure. And several intervals have no examples. So if any one has any good examples, could ya let me know?

Thanks

 

I've attached a doc with the lists.

 

We are missing the following

ascending

augmented 5th

major 7th

 

descending

Perfect 4th

augmented 4th

minor 7th

major 7th

Song Intervals.doc

[untitled1100]

A common ascending maj7th one is with the first few notes of 'somewhere over the rainbow': First note is root, then 2nd one is the octave, third one is the maj 7th, while it's not an exact 1 to 7 leap, it does help a lot i find!

 

Ascending aug 5th : I like to think of 'The entertainer' / 'The sting' soundtrack / 'the monopoly song' (i've heard people describe the same melody with all three names lol - yes can be confusing!) If taking into account the two beat count-in before the main melody it's the interval between the 3rd and 4th notes. : 1st note is 2nd, 2nd note is raised2nd, 3rd note is 3rd, 4th note is octave. Technically speaking, this is actually a min6th interval in this case, but as it's interval recognition exercise by ear I think it's ok to use it (because min6th and aug5th are enharmonic equivalents)

 

Descending I don't really know many as I tend to try to recognise the same gap as I would if they were ascending, just the other way round if you see what I mean lol

 

The best way really though at the beginning is to try to associate your own examples to each interval, it ill help you remember them a lot better!

 

J.

[David Nahmani]

Descending 4th: that Mozart tune... aargh.. I could sing it ... don't know the name...

Mozart.mp3.zip

[David Nahmani]

Descending augmented 4th: Cape Fear's theme (Bernard Herman), first and 3rd note. It's a perfect 4th, then the note just below is the augmented 4th:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEksj8Q6b54&feature=related

[Beer Moth]

Already on list (erit)

 

When I was at music college they told us to do the same thing.

 

Wasn't impressed with the idea then,too much,and still think there are better ways of developing interval recognition that are more real world in application.

That's part of what scales and arpeggios are about.

 

In fact,I tend to remember songs the other way round.

You know,how does that song go?

(Sing interval or degrees of scale of first phrase) Oh yeah!

 

Used to remember phone numbers the same way,sometimes.

[ChrisByrd]

David,

 

The Mozart tune is the opening of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - I'd never noticed that it was a descending 4th.

 

Chris

[David Nahmani]

David,

 

The Mozart tune is the opening of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - I'd never noticed that it was a descending 4th.

 

Haaaaaa thanks. at least you didn't write "David, your Mozart tune is the opening of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata".. that would be REALLY embarrassing.

[Matt Mayfield]

I teach music theory and ear training, and I've found that using melodies to learn intervals has some big disadvantages. First, intervals sound different depending on *where* in the scale they occur. If students instead learn the feel of each *scale degree,* then they can both transcribe music easier, and still get the interval by reverse-engineering it.

 

Second, you can tell when someone's sense of pitch is based on isolated intervals by listening to them sing a capella and miss one note. The rest of the song will have changed key. This is an unstable and less strong sense of pitch than learning scale degrees.

 

A person with a scale degree-based sense of pitch will miss one note in the song, and then the next note will be right again, and in the right key.

 

I'd suggest some simple chord singing exercises (well-voice-led, simple chord progressions) for all the students for a few minutes every day so they get the feel of what note of the scale and what degree of the triad they are singing.

 

My 2 cents!

 

Matt

[Matt Mayfield]

An augmented 5th - are you sure? Because without harmonic context that would sound the same as a minor 6th. For an augmented 5th in a melody that couldn't be interpreted as a minor 6th, you'd have to do something like a C# melody note over an A7 chord.down to an F melody note over a Dm chord.

 

For a tritone (dim5 or aug4), I suggest to avoid "Maria" or "The Simpsons" because those are not functional tritones. The easier one to hear and sing is the scale degree 4 down to 7 and leading back up to 1. (There's a line like this in "I Love Trash" from Sesame Street that comes to mind.)

 

Another example... "The Entertainer" is a good reference of a minor 6th, but it functions as 3 up to 1. It doesn't make sense to use that to remember 1 up to flat-6 because your brain has to change key.

 

Check out the book "Lies My Music Teacher Told Me" by Gerald Eskelin. It's not a perfect description of these things, but he's got a lot of important points.

 

I hope you find these ideas interesting!

 

Matt

[lyghtningrod]

I teach music theory and ear training, and I've found that using melodies to learn intervals has some big disadvantages. First, intervals sound different depending on *where* in the scale they occur. If students instead learn the feel of each *scale degree,* then they can both transcribe music easier, and still get the interval by reverse-engineering it.

 

I'm not sure what you mean when you say " instead learn the feel of each *scale degree,* then they can both transcribe music easier, and still get the interval by reverse-engineering it."

 

I know that while i can find intervals on my guitar with no problems, I still have a hard time reliably naming intervals just by listening. Hence my need/desire for some ways to help me hear better.

 

Second, you can tell when someone's sense of pitch is based on isolated intervals by listening to them sing a capella and miss one note. The rest of the song will have changed key. This is an unstable and less strong sense of pitch than learning scale degrees.

 

A person with a scale degree-based sense of pitch will miss one note in the song, and then the next note will be right again, and in the right key.

 

That makes sense.

 

 

I'd suggest some simple chord singing exercises (well-voice-led, simple chord progressions) for all the students for a few minutes every day so they get the feel of what note of the scale and what degree of the triad they are singing.

 

My 2 cents!

 

Matt

 

The professor leads singing and rhythm exercises. Those are tough because I never learned solfege, and the teacher adds hand signs, devised by Zoltán Kodály, to further confuse us. So I have to remember syllable, pitch and hand sign. Plus, I don't sing very well.

 

Life's tough, ain't it?

 

Last, since I've never seen a complete list of intervals, i was hoping to fill in the blanks. Thanks for the new songs.

[Stevo Da Devo]

If he's teaching you Kodaly method then you'll understand what mayfield talks about the "feel" of a scale degree. after some time spent with solfa you start to get an idea of what the scale degree is rather than what the interval is from the note that preceded it. eg. in the case of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik you begin to hear tonic dominant instead of P4. Ultimately instead of hearing and dictating a melody as a series of intervals it becomes movement and variation around a scale (atleast for the vast majority of music).

 

That being said I learnt both ways and I wouldn't pick one over the other. Having a really strong sense of interval recognition and reproduction is an invaluable skill.

[Cowboy Bob]

As someone who studied music theory and composition, I found the theory to be a huge hinderance to my creativity. I couldn't drag myself away from it and everything I wrote seemed to sound "familiar". Over the years I've tried hard to forget as much as possible - though it's still with me. It's usually my biggest cause of writers block. I wish I'd never learnt any of it.