What is a Minor 3rd?

[Jules]

What is a Minor 3rd?

A minor 3rd is a musical interval made up of three half steps (or semitones).
It’s the distance between two notes where the higher note is three frets higher on a guitar or three keys higher (including black keys) on a piano.

For example:

From C to E♭

From A to C

From E to G

Minor 3rds have a sad, dark, or melancholic sound, and they’re one of the building blocks of minor chords (for instance, an A minor chord is A–C–E).

Familiar Examples of Minor 3rds

• [] The first two notes of “Nanny Nanny Boo Boo” — that teasing taunt starts with a descending minor 3rd.

  [] The first two notes of the song "Greensleeves" (or "What Child Is This") – the opening melodic drop is a minor 3rd.

  [] The "sad" doorbell chime in many older homes — ding-dong — is a descending minor 3rd.

  [] The first two notes of "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple – that iconic riff features a minor 3rd interval.

• The start of "Hey Jude" (“Hey Jude…”) – the melody rises by a minor 3rd.

In Summary:

A minor 3rd is three semitones apart and gives music a somber, introspective, or sometimes even playfully mocking character — like “Nanny Nanny Boo Boo.”

It’s one of the most recognizable and emotionally expressive intervals in all of music.

[tcbetka]

Heh, this thread brings back memories...

When I was a young(ish) lad, I became a "music" major in college. Not that I wanted to be a music major mind you, but if I declared that as my major, then I would get private drum lessons from a University faculty member, paid for by the University. So a music major I became. Well, the only problem with that was that to be a music major, you needed to take 1) piano lessons, and 2) music theory courses. As in, THREE semesters of music theory. How hard could it be, I figured? Yeah, well...pretty hard as it turned out.

The piano lessons were quite straightforward for the most part. I had to learn to read notes (as in "real" notes, not drum stuff), but that wasn't terrible. And when people were struggling with left-vs-right hand independence, I flew right through that stuff of course...being a drummer for about 8 years at that point. But then there was the music theory thing. And that included sight-singing.

If you've never had to do it, it went something like this: The professor, a chinese fellow that apparently invented the treble clef, would play a note on the piano, and each person would take turns singing whatever interval he specified. At first he'd tell us what note he was playing (yeah, big help for me there...lol), but then later he wouldn't even do that. He'd just play a note, and say "sing a major 7th above it," or "sing a minor third below it." It didn't take long at all before the entire rest of the class knew I was a poser as a "music major."

Yeah, no. Not gonna happen for me.

In the end though, I made it through the first semester with a C+ or something. I sucked at it, lol. The free drum lessons (the instructor wasn't even very good by the way) quickly became a minimal benefit to me--and certainly NOT worth the pain I was sure to be exposed to in the second semester of music theory. So I dropped it and went into something easier...pre-med. True story.