How to Understand Intervals on Guitar Video Lecture - The Ultimate Guitar

today we're going to talk about
intervals but before that I want you to
imagine a lovely public park and if it's
anything like the park near where I live
right now there's a hippie in it with an
acoustic guitar now if you were to go up
and try to discuss intervals with this
hippie it you probably be like man I'm
not playing intervals I'm just playing
music
I don't play intervals that play music
well joke's on you hippie it because you
are playing intervals all of music is
intervals and we're interval just the
word interval scares the hippie it
frightens the hippie yeah it will not
frighten you after watching this video
basically when you break it down all
interval means is a space between two
things and in music it's just a space
between two notes two chords anything
like that so like here I'm on the fifth
fret of the e-string from here to the
seventh fret of the e-string
the interval would be two frets now to
communicate with other musicians it's
better to talk about intervals in a
different way because not every musician
uses frets other instrument if you tell
like a trumpet player to go up two frets
that doesn't mean anything
now intervals can be described as going
up like a major third maybe for them for
a major third go up a fifth go up a
minor seventh something like that this
is what that means all you have to do is
you have to know the major scale and the
minor scale and if you don't know it I
made a video on that and I put the link
under this video here but right now
we're going to talk about the major
scale first in a now this does it
doesn't matter that it's an a it can be
any here but we're going to start on a
because it's the fifth fret of the
e-string so again the major scale would
be and the notes would be a B C sharp d
e f sharp g sharp na now you don't even
need to know the notes for this we're
going to break these all down in numbers
and I'm gonna have a graphic here too
so you're gonna have a couple ways to
come at it so we have the first note of
the major scale the second the third the
fourth and fifth sixth seventh and the
eighth eighth one is another an age so
that's an octave now since we have these
numbered you can talk about intervals
just whatever numbers so this is one and
this is two three
in the major scale the distance from
here to here would be what's called a
major third and now you can do this a
couple different ways you can do it
across strings like your I'm just going
from an A to C sharper is whatever five
to four I'm going down a string I'm
going up
I made your third now this note exists
on guitar right here so if I stay on one
string and I kind of slide down four
frets I'm going up the major third if I
go down a string and back a friend I'm
going up a major third the same thing
applies to other numbers of the scale so
one two now the interesting thing about
this is say you just go up two frets you
think that maybe would be like a major
second well it's not and we'll get to
that in a second is called a perfect
second but this is really helpful
because you can go up major third go to
a fourth fifth so from here to here it's
a third a major third fourth one to five
that's something that's a six a major
seven there's an octave okay now one
more scale that we're going to do this
with is the minor scale I'm not going to
change positions we're gonna do an a
okay so this is a different key
technically but we have this scale ABC
now what you'll notice is one two three
four five six seven eight
but you'll notice here this two fret
thing could also be a minor second if
you talk about it in intervals but from
here to here whether I'm using the major
scale or the minor scale that's going to
be the same thing that's what we call a
perfect interval because it's the same
space in a major scale or a minor scale
you'll also notice that one two three
four is going to be the same in both
scales and also one two three four five
is also going to be the same in both
scales now if you go further so here's
the minor scale
you'll notice this note
in the major scale it was called a flat
seven you can cut off you call that a
minor seven interval both minor seven so
we've got a routed out to a major third
right this little piece right here it's
kind of like a diagonal thing now you've
seen this in a lot of courses you are to
use like a C chord for example these
right here this is a C and then it's
major third which is in E again knowing
the notes is really helpful but not
totally necessary to apply this kind of
thinking to your playing and stuff like
that same with like a G chord here
there's the major third right here near
to here major major air every chord has
these now how this is actually a value
when you're playing is you can
substitute pieces of a scale in four
chords so what I mean by that is like
instead of playing a C major you can
just take part of that C major scale is
to take the root in the third you can
think of it as playing part of a full C
chord but just the empty string here and
then looks like let's take a whole
progression and kind of move it around
so we're going to focus on maybe one
major chord and two minor chords so the
progression we'll do is going to be C
major to a minor to D minor back to a
minor okay so what we're going to do
instead of playing it to C major a minor
and regular cords we're going to
substitute some interval stuff in there
so we can just take maybe in just the
first part of the C corner right here
and replace it with that so instead of
going from C to D we're gonna take a
root note and its major third and then
we're going to go to D you choose a D at
the fifth fret a string is a dia and
make a minor third now this is going to
be an instrument because as we said it
so here's the minor scale starting on
this note one two three and we have the
first note and the third note is right
here so we can't combine them because
it's on the same string but this note
also exists on the next string down two
frets back so from here to here is a
minor third which makes a lot of sense
because a major third would just be here
to here and since minor has a flat third
compared to the major scale we just move
this to you so this kind of move you can
think of it as a riff or think of it as
part of a core a 1 and a minor 3rd can
be combined to replace a minor chord so
instead of going to C to D minor we can
go see
Disney might think of this as a D minor
right and then maybe again in that chord
we'll go to an a minor four and instead
of playing up here maybe we'll go way
down here and find the a let me activate
the issue which is a twelfth fret and
make that a minor third right
so we have 12 8 10 D and then we can
slide back to see it which already has a
much different feel than a minor to see
you
yeah
and then into like a D minor so this is
our D minor and then if we want to go to
another a minor instead of going back to
a minor let's just go up to this a right
here which is a lower a so we have a
high a we're starting out with here to a
C and it's major third to a d minor a D
and it's minor third and then up a
string it's okay so yeah now how this is
really helpful is it sounds different of
course than playing
which is also noticed is different
volumes because we're only playing two
notes to make kind of like a mini chord
or a power chord if you will instead of
a whole bunch of them so if you're maybe
trying to sing along with it
your voice might sit better with partner
of just like a to note interval chord or
if it's like the same chord progression
and like you want like the course to get
louder you could play the verse like
this yeah to C and then D into a and
then for verse you
and then you kind of have some dynamics
that you can work out with them so
that's just kind of like using scales to
make these intervals now just as single
notes and chords can be talked about
like going up a minor third up a perfect
fifth something like that
chords can go the same way so let's say
we have just this chord right here like
a barre chord on it and then we go to
the third chord which is here a c-sharp
minor' looks like a you're moving that
chord up a major third so we're going
from a to a c-sharp a Porter's you now
if we were to do it in a different key
or something the same thing applies
everything moves with each other so
let's do it and be it and a lot of times
you can get interesting chord
progressions by just mirroring with
intervals how they move so we'll start
with a beat
so I'm just kind of mirroring like a
movement and I'm doing that thinking and
intervals because once you kind of start
trimming away Accords you'll find that
they might sit a lot better in a mix if
you're just using like open chords
you'll notice that maybe if you're like
reporting at home and you're trying to
like get other stuff to to mix in with
it there's just too much going on with
the guitar if you're just playing by
yourself and you're staying in my room
that can sound fine you want a big
guitar song but maybe you don't always
want that so it's good to know
intervals and how to take little pieces
of these chords and kind of trim them
down and then maybe you know your voice
will sit better with them and you're not
going to have frequencies fighting with
each other
so again never trust the hippies and
intervals are your best friend