Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Know Your Intervals by Ear
Intro

The wonderful thing about the kalimba is that you can just let your thumbs wander and you can make pretty music without really knowing a lot about music. However, the more you know and understand about music, the better you will do with the kalimba.

Do you know what an interval is? It is the size of the jump between two different notes. Examples of intervals are: an octave (i.e., the distance between the first two notes of "SOME - WHERE over the rainbow"), a major 3rd (the distance between "SAY" and "CAN" in "O SAY CAN you see"), a minor third (the distance between "HEL-LO" and "DARK-NESS" in "The sounds of silence"). There are other intervals. Do you know their names? Can you hear the intervals in your head, or recognize them when they are played? Or more important - can you identify the intervals between the various tines on your kalimba?

Once you understand the intervals in general music AND understand how to make those intervals on the kalimba, you are ready to go to town musically. But how do you do that? Stay tuned to the Tuesday tips and we'll take you on a tour of the relevant musical intervals. And if you pay attention, you will learn some very important tools for understanding and making music.