If you are studying music theory, one of the important things your teacher will mention to you is the musical intervals. But to learn them by heart and even recognize them auditively is a little bit complicated.

Today I want to introduce you to the second part of this interesting topic, where I will talk about the descending intervals.

But first let's refresh our memory a little bit:

An interval is the distance between 2 musical notes and just as when you measure with meters or centimeters, the intervals are measured in tones and semitones, according to the distance they have.

You can easily identify these intervals on a piano, because each of the keys (black and white) represents a semitone, so to look for them, you only have to sum them up. For example: 1 semitone + 1 semitone = 1 tone; 1 tone + 1 semitone = 1 tone ½ ; 1 tone ½ + 1 semitone = 2 tones.

The intervals can be measured in ascending and descending order. What does this mean? That when the interval is ascending, the second note is higher than the first, while in the descending interval the second note is lower than the first.

This is their classification: minor second, major second, minor third, major third, perfect fourth, augmented fourth, perfect fifth, minor sixth, major sixth, minor seventh, major seventh, perfect octave.

Every one of these intervals represents a distance and they all sound completely different.

It is important to mention that intervals are an important part of chord construction and melodic analysis, because if you think about it and listen to a song in detail, you will realize that it is composed of pure intervals.

And while we're on the subject, I'm going to share this tip with you: The quickest way to learn the intervals by heart, is to associate them with songs.

After a little review of music theory, in this second part I'm going to present some graphic and auditive examples that I made especially for you so that you can learn by heart the descending musical intervals:

You’ll remember the second minor descendent with Beethoven's song “Für Elise”.

You'll remember the major second descendent with The Beatles’ song "Yesterday".

You'll remember the minor third descendent with The Beatles’ song “Hey Jude”.

You'll remember the major third descendent with the song “Niño lindo”.

You'll remember the perfect four descendent with the Mozart’s song “Eine kleine Nachtmusik”.

You'll remember the augmented fourth descendent with the Pearl Jam’s song “Even Flow”.

You'll remember the perfect fifth descendent with the song of “The Flintstones”.

You'll remember the minor sixth descendent with the song “Theme From Love Story”.

You'll remember the major sixth descendent with the Louis Armstrong’ song “Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen”.

You'll remember the minor seventh descendent with the George Gershwin’s song “An American in Paris”.

You'll remember the major seventh descendent with the Cole Porter’s song “I love you”.

You'll remember the perfect octave descendent with the song “D'Artacan y los 3 Mosqueperros”.

If you don't have a piano at home, I recommend you use https://virtualpiano.net/ to practice the musical intervals.

I edited these audio samples with "Audacity" and uploaded them to my SoundCloud. In addition, I sang a cappella some of these songs with lyrics so that you could accurately identify the intervals and with my keyboard, I highlighted the intervals in songs that had no lyrics.

Also in the keyboard images I marked the distance of every interval.

I hope this post has helped you to learn the musical intervals!

If you are new, I invite you to see the first part here: How to learn musical intervals easily? (Part 1)

I send you a hug!