Intervals theory and their use in Indian & Western music

When I first encountered intervals in my early days of learning guitar, I was presented with a table — just a dry list of numbers and terms. If you Google "intervals in music", that same lifeless table still pops up with a varying number of columns as the icing on the cake.

The differing numbers of columns and varying terms only add to the confusion. Sure, a few of the technical terms see some use, but mostly in a simplified form and usually only among seasoned musicians.

Intervals are one of the most important topics in music. In fact, they are the heart of music.

Music comprises two elements, notes and rhythm (sur and taal), and cannot ‘come into play’ unless both are present.

Even a beam of sound has a rhythm to it!

We’re talking about the notes (sur) side of the story here and taking rhythm for granted.

Now, here’s the thing about notes: a single note, on its own, tells you very little.

I’m delving into Alan Watts and his philosophies now, but it seems right ‘in this context’: one can only know with respect to others.

A lone C is just a frequency. Play a G after it and suddenly something happens. Tension, rest, longing, whatever you want to call it. That ‘something’ lives in the distance between the two notes, and that distance is an interval.

So when it comes to the notes side of music, intervals are the heart of it. Melody is a sequence of intervals. Harmony is intervals stacked together.

The most real-life example: recall listening to faint music from far away, or over a phone with a bad connection.

The sound quality is terrible and yet you still recognise the song and still ‘feel’ it. That’s because the relationships between the notes survive almost any degradation.

Intervals, the reason is you...

All art forms have one thing in common, and that is context.

Most people have seen those classic flipbooks, or early movie reels, where a series of still pictures flipped quickly creates the illusion of motion.

The old textbook explanation is ‘persistence of vision’, but scientists now lean towards something more interesting: our brain doesn’t just hold on to each image; it actively fills in the gaps and builds the motion itself.

Sound works in a similar spirit. Our brain holds on to a sound for a moment after it’s gone (echoic memory, if you want to impress someone at a jam session).

That brief hold is what lets one note connect to the next. Instead of hearing separate beeps, we hear a line, a melody, a story.

Which is why the very first note matters so much. Everything that follows is measured against it.

First note, the root note, therefore, is of high essence.

The root, often called 'unison' in interval terms, isn’t just a starting point; it’s essential for defining the tonal center of a piece.

As long as you can identify the root, or the note with the strongest 'gravitational pull,' your musical choices — like deciding where to move on a guitar fretboard will sound cohesive.

This understanding is also key when figuring out chords by ear for any song.

Going back to Alan Watts — one can only know with respect to others... the philosophical interpretation of this is out of context here but the 'guitar' interpretation or rather 'music' interpretation is very strongly demonstrated in both the forms of Indian classical music.

‘Sa’, the root note in Indian classical, is whatever you decide it is. Pick any pitch that suits your voice or instrument, call it Sa, and every other swara is measured from there.

In Western music, C is always C. In Indian classical, Sa moves with the performer. The swaras (Re, Ga, Ma...) have fixed names, but only relative to Sa.

This is among the biggest differences between the two approaches.

(To be fair, Western music has its own relative systems too: movable-do solfège and scale degrees do the same thing. But it’s the fixed note names that most guitarists grow up with.)

Well, if we’re talking about differences, it’s worth mentioning that Indian classical music is built around melody over a drone, not around chord progressions.

You won’t find the ‘I–IV–V’ way of thinking here, which is what Western harmony largely runs on. But I digress...

That said, harmony isn’t entirely absent. The tanpura keeps sounding Sa and Pa (the root and the fifth), so every note you hear is felt against a constant reference.

Concepts like vadi and samvadi even describe which notes in a raga often sit in a consonant relationship with each other.

One might argue the Sa-is-movable approach feels tedious, especially for songs that change scales frequently. And yes, I feel you.

However, in Indian classical music, each piece is often built on its own scale, or raga, and it’s common practice to rehearse the scale and its sounds without lyrics before performing the full piece.

*A raga is more than a scale, since it has characteristic phrases, emphasis, and movement.

This is because the emphasis is on mastering the execution of intervals and nuances within the raga, rather than just the lyrics. That foundational practice deepens the performer’s command over the raga.

In Western music, the names of scales and chords are consistent and straightforward. In an A major scale or an A major chord, the name tells you both the root note (A) and the quality (major).

Why did Indian music take the melodic path rather than the chordal one?

Nobody knows for sure. My own guess is that the guru-shishya (teacher-disciple) tradition, where music was passed on by ear and personal guidance rather than written notation, kept the focus on melody and nuance. But that’s a guess, not a fact!

Bridging the gap between Indian and Western music is literally already making me feel lighter... phew!

I suppose it'll help musicians collaborate better.

To get back on track, the table I mentioned earlier — though seemingly lifeless... shows the distances from a starting note to each of the 12 possible notes.

For example, starting from A, it shows the distances to A#, B, and so on, alongside the interval names that describe these distances.

Naming these intervals is helpful because songs are combinations of different intervals, and as musicians become more familiar with the emotional qualities of these sounds, their understanding of musicality and expression deepens.

However, simply knowing the names of intervals alone won’t improve musicality. It’s the experience within these sounds that truly matters.

Feeling intervals... and I emphasize feeling rather than simply learning them can take years, even decades, for some people.

For others, however, it may come more naturally; it’s something I’ve observed in many of my students.

