home \ music theory II \ page 5

Intervals above the octave

We have looked at the intevals within an octave. That, however, is not where it stops. There is a set of intervals above the octave that comes in handy to know, especially when you are interested in chords (which will be the subject of part III of this course). We will look at the intervals above the octave that have some practical use only. That are the ninth (9), the tenth(10), the eleventh(11) and the thirteenth(13).

The ninth

When you start counting at one, it is the ninth letter.

The ninth can occur as major, minor, diminished of augmented:

• Major ninth: a distance of seven whole tones. E.g. C-D'(note the apostrophe, which means one octave higher), D-E', G-A'
• Minor ninth: a distance of six and a half tones. E.g. C-Db', D-Eb', G-Ab', E-F'
• Diminished ninth: a distance of six tones. E.g. C#-Db', D#-Eb', G#-Ab'
• Augmented ninth: a distance of seven and a half tones. E.g. C-D#', G-A#'

A major ninth is often written as a "normal" 9. A minor 9 is written as b9,
an augmented nine as #9.

Audio examples of the ninth

Respectively a major, minor, diminished and augmented ninth

The tenth

When you start counting at one, it is the tenth letter.

Also the tenth can occur as major, minor, diminished of augmented. The one that is important, is the minor tenth:

• Minor tenth: a distance of seven and a half tones. E.g. C-Eb', D-F'

A minor tenth can be written as b10 (flat ten). It sounds the same as #9. In music, the b10 or #9 is often written as an addition to chords. E.g E7#9, which is the same as E7b10

Audio examples of the minor tenth

Respectively a minor tenth interval, and the E7b10 (=E7#9) chord

The eleventh

You probably get it by now....when you start counting at one, it is the eleventh letter.

There is a perfect, dimished and augmented eleventh. We'll look at the common perfect and augmented eleventh:

• Perfect eleventh: eight and a half tones. E.g. C-F', or D-G'
• Augmented eleventh: nine tones. E.g. C-F#', or D-G#'.

So the augmented eleventh is an octave + a tritonus.
Or... it is a perfect octave + a augmented fourth. So in some way, we have two intervals on top op each other. That is why intervals above the octave are also called "compound intervals".

It's the same for the other intervals:

• A ninth = perfect octave + second.
• A tenth = perfect octave + third.
• An eleventh = prefect octave + fourth.
• After the audio example, we will look at the thirteenth, which is a perfect octave + sixth.

The augmented eleventh is often written as #11, or +11

Audio examples of the eleventh

Respectively a perfect eleventh and an augmented eleventh.

The thirteenth

The last interval in this course is the thirteenth. Nothing new here, it is letter number thirteen. The thirteen can be major or minor, dimished or augmented. The only two interesting ones in daily life are the major and minor variant:

• Major thirteenth: ten and a half tone. E.g. C-A'
• Minor thirteenth: teb tones. E.g. C-Ab'

Minor thirteenth is often written as b13 (flat thirteenth)

Audio examples of the thirteenth

Respectively a major and minor thirteenth

What's next?

We have looked at all common intevals. What's next. Well, we have only looked at intervals that go up. How about intervals that go down in pitch? We'll look at that on the next page of this course.

Index   Previous   Next

Home