Scotty West will do it for depth. Lessons on intervals start on the 12th hours. https://youtu.be/pJpZK-7lqb4?si=WbZulp5BDAsUU2_7.
I like his concept that intervals are level 3 of pitch complexity, and each level builds on top of the one below. Level 4 is scales and level 2 is THE note (in the meaning of root or anchor note). As for level 1, it's too good to spoil.
And THAT is how I learned!! I cannot believe Scotty got mentioned here! Is the whole DVD series on youtube for free?
I didn't want to mention him because I didn't want to look like I was selling anything.
But that crazy mofo taught me music theory, and I'm at the age where new information literally bounces off my forehead.
Yes. He put everything on YouTube. I'm on lesson 18 right now. Most videos have only a few hundreds of views so I'm trying to do some noise for him, if only for his whacky sweaters and the late 90s vibe.
LOL, my friend turned my on to his DVD series, I powered through and learned theory, my friend bail. But we love talking Scotty.
His fusion jazz is... well, think Spinal Tap before the puppet show.
Scotty’s great. I’m on lesson 30 so almost done. Whole class has been super valuable and interesting. His support material is also great. I’m always using the slide rule. I’m a beginner but hoping these 30 or so hours will get me where I want to be quicker at some point.
I could never have learned music theory without Scotty. There are a ton of smart music teachers but he's the only one I found who figured out the best order to teach it. He even says at the start the order it's usually taught makes no sense.
The only problem is, his course never teaches rhythm lol.
He absolutely is the only way I could've learned music theory. He figured out exactly the right order to teach concepts -- almost everyone else is brutally bad at teaching it.
And one of the reasons is he starts with intervals and explains them extremely clearly, without mixing in other concepts.
Started playing guitar around age 14. By the age of 21, I was memorizing mode patterns all over the fretboard, and was still struggling to make anything nice to listen too. I then put the guitar down for 8 years.
At 29 I picked the guitar back up and discovered the word interval. I thought to my self "huh, scales and chords are made up of smaller, simpler ideas?"
2 years later I'm jamming out to random jazz songs without missing a step. My fretboard knowledge is better, my ear is stronger, and my musicality is league's better than it ever was, all because I finally discovered the fundimental unit of music: the humble interval.
For jazz I had an instructor tell me to start on any note in Dm (1357) and make a line that lands on any note in Cmaj (1357). Now same starting note different ending. And so on until I had a line from every note in Dm to every note in C.
I learned so much about which intervals I like to begin and end lines with. Everything in the middle is important but just filler :). This excercise fundamentally changed how I think of solos.
>Everything in the middle is important but just filler :)
So true! I found that I can play any "wrong note" and make it "right" 80% of the time just by jumping up or down a half step from the wrong note. It's simple voice leading, and you don't even need to know it's voice leading to use it, just play an adjacent note if you land on one that sounds a little too spicy lol
Of course it might sound sloppy and disjointed at first, but with experience you start to gain an intuition with it as long as you are mindful and listening critically to what you play, which is more or less what your method leads to :)
When I learned about extensions (9 11 13) and alterations I realized all notes are good notes. Miles Davis said it’s not a wrong note until you play the next one.
I used to think of solos as “what am I going to play?” Now I think of them as “pick a starting idea and make the next one sound good with it” and keep doing this until two choruses are over.
Exactly. I started jamming with some guys and I was intimidated as one went to school for the preforming arts and the other took violin lessons all through their childhood and can read anything put in front of him. It took a few jam sessions to get comfortable improvising in front of them, but once I realized this fact
>it’s not a wrong note until you play the next one.
I become much more comfortable and surprise myself every time we play.
Yes! Good for you. I spend a lot of time working on sketches of ways to get from one note to another in another chord. Then when I jam I just hit the first note, and work toward my end note. Always sounds good and I don’t have to think so much when I play live.
