I teach theory to all of my music students, beginning from the first lessons. Every teacher will have to start with some theory, but after teaching the clefs, note names, note durations and a few other signs, often the theory gets lost, particularly if the teacher is inexperienced or not very interested in theory themselves. To me this is a real disservice and most students without theory eventually know they don't understand something but can't put their finger on what it is, or are too embarrassed to ask.
Why are intervals important?
Intervals form the basis of harmony, and the outline of melody. Without knowing intervals, you can't transpose music accurately (put it in another key). You don't understand structure, particularly of major and minor scales which most students learn in their first year. You can't even begin to progress to writing cadences and harmony. Before teaching intervals, your student should have learned at least one scale, if not two or three, both major and harmonic minor.
Teaching intervals
Anybody learning piano or a keyboard instrument will have intervals laid out in front of them. It is very easy to teach intervals when you can press down keys. Conversely, it is really much harder to teach intervals when playing a violin or a flute or percussion. It's not easily visible, so if you play or teach something other than piano, it's a great idea to get a little keyboard just for teaching or learning theory.
To start
Pointing out the difference between repeated (same) notes, steps (adjacent notes), skips and jumps (wider intervals) is the start, particularly with small children. Teach them to recognise a step up and a step down, a skip up and a skip down. Play intervals for them to pace out on the floor - same, step, skip, jump!
With children of 7 or younger, it is probably too early to teach them intervals by written work, but you can certainly teach the concept. Use an interval piece, such as the one at the back of the Leila Fletcher Piano Course Book 1, or make something up for yourself. Get them to play, sing and speak it.
Writing intervals
With older children or adults, I make up sheets, starting with thirds and fifths which are both odd numbered intervals. This means that both notes will either be on lines or spaces. For a third, the notes almost touch each other. When you see a fifth, there is a line or space in between. Actually there's more than that, but keep it simple and visual. The top half of the sheet is the instruction, and below I put four lines of 3rds and 5ths in different clefs and positions which the student has to identify. At this stage I do not talk about major or minor, perfect or any other type of interval. Just the numbers.
Next lesson
Then I progress to 4ths and 6ths, with the practice incorporating revision of the previous week's work. Then it's 7ths and octaves. Unisons and seconds are so obvious, I explain them, and put them in the final exercises, but don't devote a whole sheet to them. Next I start using the intervals on the piano. "Play me a 6th with your right hand" or "What interval do the first two notes in this piece mark out?"
Relating intervals to scales
When my student has a thorough understanding of intervals just as distance, I begin to add perfect, major and minor to their repertoire. Perfect is easy: unison, octave, fourth and fifth are all perfect, and I just need the student to remember them. I said above that I expect students to have learned some scales when I teach intervals, and this is where it becomes necessary. All they need is C major and a minor, but a few others are good for them to experiment with. They should already know the tones and semitone structure of a major scale, and you can teach them the harmonic minor scale structure if that hasn't already been done.
Major and minor intervals
Look at C major scale. Demonstrate C-E as a 3rd. Call it a major third. Then play c minor scale. How does the 3rd differ? It's C-Eb, one semitone lower. Do the same for 6ths. C-A in C major and C-Ab in c minor. The principle is that the minor interval is always a semitone less than the major interval and the correct 3rd or 6th occurs in the respective scale. You can also show them that inverting the interval swaps major and minor. For example if you invert C-E to E-C, you go from a major 3rd to a minor 6th.
Teaching major and minor 2nds is also easy. A minor 2nd is a semitone, and a major 2nd is a tone. They just have to identify them correctly.
It's only 7ths that are tricky and you may need to prepare your student for this before you go on, because the leading note can be very confusing. Stick to the principle of what is in the key signature for the minor 7th, and tell them it's one of the few times they can ignore the leading note.
Practice
If you do this over a period of a couple of months for children, depending on their ability, they will grasp intervals. Use singing, humming, playing, writing, games on the whiteboard or anything at your disposal to get them to instantly recognise the size of interval. Keep on testing every week. Find songs that begin with a particular interval and relate that to their study. They may have to work out if it's major or minor for a while, but that's just fine.
Instant recognition of the basic interval will help their sight reading, let them progress to learn harmony, help them to improvise or compose, and form an important basis to understanding how music works. Please don't neglect it.
(c) Patrice Connelly, 2011
Patrice Connelly is an Australian musician who specialises in early music, and teaches piano, viola da gamba, music theory and history. She has an M.Mus (Hons) degree in musicology from the University of Sydney. Her business Saraband Music imports/exports, wholesales/retails and publishes sheet music, and she is involved in research, writing, editing, speaking and teaching music. Visit the Saraband Music website at http://www.saraband.com.au/
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