Intervals

After years of being done with school, I wanted to test my intervals skills. So I went on musictheory.net and quizzed myself on the interval trainer.

I have to say I was quite pleased! I used this site often, when I was in Ear Training and it has helped me immensely! However, I have never been great at distinguishing tritones, minor sevenths, and major sevenths. I always mix them up. They sound so much the same to me...and I have to admit...for most of the intervals, I have a song I can pair with them...but I never could never figure out a song that went with those 3 intervals.

So, I decided to look them up online. Here are some songs that go with each of these three intervals according to Wikipedia


These are the songs I best relate to...it may be different for others.

Tritone- "Maria" Westside Story


At the start of the chorus: :37 sec in.

Minor Seventh- "Somewhere"-Westside Story


At the beginning of the song: :26 sec in.

Major Seventh- "Take on Me" A-Ha (This one is probably the trickiest for me so I have two songs that help.)


Beginning of Chorus- "Take on Me" :53 sec in.

Also... the Star Trek one seems the easiest. I don't know it well...but I'm sure if I listened to it enough it would make this interval a lot easier! So here it is...


Listen to the voice singing the first interval of the theme :31 sec in.

These songs have made it so much easier to distinguish these three intervals for me.
Before I was using "The Simpson's" theme and "Maria" and I would confuse all of them somehow. They sound very similar.

As for my other intervals I have always paired them with these songs and that has always helped me...

Unison-Easy- sounds the same
m2- Jaws Theme
M2- "Silent Night"
m3- "Lullaby", or the "Mr. Clean Song"

M3- Tri-ad (I've never had a hard time with tri-ad's but "I could have danced all night" -My Fair Lady, works too.)
P4- "Here Comes the Bride"
P5- Superman theme :41 sec in

m6-The Entertainer (big interval after pick-up)
M6- "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean" first interval of song.
Octave- "Willow Song"- Ballad of Baby Doe

:56 sec in when she first starts singing. I sang this in college so this was easy for me to hum in my head to hear the octaves in Ear Training/Aural Skills.

And there you have it. The easiest songs I know for these intervals. They haven't failed me yet!