Lesson 2: Intervals: Naming the Distance Between Notes

In Lesson 1 you learned about half steps and whole steps - the smallest distances between notes. Every distance between two notes, large or small, has a name. Musicians call these distances intervals, and learning to name them is the next building block toward scales and chords.

An interval has two parts: a number and a quality. The number counts letter names from the first note to the second, inclusive. C to E is a third, because C, D, E is three letters. C to G is a fifth, because C, D, E, F, G is five letters.

The quality describes the exact size within that number - major, minor, perfect, augmented, or diminished. 2nds, 3rds, 6ths, and 7ths can be major or minor. Unisons, 4ths, 5ths, and octaves are usually perfect instead - they don't come in major/minor pairs the way the others do.

The gap between a major and minor interval of the same number is always exactly one half step - a major third is one half step wider than a minor third. That's the same half step you already met in Lesson 1.

The perfect fifth is one of the most important intervals in music - it's so stable-sounding that it forms the backbone of most chords, and it's the distance two adjacent notes on the Circle of Fifths sit apart from each other.

Every interval you've now met - the half step from Lesson 1, and every named interval here - is one of the pieces scales are assembled from. Next lesson: stack a specific sequence of these intervals starting from any note, and you get the most common scale in Western music, the major scale.