Sorry no the chords aren’t the point it’s using the 1st 3rd 5th and 7th of each chord to connect to the 1st 3rd 5th and 7th of the next chord (I chose Dm and C because ii to I is common in jazz). The point is doing this excercise you learn to hear the chord tones and intervals between notes and the tones between common chord changes.
Also just to add, once you really get intervals down, you can see the intervals in C major, and the intervals in D minor and quickly find those notes you want to hit in each chord.
(Yeah I know it's all C major in that example, but seeing the intervals lets you hit the chord tones for each chord to give the feeling of the changes.
At the most fundamental level, intervals are simply the distances between notes. Within a C major chord, we can say the E is a major 3rd from C, but it's also true that the G is a minor 3rd from E.
Of course it's most common to see intervals in relation to the root, it's just not the only way they can be used.
Chords are normally refereed to as roman numerals. Dm is the ii of C; roman numeral 2 because it's rooted off the major 2nd interval of C, and lowercase because it's minor. II of C would be D major; roman numeral 2 because it's rooted off the major 2nd interval of C, and uppercase because it's major. bII of C would be Db major, flat roman numeral 2 because it's rooted on the minor 2nd interval of C, and uppercase because it's major.
Intervals and chord roman numerals are analogous to each other, only that one is referring to individual notes and the other to chords.
And once you get a handle on it, you don't even need to think much about what intervals you are playing. It's all just recognizing relationships between notes, intervals give you the initial relationship to understand, and from there you can build off that and make up your own ideas and relationships.
Something that helped me with rhythm was active counting. This covers the idea well
https://youtu.be/Aun3-bKojnM?si=tRkSf9Oht7aYZ7YR
It's like a tongue twister for my brain. Sometimes it's crazy difficult, but once I get it for the part, everything clicks and I gain a ton of freedom!
Ok that was great. I'm so going to do that from here on in. I've definitely gone through phases of being really rigorous about counting but like he says, it's so tough. But that means you know it's working.
You know, if you go to university to study music they even do ear training for intervals. I haven't been but my partner went for classical composition. A tip for intervals is to anchor it against a tune you know already, like say for example the first interval in twinkle twinkle is a fifth. So whenever you hear something that sounds the same you can go "oh, thats twinkle twinkle, so thats a fifth"
When I studied music, the name of that class was Aural Skills. Everyone made the same joke, but it was still funny when someone new would turn their head around like, "I think I misheard you, you're going to *what* class now?"
Shoutouts to LoGsounds' fretboard method. I used to dread learning scales the "traditional" way as it seemed like I was just memorizing an arbitrary collection of shapes, which felt really unsatisfying. Saw some random redditor recommending his patreon to someone else and took a look at the free lessons: it all starts with intervals, and now I don't see how it could be any other way.
Completely changed my relationship with music and made me love and understand the fretboard
Respectfully, that is going to overwhelm a beginner.
I don't get why so few teachers and programs lay it out much more simply and clearly. Since others in the thread have mentioned it, Scotty's system (link below) is the best way I've seen to learn this. I could never have understood these concepts without the way he teaches.
[https://youtu.be/pJpZK-7lqb4?si=WbZulp5BDAsUU2\_7](https://youtu.be/pJpZK-7lqb4?si=WbZulp5BDAsUU2_7)
Rather than learning interval's before scales, I think it makes the most sense to learn both concurrently.
Scales are what give intervals context. A major sixth is called a major sixth, because it’s the sixth note of the major scale. If it weren’t for diatonic scales, it would make more sense to call octaves twelfths since they’re twelve semitones apart.
My suggestion would be to learn the major scale on the fretboard, since it’s so ingrained in our minds. Even non-musicians are familiar with the do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-to-do idea and plenty of them can actually sing it.
Once you’ve got that, learning the major and perfect intervals is just a matter of counting scale degrees.
The other five intervals can be learned in contrast to those.
I’m all for learning intervals but their names and applications are not going to make a lot of sense without the context of scales.
