If any of you have ever done ear training you have almost certainly encountered the method for recognising intervals which is based on memorising the first couple of notes from songs you know.

For example, first two notes of:

Isn’t She Lovely – Minor 2nd
Frères Jacques- Major 2nd
Greensleeves – Minor 3rd
Oh, when the Saints – Major 3rd
Here comes the Bride – 4th
Maria – tritone
Twinkle, Twinkle – 5th
Go down Moses – Minor 6th
My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean – Major 6th
Somewhere- Minor 7th
Superman Theme – Major 7th
Singin’ in the Rain- Octave

If you don’t know all of those, here’s a list with several alternatives.

But there are also songs which specify the intervals sung in the lyrics. Here, for example, is The Interval Song by Django Bates, which I think everyone should know.

Here’s another one, which changes the words to the Christmas Song to sing about various elements of musical theory:

Finally, slightly different, but a lot of fun, this is Bobby McFerrin literally jumping around the pentatonic scale and claiming that it is written into everyone’s mind.