I remember one particular student who, although untrained, had a remarkable instinct for intervals. Her mother was deeply immersed in Indian classical music, and perhaps that exposure played a role.

Whether this ability was an inherited trait or just a coincidence, it highlighted how naturally some individuals connect with musical intervals.

There are interactive exercises available on apps and websites that play different interval sounds for practice, and while they can be helpful for beginners, I’m not sure they’re always that effective for progressing beyond the basics. Here's one for you guys!

For me, they didn’t quite bridge the gap to an intermediate level.

In my experience, the most effective way to practice intervals is by picking a song and working it out on the guitar.

This approach puts you face-to-face with various combinations of intervals as they appear naturally in music, challenging your ear with sequences that flow in real time.

In contrast, many interactive ear-training exercises play intervals one at a time, which can be too basic and disconnected from real-life musical situations.

I often explain intervals to my students by introducing the major scale, which most people recognize from the familiar sound of do-re-mi or sa-re-ga-ma.

Many beginners, even those new to music, can often figure out the major scale on a single string by ear. Because of its familiarity, the major scale can be a good starting point before diving into intervals, and this approach can help build a foundational ear for music.

Once you're comfortable with the major scale and can identify the notes, you might also come across ways to describe it, such as: R-W-W-H-W-W-W-H

or

R-T-T-S-T-T-T-S

Both of these formulas represent the intervals in a major scale, even though they use different terms.

It's helpful to remember that terms like 'half step' and 'semitone' are synonyms, just as 'whole step' and 'tone'.

Understanding intervals becomes a lot easier once you're comfortable with the major scale, both theoretically and practically, and you've trained your ear to recognize it.

Here’s a question: how many unique notes are there in a major scale? The answer is seven, with the eighth note being the octave, or the same note as the starting pitch but one octave higher.

Knowing these seven notes lets you better communicate with other musicians. For example, in a jam session, you might hear, “Flatten the sixth for the solo,” or “Sharpen the fourth.”

This shorthand is often more practical and widely used than the technical interval names and is something we touched on earlier.

Think of it like this: the major scale is called “major” because most of its intervals are major intervals: the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th.

There are, however, a couple of exceptions: the fourth and fifth. These are unique and called “perfect” rather than “major.”

Musically, they stand out in a way that makes them kind of like two narcissists, holding a special place among the other notes. (Why? We’ll dive into that later on.)

So, we have the major scale, which is “major” because most of its intervals are major, with two exceptions: the “narcissist” intervals, the fourth and fifth, which are called “perfect.” (The root and the octave are perfect too, but they’re the same note, so no drama there.)

Now, you can modify these intervals by flattening or sharpening them. Here’s how it works:

Flatten a major interval (2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th), and it becomes minor.

Flatten a minor interval one more step, and it becomes diminished.

Flatten a perfect interval (4th or 5th), and it becomes diminished too. It skips ‘minor’ altogether, because perfect intervals don’t have a major/minor pair.

Sharpen a major or perfect interval, and it becomes augmented.

Yes, you can flatten a perfect fourth! A diminished fourth exists, but it lands on the same pitch as a major third, so you’ll rarely see it named that way. Same story with sharpened notes: the augmented fourth is the famous tritone, which musicians usually call by its nickname.

You might be wondering: why the special terminology? Why do the fourth and fifth get the ‘perfect’ badge?

Flip an interval upside down (move its lower note up an octave), and a 5th becomes a 4th, while a major 3rd becomes a minor 6th.

Perfect intervals stay perfect when flipped; majors become minors. The fourth and fifth are mirror images of each other, which is why they’re a matched pair.

For now, though, especially if you’re just getting started, you don’t need to go deeper. Get familiar with these terms first. They’ll make more sense as you go. And also maybe learn how it all applies over the guitar fretboard...

The guitar is sneakily friendly for intervals, because distance on the fretboard is the interval.

A fret is a semitone.

Pick any string. Play it open. That’s your Sa.

Now climb one fret at a time. One fret, one semitone. The number of frets you’ve climbed is the interval:

1 fret — minor 2nd

4 frets — major 3rd

7 frets — perfect 5th

12 frets — the octave, and so on.

This is why I start students on one string. Fewer things to look at, more things to hear.

Across strings, the multi-dimensionality of guitar comes into play! In easier words, intervals function vertically and horizontally.

Pick a fret, ideally on the sixth string, and play.

Move to the next string up (towards the thinner ones) and play the same fret. You’ve just climbed five semitones, a perfect 4th.

Why are strings tuned in 4ths? Another day, another detour.

The G–B exception

Of course there’s a catch. There always is.

The strings are tuned E–A–D–G–B–E, and every gap is a perfect 4th except one: G to B, which is a major 3rd.

So any shape that crosses from G to B sits one fret higher than the rule says. A major 3rd is the same fret there, and a perfect 5th is three frets forward, not two.

It’s mostly a compromise to keep common open chords easy to play. Annoying? Yes. A one-time lesson? Also yes.

Assuming you're all cool with intervals over the fretboard, here's something rather advanced...

Abhishek Mittal from Happynotes Music suggests singing a random line and then mimicking the melody on guitar, thus forging a muscle-to-mind connection.

This workout is closer to the practicality of intervals. Definitely better than gulping in the table.

All that being said, go learn the intervals table now.

Say Bye!

Anubhav Kulshreshtha

Founder - The Indian Guitar School

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