Lesson 2 of 4
Hearing Intervals
The second ear-training skill: recognizing the distance between two notes. Learn why direction matters and how to practice ascending and descending intervals.
Once a single note feels stable, the next skill is hearing the distance between two notes — the interval. Intervals are the building blocks of melody, and recognizing them is what lets you transcribe a line or play it back by ear.
Size and direction
An interval has two properties your ear needs to learn:
- Size — how far apart the notes are, from a semitone up to an octave and beyond.
- Direction — whether the second note is higher (ascending) or lower (descending).
Direction matters more than people expect. A descending minor sixth doesn't sit in the ear the same way an ascending one does, even though the size is identical. Train both.
How to practice
- Start with big contrasts. A small step versus a wide leap is easy to tell apart — begin there.
- Add neighbors gradually. Once large differences are automatic, introduce intervals that sit close together.
- Separate the directions. Practice ascending and descending as distinct skills.
Don't lean on song references forever. They're a useful crutch at first, but the goal is to hear interval size directly — which is exactly what focused daily reps build.
Where this leads
Intervals connect everything. Stacked together they become chords; strung in sequence they become melodies and scales. With notes and intervals under your ear, you're ready to start hearing harmony.
Next up: stacking intervals into chords and learning to hear major, minor, and beyond by color.
