The distance between two notes - the measure scales and chords are built from.
Back to the Music MapInterval lens: Every note shows its distance from the root A. Tap a note - this is where you'll see what it means.
Try it
The opening of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” – once starting low, once starting higher.
What do you notice?
Different notes both times – yet you recognise the song at once. How?
What it's called
Interval – the distance between two notes.
Why
Play two notes one after the other. What you hear is neither the first nor the second note - it is the distance between them.
That is why you can start a song higher or lower and it stays the same song. The notes are different, the distances are not. Which is exactly why distances have names of their own.
Moving a song higher or lower is called transposing. Singers do it all the time so a song fits their voice – and nobody hears a different song, because every distance moves along with it.
Quick check
You start a song higher. What stays the same?
Try it
Tap a number: you hear the start of the ruler, then the note you tapped.
7 semitones – Perfect 5th (5)
What do you notice?
The further right you tap, the bigger the jump. Where does the second note suddenly sound like the first, only higher?
What it's called
Semitone (half step) – the smallest step in our music. Two semitones make a whole tone.
Why
They are measured in semitones, and on a guitar one semitone is exactly one fret. An interval is therefore literally a distance on the fretboard - and the same distance sounds the same anywhere on the neck.
After twelve semitones you reach the octave: the note that sounds like the first one, only higher. In between lie all the other distances – each with its own name.
Dividing the octave into twelve equal steps is a convention of Western music – other musical cultures use finer steps.
On the guitar the frets are placed exactly so that each one sounds a semitone higher. That's why they get closer together towards the body – and at the 12th fret the string is exactly halved: that's where the octave sounds.
Quick check
On one string from fret 3 to fret 8: how many semitones is that?
Try it
Pick an interval and listen to it. On a single string the distance is exactly the number of frets.
A step from here to there - that is how you learn an interval.
What do you notice?
Tap your way through from top to bottom. Which ones sound related, which sound strange – and what changes when both notes sound at once?
What it's called
Interval names – unison, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, octave – counting from one to eight.
Why
You count note names, and the first one counts too: from C to E is C, D, E – three names, so a third.
Because some steps are semitones and some whole tones, most names come in two sizes: minor and major. The minor third has 3 semitones, the major third 4.
Unison, fourth, fifth and octave come in only one size – that's why they're called “perfect”. The tritone (Latin for “three whole tones”) sits exactly between the fourth and the fifth and splits the octave into two equal halves.
Some distances have two names: the tritone is also called an augmented fourth or a diminished fifth, depending on how the notes are written. Here you'll always find the most common one.
Quick check
Listen: minor or major third?
Try it
Tap an interval – now both notes sound at the same time.
What do you notice?
Which pairs almost melt into one sound – and in which do you hear a shimmer, as if the notes wanted to pull apart?
What it's called
Consonance and dissonance – consonance means “sounding together” and describes the calm pairs; dissonance means “sounding apart” and describes the ones that clash.
Why
You hear friction when notes sound together, not when they follow each other – that's why both notes play at once here.
Clashing doesn't mean wrong. A dissonance is tension that wants to move on, and resolving it into a calm sound is what makes music come alive. The Workshop's first mission is built on exactly that.
Why some pairs sound calm: when two notes vibrate in a simple ratio, their waves keep meeting up. The octave vibrates twice as fast as the lower note (2 : 1), the fifth one and a half times as fast (3 : 2), the fourth 4 : 3. The more tangled the ratio, the more the waves rub against each other.
When two notes are very close, as in the minor second, you can even hear the friction as a fast flutter – a beating.
The four groups are a rough order, not a ranking: how calm a sound feels also depends on the style – in the blues the minor seventh sounds perfectly at home. By the way, an interval and its inversion always land in the same group (more under “The other way round”).
Quick check
Listen to both pairs: which one clashes more?
Try it
Perfect 5th · Start: A string, fret 5
On the same string: 7 frets further, up to fret 12.
On the D string: 2 frets further, fret 7.
Both highlighted dots are the same note.
What do you notice?
The two highlighted dots sound exactly the same. Why is the one on the next string so much further left – and what happens when you switch to the G and B strings?
What it's called
Shape – the form an interval takes under your fingers.
Why
The next string is tuned 5 semitones higher. Switching to it gives you those 5 for free: there, the interval sits 5 frets further left than on the same string. So a fifth (7) is 2 frets further, a minor third (3) 2 frets back.
The one exception: the G and B strings are only 4 semitones apart. Every shape that crosses this border therefore slides one fret further to the right.
Otherwise you can move a shape anywhere on the neck: as long as it doesn't cross the B string, it stays the same interval and sounds the same everywhere, just higher or lower.
Why is the guitar tuned like this? With nothing but fourths the thinnest string would sound a semitone higher, and many familiar chord shapes would be awkward. The one major third between G and B makes them possible – the price is this exception.
The best-known shape is the octave: two strings up and two frets further – three when crossing the B string. The Workshop's third mission practises exactly that.
Quick check
A fifth, starting on the G string. How many frets further is it on the B string?
Try it
Perfect 5th · 5 · 7 semitones
What do you notice?
Do you know one of the songs? Hum the opening quietly and compare it with the interval.
What it's called
Memory aid – a song opening you already have in your ear – it carries the interval for you.
Why
A distance on its own is hard to remember, a song isn't. When you hear an interval in the exercise, run through the openings in your head until one fits.
The songs here are chosen for your language: people who grew up with English nursery rhymes have different tunes in their ear than people who grew up with German ones.
You can only play melodies that are in the public domain – folk songs, classical music, old carols. Newer songs are only named; you probably have them in your head anyway.
All memory aids go upwards, like the exercise. The same interval sounds different going down and needs its own songs.
Songs you know well work best. If you think of one of your own for an interval, use that.
Quick check
Listen to the opening: with which interval does “O Christmas Tree” leap upwards?
Try it
What do you notice?
Both pairs are made of the same two notes. What's different – and what do they add up to?
What it's called
Inversion – the same pair of notes the other way round: the lower note moves up an octave.
Why
An interval and its inversion always add up to an octave, 12 semitones: fifth (7) and fourth (5), minor third (3) and major sixth (9).
Minor turns into major and major into minor, and the numbers in the names add up to nine: third and sixth (3 + 6), fourth and fifth (4 + 5). Only the tritone stays a tritone.
On the guitar this saves you journeys: the note a fifth above the root has the same name as the note a fourth below it.
It helps your ear too: if the major seventh is hard, listen for the bit that's missing up to the octave – a semitone.
Inversions aren't practised in the ear training; there every interval sounds upwards from the lower note.
Quick check
What is the inversion of the minor third?
Try it
A major
What do you notice?
You already know the two thirds. What happens when all three notes sound together – and what changes when you swap the thirds?
What it's called
Triad – three notes stacked a third apart – the simplest chord.
Why
That is why the Music Map puts scales and chords below intervals: a scale is a pattern of distances, a chord is several notes at set distances. Hear intervals and you hear both.
Major third at the bottom, minor third on top: major. The other way round: minor. On the outside it's a fifth both times – the same frame, a different filling.
Scales are built from distances too, just smaller ones: the major scale climbs in whole and half steps, in a fixed order. How that sounds is shown on the pages below under “What comes next”.
Quick check
Minor third at the bottom, major third on top – major or minor?
Sets what the ear training asks for. Applies on both pages and in the daily mix, and is remembered.