Intervals are one of the core ear training topics that most musicians tackle as they hone their aural skills. Often the small intervals (seconds and thirds) and octaves are easy to get a handle on, but the larger ones are trickier. One request we hear again and again from RelativePitch users and site visitors is how best to recognise intervals of a sixth or seventh.

It’s easy to understand this. With the small intervals it’s relatively easy to relate one note to the other by using a scale or arpeggio (whether consciously, or just relying on your ear). Anybody who’s played endless major scales on their instrument will be very familiar with major and minor seconds already, as the steps of the scale. Likewise, major and minor thirds feature in arpeggios. Perfect fourths and fifths start getting a bit tougher, and once you extend the leap to sixths and sevenths, a lot of students feel it’s too big a jump for them to accurately judge. Sure, it’s bigger than a fifth and smaller than an octave, but that still leaves four possibilities!

Tips for recognising sixths and sevenths

We’ll look at three techniques which can be helpful if you’re struggling with these intervals. They all provide a “stepping stone” to recognising the interval. Use the technique described to get started and help your ear start to appreciate the character of the interval. Then in time you’ll find you can recognise them straight off!

1. Use the interval’s inversion
2. Use small intervals to reach a known interval
3. Use reference tunes which feature the interval

1. Use the interval’s inversion

If you’re approaching sixths and sevenths, the chances are good you’ve already mastered seconds, thirds and octaves (if not, it’s probably worth going back to get solid on those easier intervals). Here’s a trick you can use to start identifying sixths and sevenths, just using your ability with thirds and octaves.

You can use major and minor thirds to distinguish minor from major sixths. Likewise, you can use major/minor seconds for minor/major sevenths.

The trick is to ‘jump’ the lower note of the interval up an octave in your mind’s ear. This inverts the sixth or seventh into a second or third instead, and by recognising this smaller interval you can figure out the original interval!

For example: When trying to identify a large interval, you jump the lower note up an octave and you can tell it creates a Major Third. You then know the original interval was a Minor Sixth:

You can use this trick for all sixths and sevenths:
Click to read the rest…

Learning to recognize intervals is an important part of any musician’s development. Guitarists who play by ear should be especially interested in developing their aural skills so that they can recognize musical elements such as intervals in harmonies and melodies. For players of improvised forms like jazz a good ear is critical for improvising as well. This article reviews intervals on the guitar and teaches a very simple method for learning and identifying them.

Review of Intervals

Musical intervals measure the distance between any two pitches. We identify intervals by their size and quality. We determine the size of an interval simply by counting from one pitch name to the other. For example, the interval from the sixth string, E, to the fifth string A, is a fourth: E F G A, one two three four.

The quality of an interval, whether ‘perfect’, ‘major’, ‘minor’, ‘diminished’ or ‘augmented’, is a refinement of its size. Both an interval’s size and quality make up its unique sound: a major third sounds different than a minor third.

For the guitarist, the smallest musical distance is one fret. This distance is called a semitone. We can list the most common intervals by their number of semitones or frets:

How To Practice Intervals On The Guitar

Shortly we will review how to play some of these intervals on the guitar, but first we can take a peek at a simple method for learning how they sound. This method really involves two parts. We first want to learn how to produce an interval, and then we want to be able to recognize it.

First we play the interval we wish to learn, and sing it back. You can sing using a neutral syllable like la or ta. Below is a minor second. Play it and sing it back:

Minor Second

Minor Second Example

We repeat this play and sing back process for several different minor seconds across the guitar:

Click to read the rest…

This article is part 2 of ‘Learning To Recognize Triads’ – make sure you’ve read Part 1 first! You should make sure you are quite comfortable with major and minor triads before moving onto the material below.

Diminished Triads

The next triad to work with is the diminished triad. It has a minor third and diminished fifth above the root. The distance from the third to the fifth is also a minor third:

C Diminished Triad

1. A C Diminished Triad

The diminished triad naturally occurs on the seventh scale degree of a major scale. If you are using solfege the syllables are: ti re fa. Here are a few examples to get you going – as before, listen to the triad and sing it back. Then try singing a diminished triad given a starting pitch from your instrument: Click to read the rest…