Download Benward Chapter 9

Chapter Nine
Intervals: The Major Triad and the
Interval of the Perfect Fifth
The Triad



Chord: Three or more different tones
sounding together.
A chord that consists of three different
tones, each a third apart, is called a triad.
Triads have formed the basis for the music
since the beginning of the fifteenth
century.

Tones of the triad may be arranged in different
orders or placed in different octaves, but if the
names of the notes are the same, the chord
preserves its identity. It is always possible to
reassemble the notes in thirds to show its
construction.
The Major Triad

A triad with a major third on the bottom
and a minor third on top.
Interval: The Perfect Fifth (P5)


The interval between the bottom and top
notes of a triad is a perfect fifth.
It contains seven half steps.
Songs used to identify a
Perfect Fifth


Ascending: do-sol, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,
Theme from 2001, Whisper Not (Benny Golson),
Bags Grove, Lavender’s Blue, Hey There Georgy
Girl, Theme from Star Wars, Baa Baa Black
Sheep
Descending: sol-do, Feelings, 7 Steps to Heaven
(Miles Davis), Have You Met Miss Jones?,
Minuette in G, Flinstones, Bring a Torch
Jeannette Isabella, It Don’t Mean a Thing if it
Ain’t Got That Swing
The Names of the Triad Tones


Each member of the triad is named in relation to
the tone on which the chord is constructed,
which is the root of the triad. The note a third
above the root is called the third of the triad.
The fifth above the root is the fifth of the triad.
Triads are named by the root and the quality of
sound: thus, in the following example, a major
triad built on C is called the C major triad.
The Diminished Fifth (d5)


If a fifth is built on each note of any major scale,
all but one of the fifths will have seven half
steps (perfect fifths). One fifth, however, has
only six half steps. Its quality of sound is so
totally different from that of the perfect fifth that
it is called diminished.
The diminished fifth has six half steps and is also
referred to as a tritone.
Songs Used to identify a
diminished fifth


Ascending: Maria (West Side Story), Simpson’s
Theme Song, ti-fa
Descending: European Siren, Blue Seven (Sandy
Rollins), fa, ti
How to Write Fifths


The first harmony in Western European
music was based on the interval of the
perfect fifth, back in the ninth century.
(organum)
All fifths are perfect as long as the
accidentals match. The exception is any
fifth starting on a B.
Music with Melodies Set with
Fifths

After the Middle Ages, composers avoided
writing successions of perfect intervals.
However, at the end of the nineteenth
century, composers such as Debussy
again became fascinated with the sounds
of fifths.