Major seventh interval

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Yep, it always reminds me of the song the little fairy ladies sing when they need to wake Mothra.

― JimD (JimD), Sunday, 12 March 2006 19:55 (eighteen years ago) link

Maria from West Side Story

― team jaxon (jaxon), Sunday, 12 March 2006 21:09 (eighteen years ago) link

"Maria" starts with a tritone, not a major seventh.

― Dan (Trying To Think Of One) Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 12 March 2006 21:24 (eighteen years ago) link

(Actually "Maria" starts with a half-step!)

― Dan (Duh Me) Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 12 March 2006 21:25 (eighteen years ago) link

no you were right the first time. Maria starts with a diminished 5th

― Jamin (jamin), Sunday, 12 March 2006 21:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Pure Imagination (from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - the 8th to 9th notes)
http://www.musicalintervalstutor.info/listenpg.html

― team jaxon (jaxon), Sunday, 12 March 2006 22:04 (eighteen years ago) link

i guess it doesn't start out w/as it's the 8th & 9th notes

― team jaxon (jaxon), Sunday, 12 March 2006 22:05 (eighteen years ago) link

OK, not the beginning either, but I've always remembered it by the part in Moon River where it goes "I'm crossing you in style". The "I'm" to "crossing" is a seventh. It's my favorite instance, anyhow.

― Okeigh, Sunday, 12 March 2006 23:57 (eighteen years ago) link

First of all, M@tt if you don't have anything insightful to say, just shut up. Second, this is to settle a bet, so i need a song in which the first two notes are a major 7th interval. lastly, M@tt, your an idiot.

― Jamin (jamin), Monday, 13 March 2006 00:30 (eighteen years ago) link

I feel like there are tons and tons of punk songs that start with the major 7th. I remember playing them when I was young and had a mohawk.

― trees (treesessplode), Monday, 13 March 2006 00:35 (eighteen years ago) link

"I feel like there are tons and tons of punk songs that start with the major 7th"

that's probably an incorrect feeling

― hdasjk, Monday, 13 March 2006 01:02 (eighteen years ago) link

You could look here but you might find better luck here

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Monday, 13 March 2006 01:14 (eighteen years ago) link

i'm right and you're wrong-- just found one on a 7" by the Disenchanted, circa 1998.

sucka.

― trees (treesessplode), Monday, 13 March 2006 01:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Just to clarify, i'm talking about major 7th interval not chord

― Jamin (jamin), Monday, 13 March 2006 01:58 (eighteen years ago) link

Nick Drake's "Horn" starts out with one

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 13 March 2006 02:53 (eighteen years ago) link

(unless you count the high C as the first rather than the second note of the melody)

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 13 March 2006 02:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Look in any Jazz fakebook and you will find a few. Tons of Jazz standards begin with a major seventh chord but it's pretty rare that the melody begins on the seventh, but I know a couple. "It's The Talk Of The Town" (written by Jerry Livingston) begins in FMaj7 with the melody begining on an E ("I can't show my.."). "Copenhagen (Charlie Davis) begins in EbMaj7 with the melody begining on D.

Search the works of Richard Rogers, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. Practically all their songs begin with Major 7th chords.

― everything, Monday, 13 March 2006 04:38 (eighteen years ago) link

Read the thread dude. Major seventh interval, as in melody, not major seventh chord.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Monday, 13 March 2006 04:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Those two songs begin on the major seventh interval. I meant search the works of those composers (whose songs generally begin in a Maj7th chord) and you will likely find some more examples.

― everything, Monday, 13 March 2006 04:56 (eighteen years ago) link

But I think the idea is songs where the first two notes comprise a major-7th leap, like from a C up to a B. You're just giving examples of songs that start on a major-7th interval relative to the root note, which may not even be used in the melody at all.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 13 March 2006 05:03 (eighteen years ago) link

(the root note of the chord, that is)

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 13 March 2006 05:03 (eighteen years ago) link

no you were right the first time. Maria starts with a diminished 5th

"Maria" starts with "The most beautiful sound I ever heard..." and the first pitch change in the melody is an ascending half-step.

― Dan (So I Was Right The Second Time) Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 13 March 2006 05:38 (eighteen years ago) link

Prince "Condition of the Heart" - vocal melody starts with arpeggiated maj7

― dave q (listerine), Monday, 13 March 2006 17:49 (eighteen years ago) link

the melody of "Meinetwegen" by the Claudia Quintet (written by John Hollenbeck) starts with the interval in question.

― Theodore, Monday, 13 March 2006 22:13 (eighteen years ago) link

if we're not strictly speaking VOCAL MELODIES here then the guitar part for Cocteau Twins' "How to Bring a Blush to the Snow" starts off A-G#-E

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 13 March 2006 22:38 (eighteen years ago) link

Curtis's attention to detail is to be applauded. Really.

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Not sure if that was supposed to be sarcastic or not.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Monday, 13 March 2006 22:44 (eighteen years ago) link

You'd better kill him just to be safe.

― Dan (THAT'S How We Roll In The I-L-M) Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:48 (eighteen years ago) link

It wasn't at all, but I guess it came out reading like an RJG post. Sorry.

