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Songs to remember intervals

Familiar tunes for the intervals, rising and falling, from “Twinkle, Twinkle” to “Here Comes the Bride”. How to use them, and when to let them go.

· 6 min read · a drill to try, 24 sounds to play

A quick way to remember how an interval sounds is to tie it to a tune you already know. “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” begins do, do, sol, sol, and the leap from the second note to the third is a rising perfect fifth. Hum the opening and you have the fifth. Some music teachers teach every interval this way, pairing it with the first interval of a familiar song; such songs are known as reference songs.

This chart goes through every interval, rising and falling, with a tune for each one we could check. It favors folk songs, carols and classical themes that many people can hum, and every entry was checked against a source that names its notes, its solfège or its interval. Where we couldn’t find a familiar tune to check, we say so rather than guess. Songs still under copyright are named by title only.

The buttons play the interval itself, not the song. Sing the opening of the song, then press the button and compare.

Seconds

Minor second

1 semitone, the smallest step on a piano.

  • Rising: “Ode to Joy”, the theme from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, steps up a half step from its second note to its third, mi to fa. The theme from Jaws opens with a rising half step too.
  • Falling: “Für Elise” begins by rocking from E down to the D♯ just below it, and back. “Joy to the World” starts do, ti, the first step of a scale that runs all the way down.

Minor second, rising 16:15

B4 up to C5: a minor second, 1 semitone.

B4 up to C5, the step in “Ode to Joy” in G major, then D4 down to C♯4, the notes that open “Joy to the World” in D major.

Major second

2 semitones, a whole step.

  • Rising: “Frère Jacques” (do, re, mi, do) and “Silent Night” (sol, la, sol, mi).
  • Falling: “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, “Three Blind Mice” and “The First Noel” all open with a whole step down.

Major second, rising 9:8

F4 up to G4: a major second, 2 semitones.

F4 up to G4, the first step of “Frère Jacques” in F major, then E4 down to D4.

Thirds

Minor third

3 semitones.

  • Rising: “Greensleeves”; “O Canada”, mi up to sol; and Brahms’s “Lullaby”, right after its repeated first note.
  • Falling: “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “This Old Man”.

Minor third, rising 6:5

A4 up to C5: a minor third, 3 semitones.

A4 up to C5, the opening of “O Canada” in F major, then G4 down to E4.

Major third

4 semitones.

  • Rising: “When the Saints Go Marching In”, “Kumbaya”, and “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore”, which opens do, mi, sol.
  • Falling: the four-note opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, and the last two of the three NBC chimes, the American broadcaster’s signature.

Major third, rising 5:4

C4 up to E4: a major third, 4 semitones.

C4 up to E4, the start of “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore” in C major, then E4 down to C4, the last two NBC chimes.

Fourths, fifths and the tritone

Perfect fourth

5 semitones.

  • Rising: the Bridal Chorus from Wagner’s Lohengrin, better known as “Here Comes the Bride”. “Amazing Grace”, “Auld Lang Syne” and “O Christmas Tree” open with one too, from sol up to do.
  • Falling: Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik opens do, down to sol, and “O Come, All Ye Faithful” makes the same move from its second note to its third.

Perfect fourth, rising 4:3

C4 up to F4: a perfect fourth, 5 semitones.

C4 up to F4, the opening of “Auld Lang Syne” in F major, then G4 down to D4, as in “O Come, All Ye Faithful” in G major.

Tritone

6 semitones, exactly half an octave. Its name means three whole tones, and since at least the early 18th century it has been nicknamed diabolus in musica, the devil in music.

  • Rising: a show tune, “Maria” from West Side Story, which is widely known for the tritone in its main theme.
  • Falling: we couldn’t find a familiar tune to check. Hear it as a fourth stretched by a half step, or a fifth squeezed by one.

Tritone, rising 45:32

C4 up to F♯4: a tritone (augmented fourth or diminished fifth), 6 semitones.

C4 up to F♯4, then back down.

Perfect fifth

7 semitones.

