Editing Interval (music) (section)

== Generic and specific intervals ==
{{Main|Specific interval | Generic interval}}
In [[diatonic set theory]], [[specific interval|specific]] and [[generic interval]]s are distinguished. Specific intervals are the interval class or number of semitones between scale steps or collection members, and generic intervals are the number of diatonic scale steps (or staff positions) between notes of a collection or scale.

Notice that staff positions, when used to determine the conventional interval number (second, third, fourth, etc.), are counted including the position of the lower note of the interval, while generic interval numbers are counted excluding that position. Thus, generic interval numbers are smaller by 1, with respect to the conventional interval numbers.

=== Comparison ===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center"
|- style="vertical-align:bottom;"
! colspan="2" | [[Specific interval]]
! rowspan="2" | [[Generic interval]]
! rowspan="2" style="text-align: left"| Diatonic name
|-
! Number of semitones
! [[Interval class]]
|-
| 0 || 0 || 0 ||align="left"| Perfect unison
|-
| 1 || 1 || 1 ||align="left"| Minor second
|-
| 2 || 2 || 1 ||align="left"| Major second
|-
| 3 || 3 || 2 ||align="left"| Minor third
|-
| 4 || 4 || 2 ||align="left"| Major third
|-
| 5 || 5 || 3 ||align="left"| Perfect fourth
|-
| 6 || 6 || 3 <br/> 4 ||align="left"| Augmented fourth <br/> Diminished fifth
|-
| 7 || 5 || 4 ||align="left"| Perfect fifth
|-
| 8 || 4 || 5 ||align="left"| Minor sixth
|-
| 9 || 3 || 5 ||align="left"| Major sixth
|-
| 10 || 2 || 6 ||align="left"| Minor seventh
|-
| 11 || 1 || 6 ||align="left"| Major seventh
|-
| 12 || 0 || 7 ||align="left"| Perfect octave
|}