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:49 (eighteen years ago) link

I mean some people read the thread and mention any song that has Maj7 chord or a major seventh somewhere in the melody. Some otherwise very intelligent people, or so I assume.

(I'd put a parenthesized wisecrack in my Full Name field for Dan, but I don't want my email address unobscured when this post is excelsiored)

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Monday, 13 March 2006 22:54 (eighteen years ago) link

According to Harvard, it's never been done!!!

http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~musie100/Interval_Associations.html

― darin (darin), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:04 (eighteen years ago) link

That must have been the day Dan missed class.

*(Oh Snap)

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:10 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm joking, of course. It's weird that it's so hard to find any decent examples of this.

― darin (darin), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:28 (eighteen years ago) link

Are they hard to find because it's hard to sing or vice-versa?

*(I Can't Sing It, Can You?)

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:31 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't think the interval is necessarily difficult to sing, but since all sevenths are dissonant intervals, they probably sound strange in most pop songs, especially at the beginning of a phrase. Major sevenths probably occur more often in jazz. Or maybe someone like Bjork does it a lot. I dunno.

― darin (darin), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:45 (eighteen years ago) link

That's what I was thinking earlier. It's a bitch to sing, it's very hard not to hit the octave or the minor seventh instead. Course, I'm a shit singer and lots of proper classically trained singers can presumably do it without thinking. But still, if it's so hard for us laymen to hear, it's probably pretty hard to listen to as well, which might be why it's usually avoided.

I wouldn't be surprised if Schoenberg has one of these somewhere in his twelve tone stuff (or if one of his serialist apprentices does). I'm not familliar enough with any of it to know though.

(oh, xpost)

― JimD (JimD), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Hmm, ok...just picked up a guitar instead of trying to do this all in my head, and now I've changed my mind about most of what I said in that last post. Cos once I could hear it properly and get it fixed in my mind, I found it really easy to sing. And by noodling around a bit I even managed to come up with a little melody that starts with a major seventh and doesn't even sound particularly dissonant, it could easily be a poppy little tune.

So there you go, I just wrote a song that starts with one! And I have to admit, it reminds me of something else too, buggered if I can remember what though.

― JimD (JimD), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:53 (eighteen years ago) link

Damn it! I was going to try that when I got home tonight!

― darin (darin), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Put it out. Could be a million-seller.

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Monday, 13 March 2006 23:58 (eighteen years ago) link

Heh, so far it's only 5 seconds long. I'll work on it.

― JimD (JimD), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 00:04 (eighteen years ago) link

OK this is bothering me: The Simpsons theme definitely starts out with a major 3rd then a major 2nd, doesn't it? Those add up to a tritone but it's not a single note change!

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Tuesday, 14 March 2006 00:21 (eighteen years ago) link

I thought the Simpsons theme started with a diminished 5th that then resolved into a perfect 5th. I don't know what key it is off-hand, but if we pretend it starts on C, the next two notes are F#-G.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 00:24 (eighteen years ago) link

Oh! Curtis! It's the very beginning of the theme, with the choir of heavenly voices that sings "THE SIMP-SONS!" Before the woodwinds come in.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 00:27 (eighteen years ago) link

THE SIMP-SONS! I just saw a show named the simpsons! And suddenly that show will never...etc etc.

― JimD (JimD), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 00:31 (eighteen years ago) link

Ha. My friend was doing that the other day with Dragnet

Bum buh-dum-bump
Bum buh-dum-Ma-RI-a

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 00:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Aha! Wikipedia's got the scoop!

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 02:52 (eighteen years ago) link

Take On Me! OMG, that's so obvious now they've mentioned it (and is the thing my little tune was reminding me of!).

Although it's the first two notes of the chorus rather than of the whole song, so it's still not quite the right answer.

― JimD (JimD), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 03:04 (eighteen years ago) link

Seems to me that Geir's been asleep at the wheel on this one.

― The Day The World Turned Dayglo Redd (Ken L), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 03:09 (eighteen years ago) link

seven months pass...

the triste canto/"terra addio" aria from Aida does this. (Gb to F) six months, that's all i got.

― le hague (le hague), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 05:30 (seventeen years ago) link

― Nigel (Nigel), Tuesday, 17 October 2006 22:43 (seventeen years ago) link

also related, from the Marina Records website:

richard carpenter once said:
"I love major sevenths", and so do we!

― hank (hank s), Wednesday, 18 October 2006 00:30 (seventeen years ago) link

For as long as I can remember, I've had a bias against this interval. Rather, the interval, divorced of a chord, is pretty cool, but a chord of 1-3-5-maj7 to me has *always* been something to dread, unless it was inserted in so completely an out-of-the-blue moment that I couldn't process it as a "lame melodramatic chord". I don't know why I have a problem with the major-maj7 chord, but I do. (I suspect the physics of this chord resolve into more consonances than the more-agreeable-to-me major-minor7, or major-9 w/minor7)

That said, a melody jumping from 1 to maj7 is pretty bold. I've tried this myself, and it's hard to fuck up; the interval is so large, and since you don't actually end up jumping an octave, it's also very dramatic. I wish I could make amends w/the chord.

― Dominique (dleone), Wednesday, 18 October 2006 01:59 (seventeen years ago) link

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