I was just reading the thread about working out intervals, and wondered whether the method I was taught and use is really foolproof. It works on a flow chart kind of basis but does assume that people know their scales and key signatures (or at least the arrangement of tones and semitones in order to make them!):

1. Count the interval to find it's number

2. Does the upper note appear in the major scale which begins on the lower note?

If YES, then if it is a 4th, 5th or 8ve it is a PERFECT INTERVAL, and if it is a 2nd, 3rd, 6th or 7th, then it is a MAJOR INTERVAL

If NO, go to Q3

3. Does the upper note appear in the minor scale which begins on the lower note?

If YES, then it is a MINOR INTERVAL

If NO, go to Q4

4. If the upper note is raised by a semitone from it's major equivalent, then its AUGMENTED, and if it is a semitone lower than its major equivalent, then it is DIMINISHED

For example, if one has an inverval of G to C#, then:

1. The interval is a 4th
2. C# is not in the major scale of G
3. C# is not in the minor scale of G
4. It is a semitone higher than it's major/perfect equivalent of C, therefore it is an AUGMENTED 4th

Personally, I hated intervals. I don't know whether I've actually expressed what I mean very well above, but it seems to work in practice!

David

I do pretty much the same thing as you.

I look at the lower note and see if the higher note is in that scale, and then as you said, it can therefore be a perfect or major interval.

If it isn't in the major scale, then I count how many semitones larger or smaller the interval is than if it were a major interval. (For example if I had C and Eb, I would think, "well if it were major, it'd be C and E....but Eb is ONE SEMITONE smaller than E, so it must be minor) and so on.

But yes I always get confused with intervals too!! But this is the way that I've been told by my piano/singing/theory teacher and I think my music teachers work out intervals this way too. It works for me most of the time (unless I get my major scales confused or forget to look at key sig or the first part of the bar for any accidentals which change the intial appearance of the interval!!)

Laura

ARGH this is all SOOOOO complicated!

All these hard-to-remember rules...and it really doesn't have to be so difficult!

Sorry, feeling tired and tetchy...

All these methods look so complex

I generally

1: count the interval - is it a 5th or a 7th or what?

2: disregarding all accidentals, what interval would it be within the key sig? (eg, major, minor, perfect)

3: what accidentals does it have? and whether they widen or narrow the interval and by how much tells you what kind it is.

I don't know if my background knowledge is what makes this work, but I've always found intervals one of the easier parts of theory

Yep, I pretty much do what Sarah does:

1) Look at the notes, work out the basic interval based on letter names (G to E is a 6th, for instance)

2) If the bottom note isn't a standard key, lower it or raise it by a semitone so it is. So for instance, if bottom note is G# and top is E, drop both notes by a semitone and use G to Eb instead as G major is far nicer than G# major. Don't do anything daft like dropping a C to an B though - changing the letter name is not allowed.

3) Look at what the interval should be in the major key of the bottom note, then give answer based on this. G-Eb should be G to E, so it's clearly minor.

This doesn't seem to work! G# - E isn't the same interval as G - E#. If it's an awkward key, I tell my students to take away the #. That would leave G - E. Gmajor has E so G - E is a major 6th. As the lowest note is G#, it makes the distance from G -E smaller, so one step smaller than major is minor, thus G# - E is a minor 6th. G - E# is one step larger than major so it's aumented.

Apart from actually identifying what the notes are, I was always told to ignore the key signature.

David

Regarding No."3" I'd say

Nooooooooooooo!

The minor scale isn't involved in intervals, except to say "the meaning of minor for intervals is not at all to do with the minor scale, instead it's a way of saying 'a major interval lowered one semitone'". This is what I tell my pupils, and they grasp it, I find, quite readily.

So, after your Q1 (count lines and spaces on the written music for the number) and Q2 (major scale)...

I then say that perfect intervals (UNISON, 4th, 5th, Octave) are diminished when lowered a semitone or augmented when raised a semitone,

...and the ones between (in two pairs: 2nd & 3rd, 6th & 7th) are called "minor" when they are lowered a semitone and diminished when lowered yet another semitone, or augmented when raised a semitone.

As the 2nd of the scale is never affected by major/minor scale difference, the minor scale really isn't involved in the principles involved. Minor is just a way of saying "less" for ones that are called major. Instead of "perfect" they have "major" and "minor" as the two options in the middle (between diminished and augmented).

THE ABOVE IS TO BE HELPFUL, BELOW IS FOR INTEREST....

If someone were to turn round to me and say "but it's useful to talk about the minor scale for intervals just so that a pupil gets the idea of what are the DIATONIC intervals" (see ABRSM Pink book by Eric Taylor pp46-47) I would say "it's not even useful or true for that either". The diatonic intervals are the ones that appear IN THE KEY THAT YOU'RE IN AT THAT TIME IN THE MUSIC, e.g. "G major", NOT all the major and minor intervals stemming from the keynote. Notes that are not diatonic are chromatic, so if you're in C major, Eb is not a Diatonic note, it is foreign, and I would argue Chromatic therefore (see Harmony 24 in Scholes "Oxford Companion to Music"). So I wouldn't explain intervals with any reference to the minor scale, except maybe to say as an afterthought that SOME of the minor intervals appear in some of the minor scales. The root meaning of the word "minor" is not always the scale - here it is the LOWERING aspect of something major.

