Intervals
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Simply put, intervals describe the difference in pitch between two notes. They can be measured in half tone steps which can then be translated into intervals. There might be different names for the same intervals floating around but in general you can group them into three categories:
Consonance & Dissonance
Categories
- Perfect intervals
- Unison (0 half tone steps)
- Fourth (5 half tone steps)
- Fifth (7 half tone steps)
- Octave (12 half tone steps)
- Minor intervals
- Second (1 half tone steps)
- Third (3 half tone steps)
- Sixth (8 half tone steps)
- Seventh '(10 half tone steps)
- Major intervals
- Second (2 half tone steps)
- Third (4 half tone steps)
- Sixth (9 half tone steps)
- Seventh (11 half tone steps)
You can already see, if you have a perfect interval, you won't have a major or minor variant and if you have a minor interval, you will always also find a corresponding major variant. The vigilant reader will have noticed, there is no interval for six half tone steps in that list. This one is the only interval, that can't be put into any of these categories: the tritone, a highly dissonant interval.