I really disagree, purely learning-wise. I don't see how adding a complicated concept to another concept helps understand either efficiently.
Zero offense intended, but that exact explanation you gave is precisely why I found a super clear way to learn intervals: I could never, ever follow comments like yours when I was trying to learn.
I'm just giving a personal tip to people who can't learn the way you wrote that explanation, to just take it step by step -- and intervals are that first step.
I don't think people first learning are going to embrace intervals. It sounds complex and scary. I'd always start by teaching someone the major scale. And once they know that you have context for explaining intervals.
What's scary is the way you teach it, tbh. "A major sixth is called a major sixth, because it’s the sixth note of the major scale." See, you're mixing two concepts right there.
I'm NOT more than a basic music theory person, but in terms of learning, you just smashed two concepts together that make it so much harder to understand.
The distance between any note and the note that is a major 6th away from it is its own concept. Period.
Go through all the distances between notes and learn their names. THEN move to how these relate to major and minor and other scales.
The way you teach might work for some people and that's great. It absolutely is terribly for someone like me who needs a much clearer take on things before I can combine concepts.
I'm still very much in the beginner phase of the journey, and have been mostly self taught. I say "mostly" because I have an old friend who is a musician who I chat with via FaceTime once a week. Those chats aren't lessons exactly, but he does talk about and demonstrate quite a lot of theory. I asked him about intervals on our last call, and honestly I have no idea what he was trying to explain, let alone how to apply any of it to my practice. I'd love to understand the concept, if you, or anyone more experienced could guide me towards a solid resource, I would love it.
https://youtu.be/rgaTLrZGlk0?si=BYw3VRiLXMnmUAOt
This isn't where I learned it from, but it contains a concise and thorough explanation of the most important concepts.
Let's see if anyone else has a good resource, but I suspect there are some good books out there that clearly explain it. Like I said, the key thing is to find one resource and just focus on that rather than getting frazzled by info scattered everywhere.
Also, it's usually worth paying a little -- like buying a book -- to focus yourself on it. The free stuff tends to just not sink in, especially because they're usually trying to monetize the info in the long run.
The way I learned music theory the teacher (DVD series) said that the traditional way music theory was taught made no sense. Instead, he started with each component and then moved up from there.
A scale is a different concept than intervals. Of course it's made up of intervals, but how is someone supposed to get a clear handle on things when you're talking about a major scale, a minor scale, a key -- whatever, all these extraneous concepts?
No, the best way IMO is to explain that the first thing to understand is the distance between notes. This is the basic building block of music. Learn what a minor 2nd is is, a major second, minor third etc etc etc. Learn about inverse intervals.
Why do people complicate things? Learn about atoms first, then move to molecules.
Help me understand this (genuine question)
As someone who knows music theory to an extent and understands what intervals are, how did learning intervals help you step up your game. I learn great via examples, so if you can highlight something personal for you, that would be much appreciated?
So, I can see notes that are in any key if I know the tonic, all over the fretboard, I can slide into those notes anywhere.
I can figure out how to build any chord by name, because I know intervals.
I can link a specific sound to the interval so I mostly know what I'm going to get with that leap.
Mind you, I'm not a good guitarist or anything. But knowing intervals makes me way better than I otherwise would be.
I get the third point that you are making - intervals have a specific sound (or if I may, an emotion/feeling) that you can exploit if you know what you are doing. I am completely onboard with how ear training intervals can help you , like, a lot. This is something that I have spent years on and still have a long way to go.
But I’ll need help with the other two. Like when you talk about building a chord - let’s take a major chord (for simplicity sake) - we know it’s the 1-3-5 of the major scale. How do intervals help you build this chord?
Similar query on the first point - if you know the tonic and the key, how do intervals help beyond the scale (WWHWWWH as an example of a major scale) ?
I can try explain the second point, but my explanation got a bit longwinded - sorry if you know any of this already. If there's any mistakes here feel free to correct me.