I like by the way the easy definition of an augmented CHORD as a MAJOR triad with the 5th raised a semitone, and a diminished triad as a MINOR triad with the 5th lowered a semitone (despite the careless definition in Scholes [harmony 24], where Eric Taylor p57 does it properly).

Now, just to be a pickle, I'd suggest that the diminished unison doesn't exist (see the ABRSM Pink book by Eric Taylor on p49). C to C# is an augmented unison, C to C natural is a unison, and C to Cb is actually Cb to C (as intervals are always read from the lowest note) so it is an augmented unison. So I say "ban the dimished unison" - but I won't go marching with placards about it!!!

Surely you mean add the opposite accidental to the upper note. IE G#-E becomes G-Eb.

I use the major scale as the reference point for the lower note so for example using the C major scale:

C to D... major 2nd
C to E... major 3rd
C to F... perfect 4th
C to G... perfect 5th
C to A... major 6th
C to B... major 7th
C to C... perfect 8th

All you really need to remember then is perfect 4th, 5th and 8th - all the rest are major


If the upper note is not in the major scale but is lowered by one semitone, then:

*the major intervals become minor (eg C to Eb = minor 3rd)
*the perfect intervals become diminished (eg C to Gb = diminished 5th)


If the upper note is not in the major scale but is lowered by two semitones, then:

*the major intervals become minor and then diminished (eg F# to Ab = diminished 3rd; F# to A# = major 3rd, F# to A = minor 3rd, F# to Ab = diminished 3rd)


If the upper note is not in the major scale but is raised by one semitone, then:

*the major intervals become augmented (eg C to A# = augmented 6th)
*the perfect intervals become augmented (eg C to G# = augmented 5th)


As I don't use the minor scales at all, the upper note raised by two semitones doesn't come into play.


As in YAP's example, if I cannot work out the interval say from G# to E, then I reduce both notes by one semitone from G to Eb (I think that's what YAP meant) so the interval is easier to work out and is more clearly a minor 6th.


A shortcut for working out 7ths is to use the octave and then the following:

B to B = perfect 8th
B to A# = major 7th
B to A = minor 7th
B to Ab = diminshed 7th

Hope this is clear - it's taken me ages to sort out in my own head!

I'm pretty new at this, and looked for an 'easy' way to do this, without having to remember too many steps. Being a pianist, I have the keyboard in my head. This is what I do - it may not be efficient, but it works for me:

1. Count the interval letters
2. Count the semitones.
3. Count the same number of semitones in C major to work out the difference between my interval number and the same thing in C Major.

Counting the letters always gets me the interval number. Counting the semitones shows me 'how far off' from that interval I am. I like this because I can resolve the difference between the interval number and the interval as it looks in C Major.

As an example, I might figure I've got a 'some kind of 7th', but then find the intervals only take me to a perfect 6th in C Major. Since that's 2 semitones below a major 7th, I can say it's a diminished 7th (i.e. I know it can't be a 6th, and I know it's not a minor 7th...).

That means that you have to remember Major->Minor->Diminished, but it seems to work for me.

I've also found though that the more of these I do the more 'obvious' things become; I start to take short-cuts, etc. (which I probably couldn't explain too easily, but which seem more natural as time goes by) and predict the answer before working it through.

Don't forget the augmented intervals.

I thought after years of struggling, I'd finally cracked intervals! I'm not so sure now...

As far as I can see you're on the right track - apart from point 3. I tell my students not to use minor scales for two reasons: 1 - the 6th and 7th notes are changeable and within a melodic minor scale you can have a major and a minor 6th for example; 2 intervals can be minor without actually being in a minor scale, for example C-Db. C - D would be a major second, Db is a semitone lower than major so C - Db is minor, yet it isn't actually in the scale of C minor.

Yes, thanks . Remember, folks, don't write forum posts whilst tired .

Take a semitone off the top and take a semitone off the bottom; or, add a semitone to the top and add a semitone to the bottom . It's like algebra, for those who like that: add 1 to the left hand side, add 1 to the right; and so on.

It was a "eureka!' moment for me when I was shown this method.

As long as the same number of semitones is taken away or added from BOTH notes, there's no reason not to keep on adding/subtracting until the lower note base scale is recognisable. The letter names must remain the same however which is where I think people can go wrong.

For example an interval using E# can be tricky to work out but reduce this to E or Eb and it's much more straightforward. And if you can't remember the key signature, say, for F# major, reduce both notes down a semitone to the scale of F major. You could go all the way back to C major I guess......