So I've learned what intervals are, but what are they for?

Paleo

Student Of The Blues
The nice thing about using scale and chord formulas is that you get the scale degree and interval above the root all in one.

For example, 1 3 5 b7 for a Dominant 7 chord.

The b7 designates a note that is a m7 above the root.

Plotting it on a fret board diagram tells you where that note is.

It's not an interval, per se, but it's understood that it is a m7 above the root and we use the term anyway.

Plotting out the "intervals" is actually plotting out the notes that are those intervals above the root.


What formulas do not show, however, is the intervalic relationships between the other notes within the chord or scale.

1 3 5 b7


3-5 is a m3
5-b7 is a m3
3-b7 is a tritone

"If you are writing vocal harmonies, or composing for just about any instrument, understanding and having a firm grasp of intervals would be extremely important. For a guitar player using theory to figure out how to play a solo... it's not that useful." p 23, Griff's course.

For Griff's purposes formulas will always be used.
 
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Shodai

Blues Junior
I just went through lesson five of Guitar Theory Made Useful and I'm thoroughly confused. I know, Griff says "Don't worry about it" when dealing with intervals, but then I see people talking about intervals ALL the time in this forum as they are chatting up how smart they are about theory. I just need to grasp it so I know what the hell is going on - I paid for the course and I want my money's worth, including understanding the basics of intervals. Griff does a great job telling me what Intervals are in the video, and I can figure out what to call one, but nowhere is it mentioned what the hell they are for. So I know the number and quality between two notes... so what? How is this useful? Any help un-frustrating me would be nice.

Thank you.

Hi there,

Let me start by saying that all the answers given so far are all on point, and describe what intervals are, but I think you're still left with your original question of what are they for. And I think you're left there because you are trying to understand intervals as a technique or style of playing, and that's where you're getting lost.

Let me help: intervals are not a technique or style of playing.

Now let me tell you what intervals are for...

You speak and write English, obviously. When you do you use letters, words, and punctuation. Let's take a word as an example. A noun is a person, a place, or a thing. Thats what a noun is. However, that's not what a noun is for; in the English language a noun is used for identifying a person place or thing. So there is what it is, and what it does.

If you think of music as a language, the intervals are the letters that we use to build our words. What an interval is is the distance between two notes. What an interval is for is another thing entirely.

Intervals are used to build scales, scales are used to make sure that people play in a particular key.

C major and A minor use the same notes. But the intervals between the notes are arranged differently, resulting in the two scales sounding different when played in order.

If you want to play in a major key, the intervals are whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step.

If we're playing a minor key then we have a whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, , whole step, whole step. We identify the key by the intervals between the notes.

Intervals are also used in chord building, once your key has been identified. That is why every major key has three minor chords in it.

Simply stated intervals are the most basic building blocks of the musical language. They are not a style or a technique. They help us to identify the relationship between notes and chords so that we can communicate with other musicians. Don't get hung up on it. If you know that one fret is a half step, and two frets are a whole step, you can now use that information to build a scale. Build a scale, find a key. Find a key and build some chords, arrange some chords and your're making music. See?

Hopefully that helps answer the original question of what are intervals for. Griff is right, don't worry about it. The short answer is that intervals are used to identify the relationship between the notes in any given scale, so that we can communicate with each other and know what each other is saying. It's no more mysterious than that, really.
 
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mpaq

Canfield, Ontario, Canada
Also intervals can be used to find notes.....up and down the fretboard follows the scale formula, and across the strings follows the circle of 4ths (meaning adjacent notes on each string are the fourth interval ie: at the 5th fret, the 6th string is A, so the fifth string adjacent note would be D (the fourth interval of the A major scale) the fourth string adjacent note would be G (the fourth interval of the D major scale) etc etc.
 
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