Advice On How To Play Guitar Intervals

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By: Mike Hammil

Learning how to play guitar intervals will greatly increase your guitar playing skill. Intervals are a core part of music and the guitar neck. Guitar intervals teach you the notes on the guitar fretboard, as well as how to construct scales and chords. Basically, you're going to get very confused with a lot of theory (and practise techniques) if you don't learn to play guitar intervals.

So, what are guitar intervals anyway?

Intervals are basically the distance between two notes. There are basically two types of intervals as well – melodic intervals (playing one note after another) or harmonic intervals (playing two of the same notes at the same time.)

When you look at the guitar fretboard, each fret consists of a note that is, in theory, known as a half-step from each other. In other words, the notes from G to G# (or A flat) on the 6th string are a half-step from each other. However, the notes from G to A are a full-step from each other. Knowing these terms makes things a lot simpler. A whole step is also known as a major second, and a half-step a minor second. Other times, the notes may be referred to as semi-tones (half-step) and tones (full-step.) Just use the terms that make the most sense to you.

But knowing just the theory behind intervals isn't all - you have to learn how to play guitar intervals on the neck of the guitar – and where these notes are.

Ok, so show me how to play guitar intervals

On standard tuning, here's how you can find the exact same notes on the fretboard on different strings. Let's say you play the E note on the 5th string, 7th fret, and you want to find another place to play the same note. All you need to do is move UP five frets (five half-steps) to the 6th string to find it there, or move DOWN five frets to the fourth string.

Now, we're going to look for a perfect 5th interval. Let's take the A note, played on the 6th string on the 5th fret. What is a perfect 5th? Well, it's the 5th note in the major scale of A. This note is located on the 5th string, 7th fret.

So, the distance between these notes is what an interval is. Intervals change when you change scales, but are always either half-steps or full-steps. The major scale works like this – full-step, full-step, full-step, half-step, full-step, full-step, full-step, half-step. So, in A, the notes played are A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A. This scale construct is what the intervals are – the distance between these notes.

Knowing this helps to train your ear, and also makes a lot of theory really simple to learn. It also helps with chord progressions and just general understanding. So, after you know how to play guitar intervals, you can move on to guitar scales.