Music Theory 1-Intervals

Well ive been on this site for some months and thought id contribute. So im gonna try start a music theory section. In this 1st section im gonna start with Intervals. intervals are the basics to ur music theory, so u better know em before u go further......lets start!

An interval describes the distance between two notes.

Types of intervals:
Perfect Intervals
Major intervals
Minor Intervals
Now an interval can be only one of the above, that is it can be perfect,major or minor. Not perfect and minor etc.

Now dont u worry..ill be going over all of them.


Perfect Intervals:

Lets take a Cmajor scale=
C(1)--D(2)--E(3)-F(4)--G(5)--A(6)--B(7)-C(8).
(- indicates a half step,i.e a jump from say Cto C# or E to F)
The 1st note C is the root.
The 8th note which again is C is called the Octave.

The Root,4th,5th and the Octave are our Perfect Intervals.
The 4th note is called the Perfect Fourth and the 5th note is called the Perfect Fifth(ie. Perfect 4th w.r.t our root which is C in this case)


Thus we can see that 2 and a 1/2 half steps lead to a perfect fourth and then another 2 steps give u the perfect 5th.
So u can get the Perfect 4ths and 5ths for any root note!

So the Perfect 4th of D is G,E is A, etc
and the Perfect 5th of D is A, E is B and so on.

Major and Minor Intervals:

In a major scale everything that isnt perfect is major!
So again in our Cmajor scale:
C(1)--D(2)--E(3)-F(4)--G(5)--A(6)--B(7)-C(8).
The 2nd(D),3rd(E),6th(A) and 7th(B) are all major.
Hence the are called Major 2nd,Major 3rd etc.
Hence the Major 2nd of C is D and so on.

And finally Minor Intervals: they are half a step behind Major intervals.
Thus the minor 2nd of C is Db, minor 3rd of C is Eb etc.
But beware, u cant say that the minor 3rd of C is D#. That is by rule.
While naming an interval we must include the basic interval note name

Thus u can now get the perfect,major and minor notes for any given root!...yay

..well thats the end the first part.
We have got 2 alterations left which are known as Augmented and Diminished..ill be talking about them after I take a little break!

"Mister Fripp, your music is quite different than everything else out there. In one word, how would you describe it?"
"Progressive.... yeah, that's it..."