After reading an interesting thread which touched on the usefulness of (amongst other things) knowing how intervals sound for sight reading.... I took the advice (I believe it was Teigr's) of finding familiar tunes with the intervals at the beginning to help cement them in my mind. I found that having one tune for the melodic interval going up and one for coming down was really helpful as, dunce that I am, I found that I can't always swap the notes round instantly. I've put my list below - can anyone help me with the gaps I have or post a link to any threads which might have such a list in them? (I tried searching, but keyword searches are not my forte ):

Minor 2nd: up = Pink panther, Jaws theme.
down = ?

Major 2nd: up = Happy birthday
down = mary had a little lamb, 3 blind mice.

Minor 3rd: up = greensleeves
down = This old man.

Perfect 4th: up = Amazing grace, Auld Lang Syne.
down = Born Free.

Augmented 4th: up = "The Simp.." from The Simpsons theme.
down = ?

Perfect 5th: up = Twinkle twinkle little star, theme from ET.
down = ?

Stuck for Minor 6ths.

Major 6ths: up = My Bonny lies over the ocean.
down = Nobody knows the trouble i've seen.

Minor 7th: up = Original Star Trek theme, Somewhere (West Side Story)
down = ?

Perfect Octave (though this one is relatively easy): up = Somewhere over the Rainbow.
down = ?

How bizarre! I was just reading examples of this in The Rough Guide to Reading Music!

I don't know how helpful there suggstions are as I don't know all the melodies and they don't have an up and a down version for each one but here is what they have (along with the score in the book) As you can see a lot of them are the same as yours:

Minor 2nd: down = Mozart Symphony no 40

Major 2nd: up = Frere Jacques

Minor 3rd: up = greensleeves

Perfect 4th: up = Amazing grace

Augmented 4th: up = Maria (Westside Story)

Perfect 5th: up = Twinkle twinkle little star

Minor 6ths (down) = Where do I begin (Francis Lai)

Major 6ths: up = My Bonny lies over the ocean.

Minor 7th: up = Somewhere (West Side Story)

Perfect Octave = Somewhere over the Rainbow.

Hope that helps!

Minor 2nd down: Fur Elise

Minor 6th (down followed by up): Love Story

There's a downward minor seventh in the theme to the Enigma variations, but perhaps that doesn't count.

Chris

Here are some websites you may find useful:

Songs for interval recognition

Jazzbook - interval chart

Min...ascending Close Every Door

ooh, fab! Thanks everyone I think this is going to be very useful. Like the "close every door one" There are a few tunes that just seem to really stand out... maybe it's a personal thing. I shall investigate the websites, very helpful, thankyou.

wow.. this is all very fun and wonderful! I think i will probably include this information on my website soon.. after i have completed and written all that i want to write about singing.. ;-p

Aaron Lim
http://www.your-personal-singing-guide.com

I tend not to use songs to recognise intervals, as I basically know them all inside out thats what being made to recognise them every week for 2 years does to ya haha!

P.S. Happy Birthday and Twinkle Twinkle start with 2 unison notes haha

Very Funny! I meant to the note after the unison notes... Perhaps being made to recognise intervals is the way forward - maybe I should look for some sites with auditory training.

This site is quite useful as a start; it gives you random intervals and tells you whether you get them right.

http://musictheory.net/trainers/html/id90_en.html

The idea of using tunes you know to help you learn what different intervals sound like is that it gives you a starting point. You ditch the songs as soon as you can recognise and produce the intervals without them.
If someone has no concept of what a perfect 5th sounds like, but can recognise the beginning of the Last Post or the Star Wars main theme or the opening of Tallis' Salvator Mundi or whatever, then all they have to do is connect the two and they'll know what a perfect 5th sounds like. That's why it needs to be a tune they already know well enough to sing/hum/whistle, and ideally should be one they think of for themselves.
It's definitely not the only way to do it, but it's one that a lot of people find useful.

T.

I'll add another link to this thread - you can programme in chords and play them to identify them.


http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_...piano/index.htm