Understanding Intervals as a guitar player

Understanding Intervals as a guitar player

By Michael Korte

Do you want to get better at playing solos and your favourite songs, writing songs on your own and communicate better with your band mates?

An important piece to get there lies in understanding intervals.

The concept is pretty straight forward. There is a distance between two notes, that can be determined and then expressed in words, so that others can know, what is meant.

Let us look at the determination first. For guitarists, it can be as simple as the distance between two notes on the fretboard on the same string.

Any particular distance always has the same name, no matter where that distance occurs. For example: the distance between the 5th and the 9th fret is 4 frets, which is a major THIRD.

The distance between the 7th and the 11th fret is also 4, that makes it a major third as well. So, intervals are always describing a RELATIVE distance to each other.

Let us go through the intervals step by step. As a basis, we have eight different groups of intervals that can be divided into either one or two subcategories:

Unisons, seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths and sevenths and octaves.

A unison is, when you have no distance between the notes at all, such as 5th fret on the E string and 5th fret on the E string again.

Seconds are divided into minor and major seconds. On the guitar that is the distance of 1 fret for a minor second and 2 frets for a major second. With our example from above that means between the 6th fret and the 5th fret you have a distance of 1 fret, which is a minor second and between the 7th and the 5th fret you have a major second, because it is a distance of 2 frets.

Thirds are also divided into minor, with a distance of 3 frets, and major thirds, that have a distance of 4 frets. Question to you:

With the example from above, which frets would you need to play?

Side note: It does not matter if you go upwards or downwards, the interval will stay the same, regardless of the direction.

Answer: 5 and 8 for the minor third, 5 and 9 for the major third.

Up to this point, except for the unison interval, all intervals had an inherent gender, which is minor or major. But not all intervals possess interval genders.

Fourths exist only in one mode, that is a distance of ...? You just need to continue in the direction, that we are taking already. So, the distance for a fourth would be 5 frets, for example from the 5th to the 10th fret.

The fifths have something like a special case. They exist in two subcategories, but they are genderless. So, we do not speak of them as major or minor fifths, but we say diminished fifth and perfect fifths.

With our example at hand, that would mean:

A diminished fifth can be found by playing the 5th fret and the 11th fret, whereas a perfect fifth can be found by playing the 5th fret and the 12th fret.

The last two intervals are again divided into minor and major 6ths and 7ths, and I will let you figure out on your own, which occurs where. Just keep counting the frets.

If you have arrived at the octave, I want to point out here, that essentially you are playing notes, that have the same name, because from there, the scales repeat themselves. If you have an A on the 5th fret on the E string, you will have another A on the 17th fret of the E string.

My exercise for you now, consists of finding the intervals that were described here, but playing them on two adjacent strings and then playing them on two strings, that have a string between them, doing so all over the fretboard. It does not matter where you start.

To make it easier for you, I suggest starting on the 8th fret on the E string, because that is a C note and now you have easy note names without sharps # and flats b.

Take a piece of paper and assign the intervals to the corresponding note names. To give you an idea:

E8 and E10 = major second C – D.

Or E8 and A7 = major third C – E.

Doing so, will reveal something quite interesting to you.

If you want the answer, ask your local guitar teacher, on whose page you found this article 🙂

About the author:

Michael Korte is teaching guitar in Finland. In his guitar school, he teaches his students new approaches and concepts for their rhythm and solo playing and also shows them how to improve their practicing, so that they get better results faster. If you want to reach the next level in your playing and you are looking for kitaratunnit in Tampere make sure to get in touch with him.