Intervals: music symbols explained
26 symbols and terms, each explained in a sentence or two — the same dictionary the free Artform score reader uses when you tap a marking on a real score.
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- Interval
- The distance between two notes, counted inclusively: C up to E is a third because you count C, D, E.
- Semitone
- The smallest step in Western music: any key to the very next one, black or white.
- Tone
- Two semitones. C to D is a tone; E to F is only a semitone, which is where most beginners' scales go wrong.
- Unison
- The same note twice. Two instruments in unison are playing the same pitch, not an octave apart.
- Major third
- Four semitones, and the interval that makes a chord sound major. C to E.
- Minor third
- Three semitones, and the interval that makes a chord sound minor. C to E flat.
- Perfect fourth
- Five semitones. C to F: the interval a bugle call opens with.
- Tritone
- Six semitones, exactly half an octave. Restless enough that medieval theorists called it the devil in music, and the engine of every dominant seventh.
- Perfect fifth
- Seven semitones. C to G: the most stable interval after the octave, and what tunes a violin.
- Major sixth
- Nine semitones. C to A, the opening of My Bonnie.
- Minor seventh
- Ten semitones. C to B flat, and the note that turns a triad into a dominant seventh.
- Major seventh
- Eleven semitones. C to B: one semitone short of the octave, and it aches for it.
- Octave
- Twelve semitones. The same letter again, and the interval so consonant that both notes read as one.
- Compound interval
- Anything wider than an octave. A tenth is a third plus an octave, and it behaves like a third.
- Consonance
- An interval that sounds settled: octaves, fifths, thirds and sixths. Where a phrase can stop.
- Dissonance
- An interval that wants to move: seconds, sevenths, the tritone. Not a mistake, a question.
- Minor second
- One semitone. The smallest interval in the system, and the most dissonant.
- Major second
- Two semitones: a whole tone. The step a scale is mostly made of.
- Minor sixth
- Eight semitones. C to A flat: the darker sixth, and the inversion of a major third.
- Perfect unison
- The same pitch. Written as two noteheads on the same line when two voices meet there.
- Augmented interval
- A perfect or major interval stretched by a semitone. C to F sharp is an augmented fourth.
- Diminished interval
- A perfect or minor interval squeezed by a semitone. C to G flat is a diminished fifth: the same keys as the augmented fourth, spelt to show where it is going.
- Interval inversion
- Turn the interval upside down and it becomes its complement: a third becomes a sixth, a fifth becomes a fourth, and the two numbers always add to nine.
- Harmonic interval
- Two notes sounded together.
- Melodic interval
- Two notes sounded one after the other. The same distance, a completely different problem for the ear.
- Enharmonic interval
- Two spellings of the same distance: an augmented fourth and a diminished fifth are both six semitones.