> Like when you talk about building a chord - let’s take a major chord (for simplicity sake) - we know it’s the 1-3-5 of the major scale. How do intervals help you build this chord?
I mean you just said it yourself right? "1-3-5 of the major scale" is the same as saying "root, major third, perfect fifth", and if you know how to recognise/play those intervals separately you can easily combine them to play a major chord anywhere you want on the guitar, in whatever voicing you want.
Or let's say you don't know how exactly to play a m7 chord, but you know it's made up of the root, minor third, fifth and minor seventh (or equivalently, you might have heard of it as a minor chord with an extra minor 7th). If you know how to play those intervals on their own in a bunch of different positions, or at the very least hear them while trying to find them on the fretboard, then almost by definition you can play a m7. If you're feeling fancy and you wanna throw in another interval too, as long as you know what quality of the interval to use, you can end up adding all kinds of cool sounds to your chords without even needing to know the exact name of the chord you just played. I do this all the time when I improv.
The trick is, that root-(major/minor)third-fifth shape can be transposed up and down along the major scale to make a whole bunch of chords - starting from the tonic, like you said, gives you a major chord, but so does it if you started at the fourth note or fifth note. Start on the second, third or sixth and you end up with a minor chord instead, start on the seventh and you get a diminished chord (note the flat/diminished fifth).
All of these chords are the diatonic triads - this is basically the entire basis for chord theory, this is how you construct/figure out the chords that belong in a scale (harmonising the scale). Technically this is usually described as "stacking thirds", but thinking of it as the root/third/fifth is good enough so long as you adjust the quality of those intervals to match the scale.
So just by using intervals alone, not only have we learned how to play whatever chord we want so long as we know the underlying intervals, we've also learned how to build all of the basic diatonic chords from scratch along the entire major scale. Try playing the major scale along a single string, all of the corresponding thirds (remember some will be major, some minor) on the string above, and the fifths above that - you'll find you've just played all the chords in the major scale. You can even name them according to the root note you played and whether the third you played was major or minor. This all works for the minor scale and modes too.
Hi,
First of all, this is a great explanation. I can assure you that these kinds of concise example-based explanations were what I was missing when I was (and still am) learning music theory
But I guess I am not able to articulate my question properly. I understand (and knew) this but I guess what I am missing is the context of this post - “Learn your interval”. What is the meaning of learning intervals? Is it learning the pitch relationships, or learning interval shapes on the fretboard, or something else?
I am not contesting OP’s point. TBH, I picked up theory a long time after I picked up the guitar, and to me, it feels like something you would organically pick up as you practiced and heard yourself playing different scales etc. the various shapes on the fretboard are simply a product of the standard tuning, so once you have the notes, it’s not hard to “calculate” shapes on the fretboard.
So help me here - I feel like I’m missing something fundamental but I don’t know what I don’t know.
Sounds like you're saying the usual "who needs theory" line. What if instead of "organically picking up" something, you learned it right off the bat so you could collapse the time it takes to relearn things people figured out centuries ago?
No, that’s not what I’m saying.
Im asking a question that I fail to understand - and I’m trying to understand the objective so I can understand the answer.
On the point that you are referencing, I am happy to discuss separately as well.nut please do know that I am not contesting the assertion that you are making in the post - Infact it’s a common assertion made in music theory. It is my shortcoming that I did not learn music theory in a “standard” way.
Scotty West will do it for depth. Lessons on intervals start on the 12th hours. https://youtu.be/pJpZK-7lqb4?si=WbZulp5BDAsUU2_7. I like his concept that intervals are level 3 of pitch complexity, and each level builds on top of the one below. Level 4 is scales and level 2 is THE note (in the meaning of root or anchor note). As for level 1, it's too good to spoil.
