Understanding and recognizing guitar intervals is a fundamental musical skill – this lesson will train both brain and ear and enhance your melodic sensibility

Andy Wood.

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first Guitar World column! I’d like to start off with an essential element of musical understanding, which is the knowledge of intervals. To illustrate, I’ll cite a passage from my song Believe, from my new album, Charisma.

An interval is the distance between two notes, measured in half steps and whole steps. Believe offers a great way to examine intervallic relationships, as there’s a repeating, droning root note throughout the opening melody, and it’s helpful to be aware of the intervallic relationship between the root and each individual melody note.