Intervals

The distance between two musical pitches is called an interval. Intervals may be
either melodic (sounded separately as in a melody) or harmonic (sounded together, as in
a chord).

Every interval description has two parts:
Quantity
Quality

Quantity describes a numeric value, like a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc.
Quality describes differences within numeric values:
Major, minor, augmented, diminished, or perfect.

All of the intervals above the first note (or tonic) of a major scale
are either Major or Perfect. (See example below).
2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th's above the tonic are major.
4th, 5th, 8ve (octave), and 1 (unison) are perfect.

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