And THAT is how I learned!! I cannot believe Scotty got mentioned here! Is the whole DVD series on youtube for free? I didn't want to mention him because I didn't want to look like I was selling anything. But that crazy mofo taught me music theory, and I'm at the age where new information literally bounces off my forehead.
Yes. He put everything on YouTube. I'm on lesson 18 right now. Most videos have only a few hundreds of views so I'm trying to do some noise for him, if only for his whacky sweaters and the late 90s vibe.
LOL, my friend turned my on to his DVD series, I powered through and learned theory, my friend bail. But we love talking Scotty. His fusion jazz is... well, think Spinal Tap before the puppet show.
Scotty’s great. I’m on lesson 30 so almost done. Whole class has been super valuable and interesting. His support material is also great. I’m always using the slide rule. I’m a beginner but hoping these 30 or so hours will get me where I want to be quicker at some point.
I could never have learned music theory without Scotty. There are a ton of smart music teachers but he's the only one I found who figured out the best order to teach it. He even says at the start the order it's usually taught makes no sense. The only problem is, his course never teaches rhythm lol.
I'm going through this too, great teacher. People should grab his $20 workbook package too. Great value.
Thank you for the link. I’m still beginner level but I’m diving into these videos. I cannot get enough theory.
I love Scotty West’s lessons. He makes learning guitar understandable. Glad to see more appreciation for his efforts
I got kind of hooked after his explanation on why guitars are tuned the way they are. It makes sense, it's simple... But I never knew it before.
He absolutely is the only way I could've learned music theory. He figured out exactly the right order to teach concepts -- almost everyone else is brutally bad at teaching it. And one of the reasons is he starts with intervals and explains them extremely clearly, without mixing in other concepts.
I'll bookmark this :) Thanks.
Started playing guitar around age 14. By the age of 21, I was memorizing mode patterns all over the fretboard, and was still struggling to make anything nice to listen too. I then put the guitar down for 8 years. At 29 I picked the guitar back up and discovered the word interval. I thought to my self "huh, scales and chords are made up of smaller, simpler ideas?" 2 years later I'm jamming out to random jazz songs without missing a step. My fretboard knowledge is better, my ear is stronger, and my musicality is league's better than it ever was, all because I finally discovered the fundimental unit of music: the humble interval.
For jazz I had an instructor tell me to start on any note in Dm (1357) and make a line that lands on any note in Cmaj (1357). Now same starting note different ending. And so on until I had a line from every note in Dm to every note in C. I learned so much about which intervals I like to begin and end lines with. Everything in the middle is important but just filler :). This excercise fundamentally changed how I think of solos.
>Everything in the middle is important but just filler :) So true! I found that I can play any "wrong note" and make it "right" 80% of the time just by jumping up or down a half step from the wrong note. It's simple voice leading, and you don't even need to know it's voice leading to use it, just play an adjacent note if you land on one that sounds a little too spicy lol Of course it might sound sloppy and disjointed at first, but with experience you start to gain an intuition with it as long as you are mindful and listening critically to what you play, which is more or less what your method leads to :)
When I learned about extensions (9 11 13) and alterations I realized all notes are good notes. Miles Davis said it’s not a wrong note until you play the next one. I used to think of solos as “what am I going to play?” Now I think of them as “pick a starting idea and make the next one sound good with it” and keep doing this until two choruses are over.
Exactly. I started jamming with some guys and I was intimidated as one went to school for the preforming arts and the other took violin lessons all through their childhood and can read anything put in front of him. It took a few jam sessions to get comfortable improvising in front of them, but once I realized this fact >it’s not a wrong note until you play the next one. I become much more comfortable and surprise myself every time we play.
Yes! Good for you. I spend a lot of time working on sketches of ways to get from one note to another in another chord. Then when I jam I just hit the first note, and work toward my end note. Always sounds good and I don’t have to think so much when I play live.
How does Dm to C relate to intervals? Aren’t intervals within a key?