  • Rising: “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, do, do, sol, sol; “Lavender’s Blue”, do up to sol; and the brass fanfare that opens Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, C, G and C again.
  • Falling: the Minuet in G from the 1725 Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, written by Christian Petzold, and the carol “Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella” both open sol, down to do.

Perfect fifth, rising 3:2

C4 up to G4: a perfect fifth, 7 semitones.

C4 up to G4, the leap in “Twinkle, Twinkle” in C major, then D5 down to G4, the first two notes of the Minuet in G.

Sixths

Minor sixth

8 semitones.

  • Rising: Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer”, from its third note to its fourth, the leap after its short run-up; and the spiritual “Go Down Moses”, on its first two notes.
  • Falling: we couldn’t find a familiar tune to check. Hear it as a fifth that goes a half step further.

Minor sixth, rising 8:5

E4 up to C5: a minor sixth, 8 semitones.

E4 up to C5, then back down.

Major sixth

9 semitones.

  • Rising: “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean”, sol up to mi, and the first two NBC chimes.
  • Falling: the spiritual “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”. The composer David Del Tredici, who wrote a fantasy on it, calls its falling sixth characteristic.

Major sixth, rising 5:3

G3 up to E4: a major sixth, 9 semitones.

G3 up to E4, the first two NBC chimes, which sound the G below middle C and the E above it, then back down.

Sevenths and the octave

Minor seventh

10 semitones, a whole step short of an octave.

  • Rising: two modern tunes, named by title only: “Somewhere” from West Side Story, and the theme from the original Star Trek, between the first two notes of its introduction.
  • Falling: we couldn’t find a familiar tune to check.

Minor seventh, rising 16:9

C4 up to B♭4: a minor seventh, 10 semitones.

C4 up to B♭4, then back down.

Major seventh

11 semitones, a half step short of an octave. Few melodies open with it, and we couldn’t check a familiar one in either direction. The usual advice is to find it from the octave: sing the octave first, then come down a half step.

Major seventh, rising 15:8

C4 up to B4: a major seventh, 11 semitones.

C4 up to B4, then back down.

Octave

12 semitones, the same note name higher up.

  • Rising: “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”, on its first two notes, and “Over the Rainbow”.
  • Falling: we couldn’t find a familiar tune to check.

Octave, rising 2:1

C4 up to C5: an octave, 12 semitones.

C4 up to C5, then back down.

How to use reference songs

  1. Pick one song for each interval and direction. Choose the one you can hear in your head most easily. One is enough; more can slow you down.
  2. Start the song on the first note you hear. When an interval plays, take its first note as the song’s first note, sing on, and check whether your second note matches.
  3. Learn rising and falling separately. A falling fourth isn’t a rising fourth played backward, at least not to the ear, which is why the chart lists both.
  4. Check against the real thing. Press the buttons above, or play the two notes on any instrument, until the song and the sound agree.
  5. Sing in your own range. A tune works from any starting note, so start it wherever your voice is comfortable, an octave above or below the buttons if you need to.

When to let them go

Reference songs have a known limit. As a 1983 article titled “Beyond Intervals: The Teaching of Tonal Hearing” pointed out, a familiar melody ties an interval to the particular notes of the scale it uses. Most of the rising fourths above climb from sol to do, so they teach that fourth. A fourth from do up to fa sits differently in its key and may not bring “Here Comes the Bride” to mind at all.

Songs are also slow. You have to start the tune and wait for the second note, which works while you learn but not when a melody goes by quickly. The goal is to know the interval itself, the way you know a voice, with no tune in between.

So treat each song as a ladder. Use it until you can name the interval before the song gets going in your head, then stop reaching for it. Solfège helps with what comes next: singing with syllables lets you hear the same interval starting on different notes of the scale. Drills help too, because they play every interval from many starting notes, so the sound becomes the thing you recognize.

Try a bigger set

Here are six rising intervals at once: the whole step, both thirds, the fourth, the fifth and the octave. This is level 4 of Rising intervals in Earstep, “Add the whole step and the octave”. For the first few rounds, recall each interval’s song before you answer; then try without.

Which interval?

8 sounds

    Sources