Interval recognition

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Interval recognition, the ability to name and reproduce musical intervals, is an important part of ear training, music transcription, musical intonation and sight-reading.

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Reference songs

Some music teachers teach their students relative pitch by having them associate each possible interval with the first interval of a popular song. [1] Such songs are known as "reference songs". [2] However, others have shown that such familiar-melody associations are quite limited in scope, applicable only to the specific scale-degrees found in each melody. [3]

Here are some examples for each interval:

0/unison
Steps/intervalAscendingDescending
1/minor second
CC

CB
2/major second
CD

CB
3/minor third
CE

CA
4/major third
CE

CA
5/perfect fourth
CF

CG
6/tritone
CF

CF
7/perfect fifth
CG

CF
8/minor sixth

CA

CE
9/major sixth
CA

CE
10/minor seventh
CB

CD
11/major seventh
CB

CC
12/octave
CC

CC

In addition, there are various solmization systems (including solfeggio, sargam, and numerical sight-singing) that assign specific syllables to different notes of the scale. Among other things, this makes it easier to hear how intervals sound in different contexts, such as starting on different notes of the same scale.

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References

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