Major seventh interval

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Does anyone know a song that starts out with a major seventh interval?

― Benjamin Kaufman (jamin), Sunday, 12 March 2006 18:50 (twenty years ago)

no way, that's one of the shittiest intervals on the scene right now.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Sunday, 12 March 2006 19:02 (twenty years ago)

When I was learning intervals at school, the example of a major seventh we were told to memorise was at the beginning of Bali Ha'i from South Pacific. It kind of cheats though, cos it spans the octave (briefly) before slippping down to the major seventh.

I can't think of any others.

― JimD (JimD), Sunday, 12 March 2006 19:10 (twenty years ago)

even thinking about Bali Ha'i's opening melodic gambit opens the portal to the realm of the giant locusts

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Sunday, 12 March 2006 19:47 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

Maria from West Side Story

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 (twenty years ago)

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

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

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

"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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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

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

Nick Drake's "Horn" starts out with one

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

(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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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

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

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

(the root note of the chord, that is)

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

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 (twenty years ago)

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

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

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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

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

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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

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

Put it out. Could be a million-seller.

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

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

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

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

Aha! Wikipedia's got the scoop!

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

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (twenty years ago)

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 (nineteen years ago)

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

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 (nineteen years ago)

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 (nineteen years ago)

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