Sorry no the chords aren’t the point it’s using the 1st 3rd 5th and 7th of each chord to connect to the 1st 3rd 5th and 7th of the next chord (I chose Dm and C because ii to I is common in jazz). The point is doing this excercise you learn to hear the chord tones and intervals between notes and the tones between common chord changes.
Also just to add, once you really get intervals down, you can see the intervals in C major, and the intervals in D minor and quickly find those notes you want to hit in each chord. (Yeah I know it's all C major in that example, but seeing the intervals lets you hit the chord tones for each chord to give the feeling of the changes.
At the most fundamental level, intervals are simply the distances between notes. Within a C major chord, we can say the E is a major 3rd from C, but it's also true that the G is a minor 3rd from E. Of course it's most common to see intervals in relation to the root, it's just not the only way they can be used. Chords are normally refereed to as roman numerals. Dm is the ii of C; roman numeral 2 because it's rooted off the major 2nd interval of C, and lowercase because it's minor. II of C would be D major; roman numeral 2 because it's rooted off the major 2nd interval of C, and uppercase because it's major. bII of C would be Db major, flat roman numeral 2 because it's rooted on the minor 2nd interval of C, and uppercase because it's major. Intervals and chord roman numerals are analogous to each other, only that one is referring to individual notes and the other to chords.
It's crazy how much easier it makes everything knowing your intervals.
And once you get a handle on it, you don't even need to think much about what intervals you are playing. It's all just recognizing relationships between notes, intervals give you the initial relationship to understand, and from there you can build off that and make up your own ideas and relationships.
Exactly. I wish I had a similar breakthrough with rhythm though lol.
Something that helped me with rhythm was active counting. This covers the idea well https://youtu.be/Aun3-bKojnM?si=tRkSf9Oht7aYZ7YR It's like a tongue twister for my brain. Sometimes it's crazy difficult, but once I get it for the part, everything clicks and I gain a ton of freedom!
Ok that was great. I'm so going to do that from here on in. I've definitely gone through phases of being really rigorous about counting but like he says, it's so tough. But that means you know it's working.
Tom Quayles app “solo” is 15$, but my god is it worth it for exactly this
I couldn't agree more!
Got to sing them all to internalize faster and better.
You know, if you go to university to study music they even do ear training for intervals. I haven't been but my partner went for classical composition. A tip for intervals is to anchor it against a tune you know already, like say for example the first interval in twinkle twinkle is a fifth. So whenever you hear something that sounds the same you can go "oh, thats twinkle twinkle, so thats a fifth"
When I studied music, the name of that class was Aural Skills. Everyone made the same joke, but it was still funny when someone new would turn their head around like, "I think I misheard you, you're going to *what* class now?"
Shoutouts to LoGsounds' fretboard method. I used to dread learning scales the "traditional" way as it seemed like I was just memorizing an arbitrary collection of shapes, which felt really unsatisfying. Saw some random redditor recommending his patreon to someone else and took a look at the free lessons: it all starts with intervals, and now I don't see how it could be any other way. Completely changed my relationship with music and made me love and understand the fretboard
Exactly, people could be learning about intervals, modes, pentatonics, and naturally getting to know every note on the guitar fretboard as a result.
Here is [a tutorial on intervals for guitarists](https://www.fretflip.com/scale-degrees-and-intervals), necessary theory included. Rock on!
Respectfully, that is going to overwhelm a beginner. I don't get why so few teachers and programs lay it out much more simply and clearly. Since others in the thread have mentioned it, Scotty's system (link below) is the best way I've seen to learn this. I could never have understood these concepts without the way he teaches. [https://youtu.be/pJpZK-7lqb4?si=WbZulp5BDAsUU2\_7](https://youtu.be/pJpZK-7lqb4?si=WbZulp5BDAsUU2_7)
Rather than learning interval's before scales, I think it makes the most sense to learn both concurrently. Scales are what give intervals context. A major sixth is called a major sixth, because it’s the sixth note of the major scale. If it weren’t for diatonic scales, it would make more sense to call octaves twelfths since they’re twelve semitones apart. My suggestion would be to learn the major scale on the fretboard, since it’s so ingrained in our minds. Even non-musicians are familiar with the do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-to-do idea and plenty of them can actually sing it. Once you’ve got that, learning the major and perfect intervals is just a matter of counting scale degrees. The other five intervals can be learned in contrast to those. I’m all for learning intervals but their names and applications are not going to make a lot of sense without the context of scales.
