Video: The most important interval on guitar?

[Christian Miller]

[pcjazz]

Let me guess before viewing : m3rd

Although 6th and 10th are also indispensable.

[Jonah]

Handy playing at the beginning)

as for interval .. I guess Wes would vote for an octave)

[0zoro]

Thanks for an enjoyable vid Christian! You create an atmosphere where I feel I have just dropped in on my musical neighbor, at ease and instructive.

[ragman1]

The most important interval on guitar

When I need a coffee, mostly.

[citizenk74]

The discovery of Tenths, maj and min, really opened up the fretboard for me. That, and Jerry Hahn's column in Guitar Player (my pre-internet go-to), set me on a path of musical exploration. It became less about reproducing extant music and more about creating music from within.

[James W]

A most useful video, thanks.

[Christian Miller]

The most important interval on guitar

When I need a coffee, mostly.

[ccroft]

Good stuff here! I've been into moving 10th's diatonically for quite some time, but I never actually noticed how many of the voicings we like so much are built around that. Hippy that I was I never thought about it.

FWIW: when I saw "most important interval on guitar" I thought of unisons. We have so many more of them than most instruments, and it goes a long way towards knowing the fretboard to know where to find them.

10ths sure sound a whole lot prettier though :-)

[Christian Miller]

Good stuff here! I've been into moving 10th's diatonically for quite some time, but I never actually noticed how many of the voicings we like so much are built around that. Hippy that I was I never thought about it.

FWIW: when I saw "most important interval on guitar" I thought of unisons. We have so many more of them than most instruments, and it goes a long way towards knowing the fretboard to know where to find them.

10ths sure sound a whole lot prettier though :-)

maybe I’ll do a series of ‘the most important interval’ haha

[grahambop]

By the way Martin Taylor uses that 10ths approach in his ‘chord-melody’ book. He uses it as the starting point and constructs his whole solo guitar concept around it.

[James W]

By the way Martin Taylor uses that 10ths approach in his ‘chord-melody’ book. He uses it as the starting point and constructs his whole solo guitar concept around it.

Funny you should mention this, because I recently purchased said book and have browsed the first few chapters, so I had the same thought as you.

[Christian Miller]

By the way Martin Taylor uses that 10ths approach in his ‘chord-melody’ book. He uses it as the starting point and constructs his whole solo guitar concept around it.

Yes, of course. I remember that book now.

[KingKong]

Its a nice vid @chtistian Miller, but 10th, the most important interval??? What a click bait title lol!

I was glad you referenced blackbird near the end as that is basically what this is, from the first 10 or so seconds I had that in my head.

Can only be one most important interal in my opinion, the minor 3rd. Gotta be the most heard thing in pretty much all of music.

But I digress from the video itself, which is a very nice bit of free information and inspiration.

[Christian Miller]

Its a nice vid @chtistian Miller, but 10th, the most important interval??? What a click bait title lol!

Nah a proper click bait title is - ‘the one MASSIVE thing you are missing in your playing’ with a thumbnail saying ‘you will never improve unless you do this one thing’. That’s how you do it!

I was glad you referenced blackbird near the end as that is basically what this is, from the first 10 or so seconds I had that in my head.

Can only be one most important interal in my opinion, the minor 3rd. Gotta be the most heard thing in pretty much all of music.

Why minor instead of major third?

But I digress from the video itself, which is a very nice bit of free information and inspiration.

Thanks!

[pcjazz]

Why minor instead of major third?

Because it is the diminished interval, from which (almost) all things flow ...

(Unless/until Coltrane)

[Christian Miller]

Because it is the diminished interval, from which (almost) all things flow ...

(Unless/until Coltrane)

Ah but the major is the augmented interval

checkmate!

in seriousness I’m rather fond of combinations of the two.

[KingKong]

What is the most important interval? Its a daft question really. U can't really say.

But here are the most important ones:

Minor 3rd.... staple in blues, essential for a minro sound.
Major 3rd .... essential for major sounding sound.
Perfect 4th... essential for nearly every nursery rhyme or pop song.
Perfect 5 essential for nearly every tune, esp jazz 251s.

No other interval can come close to these surely?!

To increase the daftness, someone should start a poll...

[Christian Miller]

What is the most important interval? Its a daft question really. U can't really say.

But here are the most important ones:

Minor 3rd.... staple in blues, essential for a minro sound.
Major 3rd .... essential for major sounding sound.
Perfect 4th... essential for nearly every nursery rhyme or pop song.
Perfect 5 essential for nearly every tune, esp jazz 251s.

No other interval can come close to these surely?!

To increase the daftness, someone should start a poll...

It is kind of daft, but then also I have given it a lot of thought.

What is less daft is when teaching intervals for fretboard harmony you have to decide what to teach and in what order. So it actually makes sense to assign an order of importance on this basis, right?

So to clarify, I think the 10th is the most important interval on guitar, not necessarily in music. I think I state my case reasonably coherently in the video.

BTW - I find it interesting that many posters are specifying what they think is the most important interval as a chromatic interval rather than I have done, a diatonic interval.

[cmajor9]

At least in the abstract, this seems kind of analogous to asking which color is most important in the rainbow.
I can only be glad to be able to use them all!