Tag: Minor 3rd

19. Listen & Sing: Learn Minor Intervals By Singing

This post is one of a 2-part series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here. Please feel welcome to make a comment or ask a question.

The minor intervals are minor 2nd, minor 3rd, minor 6th and minor 7th. There are a few ways we can learn to sing these intervals.

Phrygian mode

The minor intervals are based on the phrygian mode. The phrygian mode is not easy to sing!

Most people aren’t used to starting a scale with a minor 2nd (1 semitone). However, if you listen to early music or traditional folk genres, you may be able to sing it.

Give it a try if you like. Don’t worry if you find it hard because there are easier options below.

If you can sing this scale, you can teach yourself the minor intervals by counting scale notes in the phrygian mode, just as we did for major intervals in the previous lesson. If not, read on…

Natural Minor

The next option is to sing the natural minor scale. That works for all except the minor 2nd, 1 semitone. See below for how to learn to sing a minor 2nd.

Most people find this much easier to sing than the phrygian mode. Again, the best way to find out is to try it.

Try It…

If you can comfortably sing the natural minor scale without following the video, you can use it to find the minor 3rd, minor 6th and minor 7th. Learn to sing the minor 2nd separately (see later in this post).

Example: minor 7th by singing the minor scale

Major Scale

The final method, outlined below, is to start to sing a major scale. To sing a minor 2nd, 3rd, 6th or 7th, drop down by 1 semitone from the major to find the equivalent minor interval, much like the interval ruler in 16. Interval names 1: major, minor and perfect intervals.

This method is great when you want to name an interval that you hear, because at first you won’t know whether it’s major or minor.

Rather than having to try both major and minor scales, just sing the major scale. If the major scale overshoots the upper note of the interval it’s probably a minor interval. (There is one exception to this but we’ll leave that until Part 2 of this course).

This requires one trick; the ability to sing 1 semitone below a note. This may seem hard, but I’m sure you can already do it without even realising it…

How To Sing 1 Semitone Up Or Down

Try This…

  • Sing the first 4 (or the last 4) notes of a major scale.
  • Now go back and forth between the last two notes you sang – that’s 1 semitone.
  • Feel how close together these last two notes are, almost squeezed together… Remember that feeling when you want to sing two notes 1 semitone apart.
  • Does it remind you of something? Start slowly and speed it up… The theme of the all-time classic movie, Jaws…
  • Now you’ve sung 1 semitone up and down a few times, reverse it. Sing down before going up (start on the higher note if you like). Below we have 1 semitone as a minor 2nd on C, first upwards, then downwards. Focus on keeping the two notes squeezed tightly together.
  • After a little while, you‘ll be able to sing a semitone up or down down by itself.

How To Sing Minor Intervals By Singing The Major Scale

  • For a minor 2nd, learn to sing 1 semitone up as outlined above.
  • For other intervals, sing the major scale indicated by the degree of the interval name (3rd, 6th or 7th).
  • Sing down 1 semitone.
  • Repeat this a few times.
  • Now just sing the first and last note as an interval.
  • Repeat a few times. Build up to being able to sing it by yourself, without the video.
  • Once you’ve sung a few intervals, try to sing the in-between scale notes more quickly and quietly, until they’re just a thought.

Try These…

Minor 2nd by singing the major scale

Sing the first bar again while you listen to the 2nd bar.

This is just a semitone up rather than down, as we learnt earlier.

Minor 3rd by singing the major scale

NOTE: For this and the following intervals, repeat the 3rd bar while listening to the 4th bar.

Minor 6th by singing the major scale

Minor 7th by singing the major scale

How To Name An Interval That You Hear

  • Identify the lower and higher note of the interval and sing them.
  • While listening to the interval, start to sing the major scale of the lower note, counting degrees (note numbers).
  • If it’s a major or perfect interval, you’ll find the upper note and have the answer.
  • If it’s a minor interval, at some point you’ll be too high. As soon as you notice this, sing 1 semitone below your last note. If you’re still too high, you went too far up the major scale and you should start again.
  • You may need to repeat this a few times until you feel sure that your upper note matches the upper note of the interval.

Try These…

Name the following intervals:

Answers at the end of this post.

NOTE: There is one interval we haven’t covered in the last two lessons, an interval of 6 semitones, often called a tritone (we’ll learn its proper interval name in Part 2 of this course). It’s a bit harder to sing than the other intervals and isn’t all that common so we’ll leave that one out for now.

Coming Soon! The Interval-Singing Project

The interval-singing project is survey of well-known songs in many genres, each of which starts with a specific interval. For each genre I hope to collect song titles to cover each interval.

Instead of having to learn intervals from scratch, students will be able to draw on their own knowledge, needing only to remember which song represents which interval.

Anyone who subscribes to my blog will have access to the database at no cost.

If you found this post helpful, please feel welcome to like, share or leave a comment. If you have any questions, leave them as a comment and I’ll respond as soon as I can. To stay up to date wth new posts, please subscribe.

NEXT LESSON: 20. How To Read Rhythms 1

PART 1 CONTENTS: Basic Music Theory Course Contents

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Answers To Try These…

  • minor 3rd
  • minor 6th
  • minor 2nd
  • minor 7th

Sleight of Ear: the effect of musical context on perception

This post is one of a growing series of holistic investigations into various aspects of music theory. The full list can be found in the Posts page under the category Music Theory De-Mystified.

All comments are welcome. If you enjoy my post, please give it a like and share it or subscribe to my blog.

Musical context

Individual intervals and chords can be listened to by themselves, out of context, or within the context of a particular piece.

Any interval or chord has an effect; a character, based on how the notes interact. However, the context of the surrounding notes can produce “sleight of ear”. The interval or chord can appear to sound different than when played by itself or in another musical context.

Musical context is a combination of the overall key and mode and the development of the piece. Many pieces visit various keys along the way, resulting in a temporary key. As the music progresses through these visiting keys there is interplay between the home key and the visiting key and the listener’s viewpoint shifts.

Altered notes in either the melody or chords can also result in sleight of ear.

Sleight of ear example 1

Here are two examples of changing from an A major chord to an E major chord. The first example the melody feels like A is the home chord and we’re venturing out to E. In the second example, just one slightly different note in the melody suggests that E is home and we’re arriving home from a visiting key. This is especially noticeable when we hear the progression repeat itself.

Interestingly, the addition of D# in the melody implies the key of E major, and that’s how we hear it. To reflect this, the above example is written with the key signature of A major for the first example and E major for the second.

Sleight of ear example 2

The classic example of sleight of ear is the interval between the 6th and 7th notes of the harmonic minor, which is 3 semitones despite being consecutive scale notes (letters). This interval gives the scale an exotic quality reminiscent of Gypsy music.

From the 6th note to the 7th sounds like an unusually large step, a stretched out 2nd. It is called an augmented 2nd, reflecting how we hear it in the scale.

Normally, 3 semitones is a minor 3rd. When we hear this interval by itself we assume the first note to be the root note: it sounds like the first 3 notes of a minor scale with the 2nd note left out, or the start of a minor chord or minor triad.

The same size interval feels unrecognisably different in these two different contexts.

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Videos taken from Music Theory De-Mystified, due for release as an e-Book late 2022.