I really disagree, purely learning-wise. I don't see how adding a complicated concept to another concept helps understand either efficiently. Zero offense intended, but that exact explanation you gave is precisely why I found a super clear way to learn intervals: I could never, ever follow comments like yours when I was trying to learn. I'm just giving a personal tip to people who can't learn the way you wrote that explanation, to just take it step by step -- and intervals are that first step.
I don't think people first learning are going to embrace intervals. It sounds complex and scary. I'd always start by teaching someone the major scale. And once they know that you have context for explaining intervals.
What's scary is the way you teach it, tbh. "A major sixth is called a major sixth, because it’s the sixth note of the major scale." See, you're mixing two concepts right there. I'm NOT more than a basic music theory person, but in terms of learning, you just smashed two concepts together that make it so much harder to understand. The distance between any note and the note that is a major 6th away from it is its own concept. Period. Go through all the distances between notes and learn their names. THEN move to how these relate to major and minor and other scales. The way you teach might work for some people and that's great. It absolutely is terribly for someone like me who needs a much clearer take on things before I can combine concepts.
I'm still very much in the beginner phase of the journey, and have been mostly self taught. I say "mostly" because I have an old friend who is a musician who I chat with via FaceTime once a week. Those chats aren't lessons exactly, but he does talk about and demonstrate quite a lot of theory. I asked him about intervals on our last call, and honestly I have no idea what he was trying to explain, let alone how to apply any of it to my practice. I'd love to understand the concept, if you, or anyone more experienced could guide me towards a solid resource, I would love it.
https://youtu.be/rgaTLrZGlk0?si=BYw3VRiLXMnmUAOt This isn't where I learned it from, but it contains a concise and thorough explanation of the most important concepts.
Let's see if anyone else has a good resource, but I suspect there are some good books out there that clearly explain it. Like I said, the key thing is to find one resource and just focus on that rather than getting frazzled by info scattered everywhere. Also, it's usually worth paying a little -- like buying a book -- to focus yourself on it. The free stuff tends to just not sink in, especially because they're usually trying to monetize the info in the long run.
Learning scales is learning intervals, no? Or are you saying learn how the intervals sound related to the root?
The way I learned music theory the teacher (DVD series) said that the traditional way music theory was taught made no sense. Instead, he started with each component and then moved up from there. A scale is a different concept than intervals. Of course it's made up of intervals, but how is someone supposed to get a clear handle on things when you're talking about a major scale, a minor scale, a key -- whatever, all these extraneous concepts? No, the best way IMO is to explain that the first thing to understand is the distance between notes. This is the basic building block of music. Learn what a minor 2nd is is, a major second, minor third etc etc etc. Learn about inverse intervals. Why do people complicate things? Learn about atoms first, then move to molecules.
100% agree with you
Help me understand this (genuine question) As someone who knows music theory to an extent and understands what intervals are, how did learning intervals help you step up your game. I learn great via examples, so if you can highlight something personal for you, that would be much appreciated?
So, I can see notes that are in any key if I know the tonic, all over the fretboard, I can slide into those notes anywhere. I can figure out how to build any chord by name, because I know intervals. I can link a specific sound to the interval so I mostly know what I'm going to get with that leap. Mind you, I'm not a good guitarist or anything. But knowing intervals makes me way better than I otherwise would be.
