tboudre - Posted - 09/01/2010:  13:32:24

Hi:

I believe I saw it here before but I tried a search and can't find it now. I'm looking for a list of common everyday songs to help me recognize intervals.

Any help appreciated,
Thanks,

ajisai - Posted - 09/01/2010:  13:48:43

Here's one list. earmaster.com/intervalsongs/

And there are a bunch of websites that help you learn to hear them. This is the one that I have bookmarked right now: classic.musictheory.net/90

tboudre - Posted - 09/01/2010:  15:26:21

Thanks, ajisai - just what I was looking for!

Dick Hauser - Posted - 09/01/2010:  15:58:15

Here is what the book " Music Theory For Practical People Has" -

m2 - Joy To The World
M2 - Silent Night
m3 - Star Spangled Banner
M3 - Marine's Hymn
P4 - Here Comes the Bride
P5 - Twinkle Twinkle
m6 - Love Story
M6 - My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean
m7 - A Place For Us
M7 - Over the Rainbow

The first couple notes in each tune sound like the interval.

I did like listmember ajisai's post.

cheekee - Posted - 09/01/2010:  22:19:49

cool. i use most of the same....here's some different

m2 - jaws.
M2 - happy birthday
m3 - oh canada (since the original question came from a canadian)
M3 - do a deer a FE-MALE DEER (the capitals are the major 3)
m7 - the first interval in the star trek theme

FiddlerJones - Posted - 09/02/2010:  04:56:41

Augmented 4th/diminished 5th: "Maria" from "West Side Story."

ajisai - Posted - 09/02/2010:  05:14:45

I'm always singing "Flintstones, meet the Flintstones" when I'm trying to get my fiddle back into ballpark range after I've cross tuned.

fyoder - Posted - 09/02/2010:  13:00:54

I wonder if John Williams started the main theme of Star Wars with a P5 in homage to twinkle.

mudbug - Posted - 09/04/2010:  04:37:40

When I tune my drumset, mounted tom, floor tom and bass drum, I always think of the eighth note timpany part in the opening phrase of "Also Spraque Zarathustra", which I believe is a Major third.

groundhogpeggy - Posted - 09/10/2010:  05:07:49

I think somewhere over the rainbow is an ocatve, isn't it? Instead of Major 7th... and Thus Spake Zarathustra starts off with Root, P5 and the Ocatve, doesn't it? Just sayin'.

If you think in terms of intervals it gets to be automatic. If you play with others who'd rather name the number of the chord instead of the name of the chord (i.e., instead of going from C to F, or G to D, or A to E, etc., etc., etc., to make it short and simple they say go to the V chord, etc., going by the number because of the interval the root of that chord falls on...if you do that much the intervals will become automatic... the songs are helpful though, just like that little ABC song to the tune of Twinkle Little Star... after having worked in a library for 20 years, I can vouch for the effectiveness of that song!!!

I used to know some opera students who always said singing or thinking in terms of a Major 3rd interval seemed the most unnatural to singers at least, if not all of the rest of us.

If you think in terms of the very common chordal progressions (playing guitar is very helpful for this...),... I, IV, and V... and then adding other intervals or substitutions... i.e., adding a minor 7th for bluesy leading tone, like in a situation in Flop Ear Mule if you were playing it in G on fiddle as Rex McGee does here, and you added that minor 7th to your V chord, your D chord (although i don't think of chords on fiddle... still, from playing guitar so much... I'm aware)... then that minor 7th leads into the next round... youtube.com/watch?v=z9XWMGBRa18

anyway, if you think in numbers for these common chordal progressions then you're just filling in the blanks and the intervals are easy to know. Or chord substituions... like, sometimes a II chord can be substituted for a IV chord... esp. if you do a minor chord for the II.

Don't forget the little Sentence.... Five Country Gentlemen Drove Along East Broadway... to know 5ths from each other (or sequence of sharps [flats, backwards] if you read music... which I don't do anymore and don't like at all)... if you can tell 5ths and their relationships, their relative minors, substitutions, etc., then you basically get the 12 tone music system now used without much trouble. Some guitarists practice this knowledge by what they call the CAGED system... in which they fiddle around going up the neck making inversions of chords... which is another way to explore intervals and relationships of progressions, keys, etc. Basically examining the Circle of Fifths from a practical view... the musician's color wheel, if you're talking about our usual, modern system of tonality... which pretty much pervades all of music today in western societies... whether it's old or new stuff. Uck... I seem to be on blabber mode this moring... got work to do on the compost pile!!!