Songs that will help you identify ascending intervals

Summary

The video teaches how to recognize ascending musical intervals by ear. Rather than relying only on repeatedly listening to isolated intervals, the presenter suggests linking each interval to a familiar melody. When you hear a new melody, compare its opening—or another recognizable passage—with these musical “anchors.”

Interval examples and listening cues

• Minor second (semitone / half step): The notes are very close together. The presenter uses the back-and-forth figure in “Jaws.”
• Major second (tone / whole step): The gap between the first two notes of a major scale. The video also gives a song example whose title is unclear in the autogenerated subtitles.
• Minor third: Has a distinctly minor-key character. The example is “Mad World.”
• Major third: Can be recognized through the opening notes of a major chord. Examples include “Sir Duke” and “Let’s Dance.”
• Perfect fourth: The opening bass-line interval in “Summer Nights” from Grease.
• Tritone (augmented fourth / diminished fifth): Has a tense, dissonant, foreboding sound. Examples include “YYZ” and the opening of “The Simpsons” theme. The presenter notes that the story that the Catholic Church banned the tritone is a myth, citing Adam Neely.
• Perfect fifth: Often sounds stable and resolved. The opening of “Star Wars” is the main reference; “E.T.” also begins with this interval. It may be confused with an octave because both sound very consonant.
• Minor sixth: Its character can change with musical context; it may sound tense in one setting and settled in another. Examples are the saxophone line in “Baker Street” and “The Entertainer.”
• Major sixth: Like the minor sixth, it does not have one fixed sense of tension or resolution; context matters. The example is “The Holly and the Ivy.”
• Minor seventh: The video uses the opening of “Somewhere” from West Side Story and the bass line of “Can’t Stop.” In the latter, the interval resolves to an octave.
• Major seventh: Sounds close to an octave and often seems to want to resolve upward to one. The chorus of “Take On Me” is the example.
• Octave: The two notes sound like the same pitch in different registers. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” provides a clear, sustained example.
• Minor ninth: This interval extends beyond the octave. The bass line of “Killing in the Name” rises from D to E-flat above the octave.

Broader points

• Interval recognition can help musicians improvise, compose, and work out melodies by ear.
• Some intervals are easier to identify by their characteristic sound, while others—especially the sixths—depend more heavily on musical context.
• Intervals beyond the octave are less commonly discussed because they often share a similar sound with their within-octave equivalents, and wide melodic leaps are less common in vocal melodies.
• The presenter argues that the minor ninth is particularly useful to learn. Although it shares the same pitch classes as a minor second, it sounds less tightly “rubbed” because the notes are separated by an octave.

Speakers and sources featured

• David Bennett — presenter and narrator.
• ToneGym — sponsor, presented as an ear-training tool.
• Adam Neely — cited in connection with the myth about the tritone.
• Musical examples referenced: “Jaws”; the major-second song example (title unclear in the subtitles); “Mad World”; “Sir Duke”; “Let’s Dance”; “Summer Nights”; “YYZ”; “The Simpsons” theme; “Star Wars”; “E.T.”; “Baker Street”; “The Entertainer”; “The Holly and the Ivy”; “Somewhere” from West Side Story; “Can’t Stop”; “Take On Me”; “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”; and “Killing in the Name.”