Intervals!

 When you hear the word "Interval" what comes to mind?

• high intensity interval training?

• the horrors of ear training?

• the distance between two pitches?

Hopefully, if you're teaching music, you think of the third option. You might have experienced the middle experience and hopefully you can wipe that from your memories as you move forward. If you think of the first example, and don't teach music, then I think you might want to head back to Google. Sorry!

Intervals are part of the Pitch element, as covered in the Ontario Music Curriculum. Intervals often get overlooked as music teachers focus on other elements that might be more familiar with, or that students need to develop more skills in. If students are weak in note naming and reading, and scales, then digging into intervals will be futile. 

Like much in music, the initial explanation is pretty straight forward.

Let's look at the three parts to naming an interval:

Let's break it down, take a look at each factor and learn about intervals. We'll start with timing.

Timing

Intervals can happen in one of two ways: at the same time, or one after another. If they are at the same time, they are called Harmonic. You might notice the connection with the word "harmony." Indeed, playing two pitches at the same time is harmony. If the pitches are one after another, it is a Melodic interval. Here, you might see the word "melody." Pitches (and rests) played in a particular order, is a melody. The distance between two pitches played in succession is a melodic interval.

Quantity

Quantity is the distance between the two pitches of an interval. In a harmonic interval, we count up from the bottom pitch, counting both the bottom and top. In a melodic interval, we count up from the first pitch to the second, including both. It can get a bit confusing when the second pitch is lower than the first, but in elementary, we can stick with ascending intervals. We ignore any accidentals (sharps, flats, or natural signs). We're looking for a number. Generally, in elementary, it will be from 1 (unison) to 8 (octave). We can keep going past 8 though!

Quality

The quality of an interval is related to how the top note appears in the scale of the bottom note. There are several options:

• Perfect intervals are the unison, the 4th, 5th, and octave intervals
• Major intervals are the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th intervals
• Minors are major intervals that have been shrunk by 1 semitone

You can see why it's important to be familiar with scales! Fortunately, in Ontario elementary music, there's only 5 Major scales that are critical to know (C, D, F, G, Bflat). They also need exposure to minor scales. 

Something to recognize is that a melodic major 2nd interval will have a similar sound in all major scales. The distance between the two notes are 1 whole tone (or 2 semitones). It won't matter if you play C and D, or F and G, or A and B, they're all a whole tone apart. A Perfect 4th is always 2.5 whole tones, it doesn't matter what scale they're in. To help learn what the intervals sound like, I highly recommend a few videos on Youtube: Ascending Intervals; Intervals in John Williams songs; Songs to Learn Intervals. 

There are lots of fun ways to introduce ear training to young students. They don't have to know that's what they're doing! Some students will naturally be good at copying melodies by hear--these are the students who play "7 Nation Army" on the ukulele non-stop! Learning about intervals can help all students develop their ear skills. There's even evidence that good aural discrimination skills can be helpful when learning new words in language, or in learning foreign languages. 

For more on intervals, check out my latest resource! It's the sixth one in a Growing Bundle on the elements of music, geared for music teachers without music experience. Written with the Ontario Music Curriculum in mind, it will give you more knowledge on intervals, activities for the class, printable worksheets and handouts, and a Google Slidedeck with lesson materials. 

If you'd like more information on what intervals (and other elements) are taught in each year, you can get a free graphic organizer when signing up for my (infrequent) email newsletters!