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Intervals - the building blocks of harmony
An interval is the distance between two tones and the foundation of everything - melody, chords and harmony. Meet major, minor and perfect intervals and their sound.
What an interval is
An interval is the distance between two tones. We name it with two pieces of information: a number (how many scale degrees it spans) and a quality (perfect, major, minor, augmented or diminished). Every interval has its own characteristic sound.
Measuring in semitones
The most unambiguous way to measure intervals is in semitones. A few essentials:
- Minor third = 3 semitones (the minor sound)
- Major third = 4 semitones (the major sound)
- Perfect fourth = 5 semitones
- Perfect fifth = 7 semitones (very consonant, 'open' sound)
- Octave = 12 semitones (the same tone higher)
Major, minor and perfect
The 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th can be major or minor - major is one semitone larger than minor. The unison, fourth, fifth and octave are perfect: they stay the same in major and minor, which is why they sound especially stable and consonant.
Consonance and dissonance
Some intervals sound calm and resolved (consonant: third, fifth, octave), others tense and restless (dissonant: second, seventh, tritone). Music lives precisely on the interplay of tension and release - a dissonance resolving into a consonance is the engine of almost every melody.
The tritone (6 semitones, e.g. F-B) is historically the most tense interval - medieval musicians called it 'diabolus in musica', the devil in music.
Once you understand intervals you also understand why chords are built the way they are - most are stacked in thirds. That leads us to harmonising the scale.
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