Major vs. Minor Intervals
Found in: Curriculum, Reading
Terri P., Michigan
I had a question today from a student beginning “Reading Notes”. He was working with the playlist as intervals. He wanted to know what you would call a sharped or flattened note. I told him that it would be the same interval as the natural note. Then he brought up “Billy at the Footy”, where you play a note followed by the same note, flatted. What interval would that be? Hopefully this makes sense. . . and it isn’t a stupid question. 😉
Mark M., New York
This is one of those questions where a student doesn’t really need to know the answer to help them play/understand anything 🙂 But even so, the answer is: a whole step is most formally called a major second and a half step is most formally called a minor second, no matter what letters may be part of the names of the notes in question. Less formally, under most circumstances relevant in RN and TFMM, it’s sufficient to say that it’s a “second” either way, or “a type of second” if you prefer.
Heidi M., Canada
The same could be said of 7’th and Major 7th intervals, they are both ‘types of 7’.. the Major 7 is just a half step above.. it helped me sort out the difference in my own mind and for communicating to students.
Anna J., Canada
I might also choose to simply call this a zigzag or chromatic passage.
I’m a little particular about which songs from the playlist we’ll do this for. I don’t do every song in the list. Songs that have a lot of chromatic movement aren’t necessarily helpful to think of in terms of intervals.
(Also, the music theory nerd in me took a bit to accept that we could just say 3rd, without specifying major or minor, etc…old habits die hard lol!)
Gordon Harvey
The way I approach such questions is to ignore the flat or sharp entirely while reading. So in Billy at the Footy you would just call the second note Play. Maybe if you wanted to you could call it “Play flatted” but I don’t. I would simply note that when I’m unfolding the pattern on the KB I would flat the second note. I wouldn’t call it “down a half step” or anything else. That way you avoid adding unnecessarily to the language.
And I should add that like Anna J. I often avoid some pieces for this activity.
Joan H., Canada
If students are asking questions like this – true, they don’t need to know the answer to play the song, but if we have the answer, I like to give them an answer – shows their interest in deeper/technical aspects of music, and why not offer that to them. Just my feeling about it.
Gordon Harvey
Joan H. Yes, actually I do that too (despite what I may have said earlier). But often it’s followed by “we’ll talk more about that later”.
Mark M., New York
Indeed, same here. Depends on the question, depends on the student and what I think they can grasp.
Original discussion started January 20, 2021