Interval recognition : should I use reference songs?

Question

I am at the beginning of my journey to learn singing. To master interval recognition, my teacher and many people recommend using reference songs (the first 2 notes of the song corresponding to the interval).

I have a nagging worry that this method makes it much faster on the short-term to perform this task, but slower in the long term, because my brain does not jump from sound to interval name, but it needs to go sound -> song -> interval name.

A little bit in the same way that when you learn multiplication tables, you can be faster on the short term by using tricks (9 * N is 10 * N - N), but this becomes slower in the long term.

While many online resources recommend using reference songs, this website seems to caution slightly against it:

The first method is “reference songs”. [...]

This method is the one usually used when music students are forced to learn interval recognition just for the “aural skills” section of their instrument exams. It’s actually a great way to get started, but you will quickly realise it is very limited for real music applications where you can’t recognise each song for each pair of intervals quickly enough. It’s also not great for harmonic intervals.

Are there some scientifically grounded evidence that could help answer that dilemna?

Answer 1

I definitely used reference songs, and the caveat is definitely well made.

One advanced technique is to use different reference songs for the same interval depending on the harmonic and melodic context. For example, the list I just consulted offered "Greensleeves" for the minor third. In that melody, the first two notes are the first and third degrees of the minor scale (or Dorian, depending on which variant of Greensleeves you know). But sometimes a minor third is the third and fifth degree of the major scale, for which I would use Henry Purcell's Fairest Isle. You might also find an ascending minor third between the seventh and second (a.k.a. ninth) degrees of the major scale.

You might also need examples for descending intervals. Both the Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams and Lennon' and McCartney's Hey Jude start with a descending minor third, but in a different harmonic context. To my ear, therefore, they sound somewhat different.

Start with reference songs suggested by others, but plan to develop your own set. Look at the intervals in your own favorite songs. You too may find, as I do, that you start to judge intervals relative to the tonic note, so, to use another example, the various major seconds in the major scale feel different from one another.

I have a nagging worry that this method makes it much faster on the short-term to perform this task, but slower in the long term, because my brain does not jump from sound to interval name, but it needs to go sound -> song -> interval name.

Brains are good at developing shortcuts. You'll bypass the song soon enough. Young children learning to read start out by looking at individual letters and determining which word they represent, but, very quickly, they learn to identify common words as a unit, all at once. The same will come for you.

In fact, when I'm sight singing, I don't even think, "aha, that big interval coming up is a major sixth"; rather, the mental shortcut goes straight from the page to the pitches. This skill arises from repetition, and before you develop it, you'll need some other tool to get from one step in the mental process to the next. Don't worry about it. You'll find that you no longer need to rely on reference songs in fairly short order.