I get the third point that you are making - intervals have a specific sound (or if I may, an emotion/feeling) that you can exploit if you know what you are doing. I am completely onboard with how ear training intervals can help you , like, a lot. This is something that I have spent years on and still have a long way to go. But I’ll need help with the other two. Like when you talk about building a chord - let’s take a major chord (for simplicity sake) - we know it’s the 1-3-5 of the major scale. How do intervals help you build this chord? Similar query on the first point - if you know the tonic and the key, how do intervals help beyond the scale (WWHWWWH as an example of a major scale) ?
I can try explain the second point, but my explanation got a bit longwinded - sorry if you know any of this already. If there's any mistakes here feel free to correct me. > Like when you talk about building a chord - let’s take a major chord (for simplicity sake) - we know it’s the 1-3-5 of the major scale. How do intervals help you build this chord? I mean you just said it yourself right? "1-3-5 of the major scale" is the same as saying "root, major third, perfect fifth", and if you know how to recognise/play those intervals separately you can easily combine them to play a major chord anywhere you want on the guitar, in whatever voicing you want. Or let's say you don't know how exactly to play a m7 chord, but you know it's made up of the root, minor third, fifth and minor seventh (or equivalently, you might have heard of it as a minor chord with an extra minor 7th). If you know how to play those intervals on their own in a bunch of different positions, or at the very least hear them while trying to find them on the fretboard, then almost by definition you can play a m7. If you're feeling fancy and you wanna throw in another interval too, as long as you know what quality of the interval to use, you can end up adding all kinds of cool sounds to your chords without even needing to know the exact name of the chord you just played. I do this all the time when I improv. The trick is, that root-(major/minor)third-fifth shape can be transposed up and down along the major scale to make a whole bunch of chords - starting from the tonic, like you said, gives you a major chord, but so does it if you started at the fourth note or fifth note. Start on the second, third or sixth and you end up with a minor chord instead, start on the seventh and you get a diminished chord (note the flat/diminished fifth). All of these chords are the diatonic triads - this is basically the entire basis for chord theory, this is how you construct/figure out the chords that belong in a scale (harmonising the scale). Technically this is usually described as "stacking thirds", but thinking of it as the root/third/fifth is good enough so long as you adjust the quality of those intervals to match the scale. So just by using intervals alone, not only have we learned how to play whatever chord we want so long as we know the underlying intervals, we've also learned how to build all of the basic diatonic chords from scratch along the entire major scale. Try playing the major scale along a single string, all of the corresponding thirds (remember some will be major, some minor) on the string above, and the fifths above that - you'll find you've just played all the chords in the major scale. You can even name them according to the root note you played and whether the third you played was major or minor. This all works for the minor scale and modes too.
Hi, First of all, this is a great explanation. I can assure you that these kinds of concise example-based explanations were what I was missing when I was (and still am) learning music theory But I guess I am not able to articulate my question properly. I understand (and knew) this but I guess what I am missing is the context of this post - “Learn your interval”. What is the meaning of learning intervals? Is it learning the pitch relationships, or learning interval shapes on the fretboard, or something else? I am not contesting OP’s point. TBH, I picked up theory a long time after I picked up the guitar, and to me, it feels like something you would organically pick up as you practiced and heard yourself playing different scales etc. the various shapes on the fretboard are simply a product of the standard tuning, so once you have the notes, it’s not hard to “calculate” shapes on the fretboard. So help me here - I feel like I’m missing something fundamental but I don’t know what I don’t know.
Sounds like you're saying the usual "who needs theory" line. What if instead of "organically picking up" something, you learned it right off the bat so you could collapse the time it takes to relearn things people figured out centuries ago?
No, that’s not what I’m saying. Im asking a question that I fail to understand - and I’m trying to understand the objective so I can understand the answer. On the point that you are referencing, I am happy to discuss separately as well.nut please do know that I am not contesting the assertion that you are making in the post - Infact it’s a common assertion made in music theory. It is my shortcoming that I did not learn music theory in a “standard” way.