This is my 15th year of teaching piano lessons. And it just so happens that I am sick of teaching students to recognize melodic intervals on the piano by ear. Perfect 4th is “Here Comes The Bride”… “Major 6th is “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”… Minor 7th is “There’s a Place for Us” from West Side Story… How many kids actually even know these songs? Probably none. Which actually makes them not much of a memory trick at all! I know it’s good for them to be able to hear and identify these intervals. I know that piano exams require it. But frankly… it’s boring.
Until tomorrow.
Because tomorrow I’m surprising my piano students with a whole new way of remembering their melodic intervals. And they’re going to think that I am completely awesome.
Melodic Intervals and The Top 40
As piano teachers we always need to be one step ahead. And we need to be cool. It’s a fact of life – we are teaching children. Children like things that are cool.
So here’s a fun way to bring the music your students are currently listening to into your piano teaching studio – and teach them how to correctly identify melodic intervals all at the same time. (This will require some homework on your part… homework that consists of finding your inner teen and breaking out some serious pop music on youtube). These songs are so engrained in your students’ minds that once you make the connection for them they will be an interval-naming whiz!
When teaching intervals I play just the part of the song on the piano that matters (about one or two notes before and after the actual interval I want them to hear) and I sing the lyrics that go along with that part. It’s all you need for the lightbulb to go off in their brian.
The New Melodic Interval Memory Tricks for Piano Students
*Disclaimer: These songs are “cool” as of September 24, 2012. Update your list regularly to avoid falling behind the times! Please also be sure to check lyrics before playing these for any of your students and use your judgement.
Minor 2nd “Hard Day’s Night” by the Beatles
Major 2nd “Wide Awake” by Katy Perry (repeated over and over!)
Minor 3rd “Blown Away” by Carrie Underwood (“Blown away”)
Major 3rd “Wavin’ Flag” by K’nan (first 4 notes outline a major 3rd)
Perfect 4th “Just The Way You Are” by Bruno Mars (beginning of the chorus “When I see…”)
Perfect 5th “The Cave” by Mumford and Sons (“And I…”)
Minor 6th “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga (the first two notes are a 5th but they lead to a minor 6th. Teach your student to hum the 5th and then go up the half step to the minor 6th)
Major 6th “Hey Soul Sister” by Train (the first two sung notes “Your lipstick”) or “Back Together” by Taylor Swift “…are never”
Minor 7th “Firework” by Katy Perry (“As you shoot a-…” is an octave moving to a Minor 7th)
Perfect Octave “Glad you Came” by The Wanted (“The Sun…”)
Major 9th “Paradise” by Coldplay (first two notes of the main riff)
And now for a real challenge… finding a song that has a Major 7th! I’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments below for a *current* pop song that would help with hearing the interval of a Major 7th. Have fun! Ear training has officially become cool 🙂
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Jan says
September 24, 2012 at 5:36 amLOVE this! And I have some songs to listen to, now!
Andrea says
September 24, 2012 at 1:47 pmHi Jan! Warning… some of them are quite addictive 🙂 A new guilty pleasure for you will be the Top 40! LOL
Linda Fox says
September 24, 2012 at 5:45 amWhy are we always so keen to teach intervals anyway? As in the distance between notes? The one thing I’ve found that people are really poor at nowadays is identifyng the different degrees of the scale. I always had a feel for the difference between the third and the fourth and the fifth, etc, even as quite a young child. The distance of a third can be felt quite easily if you know what the mediant and the dominant are, for instance, but so often children can maybe hear that these notes are quite a distance apart, but they can’t identify them. Not to have a feel for the tonic, in particular, is a big drawback.
So rather than teaching intervals, I’d be more inclined to pick up these tunes and work out what step of the scale they start on, or sit around on, or where this phrase leaps to. Using sol-fa helps a lot (just as a simple way of referring to the note – after all, there are already too many numbers banging around in music!) but numbers will do. To be able to hear that Hard Day’s Night starts on the mediant, or the third, or 3, or mi, or whatever you weant to call it, and steps up and down and then goes up to the dominant, or the 5th, or 5, or soh, or whatever you want to call it – isn’t that a better way to get to play it by ear than just to know it starts with a minor 2nd. Like, a minor 2nd from where to where? Tell a pupil to play Happy Birthday “in the key of X” and he’s VERY likely to start on X unless he has a feel for the degree of the scale (is there a simpler word for this?) even if he’s worked out that it starts with a major second up and down and then a rising fourth.
