How to recognize intervals

Click on any of the option buttons on the left (labelled Unison, Minor Second, Major second, and so on), in order to hear the interval played, and also to display the appropriate text panel describing that interval. As a default, the first note will always be the tonic note of the scale with the chosen key signature, the second note will go up, and the two notes will be sounded separately.

You can change any of  these defaults. Use the starting note drop-down box to make the first note become any note of the diatonic scale whose key signature is displayed. There are option buttons to display on a bass clef instead of a treble, and vice-versa, or to make the second note go down instead of up, or to sound the notes simultaneously instead of succesively.

The green coloured command button See the Inversion of this interval plays and displays the inversion of the chosen interval, and the button changes colour to pink, so you can click it to revert to the original interval. The blue button Practise these intervals takes you to a screen designed to test and enhance your skills in recognizing intervals.

One excellent way of learning how to recognize intervals is to associate them with a well-known tune. The second Twinkle in Twinkle twinkle little star is a perfect fifth above the first one, at the beginning of this very well-known nursery rhyme. The pink button List Examples brings up a list of tunes that exemplify the current interval, and you can click on any tune to hear it, see the notation with the notes of the interval coloured for easy identification, and also the words to the tune are displayed with corresponding colour-coding.

The yellow button Hear Example Bar Again simply replays the bar exemplifying the interval, whereas the  green button Hear Whole example Tune lets you hear the whole tune from its beginning.


TheoryIntervals.htm     03/08/06 18:02