Andrea says
September 24, 2012 at 1:48 pmHi Linda – I agree with you whole-heartedly! I teach intervals to help with learning a song by ear (and also because they are a requirement for piano exams here in Canada) but I completely agree that intervals need to be taught in context too (or they’re quite useless!) Thanks for commenting and happy teaching!
Ella says
September 24, 2012 at 5:56 amOMG! I love this! I’m a voice coach and love reading your blogs. I’ve got some young students starting ear training a sight singing and this will CERTAINLY be helpful. Thanks so much!
Andrea says
September 24, 2012 at 1:49 pmHi Ella! Excellent.. hope it helps 🙂
Melissa Slawsky says
September 24, 2012 at 6:05 amThis is a great post! For a Major 7th, the 3rd phrase of the main tune to the “Theme to Superman” is an ascending example. Also, I don’t know how many young students would recognize this, but the 2nd measure to the intro guitar riff to Metallica’s “One” is also an ascending melodic 7th.
I’ve seen other people online referencing songs that start with an ascending octave and descend into a Major 7th, such as the opening to the melody of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”
Andrea says
September 24, 2012 at 1:49 pmMelissa! Thank you so much for your suggestions – the mystery of the Major 7th has been solved 🙂
Jo says
September 24, 2012 at 6:57 amThe problem will be for ME to learn all these songs! But it is a great idea. I’m always surprised at the songs my students have never heard of. I’m sure they feel the same way about me.
Andrea says
September 24, 2012 at 1:50 pmHi Jo – yes, keeping up with current music is one way to stay youthful LOL! 🙂
Carol says
September 24, 2012 at 7:19 amThese will definitely raise my level of ‘coolness’!
Thanks! And like Jo, I will have to learn some of these songs (some I already know because my students have brought the music in for me to teach them).
Andrea says
September 24, 2012 at 1:51 pmHi Carol – your students are going to love you! My student looked at me in shock and said “How did you know about that song” when I played him the Mumford and Sons one. I’m not sure if I should be insulted… 🙂
Leia says
September 24, 2012 at 9:56 amYou are a genius! This will be especially useful for my voice students.
Andrea says
September 24, 2012 at 1:52 pmHi Leia – Yes… when your singing students sing these songs along with the radio anyway, it makes it so much easier for them to hear the interval (and sing it when asked). These songs go around and around in their heads all day already… we can call that practising now! 🙂 Thanks for the genius comment… you made me smile 🙂
Alli says
September 24, 2012 at 6:31 pmI disagree. Using such tunes as “My Bonnie”, “Here Comes the Bride”, and “Strangers in the Night” for remembering intervals was effective in a great way for me. That’s why I still remember them to this day. I wouldn’t completely “kick” these tunes out.
Andrea says
September 24, 2012 at 7:54 pmHi Alli – thanks for commenting! I learned using these old songs too… and they worked! The problem I’ve found, however, is that my students have never ever heard “Strangers in the Night” or “My Bonnie”… therefore using them as a memory trick wasn’t working as they had to first learn the song – it wasn’t intuitive for them. It’s a short-cut to use songs they are already really familiar with – and it also increases the “relevancy factor” of your piano lessons which can do nothing but good. I’m a firm believer in making sure students still know music from the past (and it is for this reason that I encourage them to learn x-mas music beyond Jingle Bells and Rudolph) but when it comes to something like naming intervals, I’ve found it to be easier and more effective to hop on over to their side of things and teach in a way that is meaningful to them. Happy teaching!
KerriB says
March 3, 2013 at 5:42 amI love your new take on teaching the intervals. I take vocal training classes and my classmates have problems with recognition of intervals. They lose the note that they need to identify when singing up the scale. So i taught them using this method and they got it instantly.
In regards to major 7th, you could use Norah Jones “Don’t Know Why’, the first two notes at the beginning of the verse. I know its pre 2012 but i still find people, even teens, like it.
Good luck!
Beryl says
July 13, 2013 at 4:26 pmThanks so much for posting this. It will make aural tests come alive for today’s students and for us, their teachers. You are right, “My Bonnie” and suchlike are so not cool for these times and students tend to turn-off when that part of preparation for exams comes in the lesson.
Bobby says
August 9, 2014 at 11:54 amIve found the Major 7th in the vocal riff of Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin
He sings the f# then goes up an octave and steps down to the F
Melinda says
March 20, 2016 at 8:49 pmI totally taught my band kids (when I taught band 2007-2011) that Twinkle Twinkle and Bad Romance started exactly the same, and the only difference was Mozart went to a Major 6 and Lady Gaga went to the Minor 6th. I love your disclaimer on the “coolness factor” of the times, lol