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Perfect unisons are unusual, because they are the same note.
In terms of frequency, a perfect unison has a 1:1 ratio.
Most instrumentalists don’t even consider a unison as one of the intervals, because there is no way to play a harmonic unison on most instruments. There are a few exceptions, like a multi keyboard harpsichord or organ. And, of course, like the guitar.
In this series, I will talk both about open intervals (those that use one or more open strings), and moveable intervals (the ones that have both notes fretted, and thus can be moved up and down the fretboard).
There are five open unisons on the guitar. Play the low E string at the 5th fret, and the open A string together. Now play A string 5th fret and open D. D string 5th fret and open G, G string 4th fret and open B, and B string 5th fret and open E.
For an example of the power of an open unison, think of the very opening of Hey Joe by Hendrix, where he slides from the D on the second string up to the unison E on the fifth fret playing it with the open E as a drone. It gives that opening is character and its power.
There is one simple moveable unison on the guitar. An example is playing the G sting fifth fret, and the B string 1st fret, which creates a unison C. This shape can be moved anywhere up the neck on those strings to give a different shape. The five fret stretch which you would need to create a unison on any of the other frets is too much for anyone except people with monster hands. Even the four fret stretch is a pain in the neck, and I can’t think of any example of someone using it extensively, though it is possible.
You can also create a unison with a string bend on adjacent strings. Here are two examples. You can play a unison A by playing the 1st string 5th fret, and doing a full bend from the 8th fret on the second string. Blues players do this type of unison all the time, and there are a number of examples in Brian’s lessons. On the second and third strings, you would create the same unison A by playing the second string 10th fret, and doing a full bend on the third string from the 12th fret.
I have attached complete tabs of all of the shapes for unisons (and also for octaves), so you can look at them visually.
I won’t go much into alterations of these intervals. An augmented unison keeps the same note and sharps the note, raising it a half step. A diminished unison lowers the second note a half step, keeping the same note name. When we identify intervals, we almost always start at the lower pitch. Thus, it will be rare to identify a diminished unison. (And in most cases, without knowing more, we would identify this sort of interval as a minor second, and not as a unison at all.)
Finally, for ear training purposes, people generally learn to identify intervals by picking a familiar song that starts with that interval. I doubt any of us have difficulty identifying a unison. They are the same note. But for the sake of completeness, I offer Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Night and Day as two examples of songs that begin with unisons.
(Note: I was going to cover octaves in this installment as well, but I decided that bite sized discussions would be better, not to mention easier on me. So octaves will be next.)
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It’s rare for someone to use a fretted unison when playing a chord. Its just to hard to either fret the notes without a bend, or to play a chord while bending. So mostly, these sorts of unisons would be used by lead players to add color variety to a solo, or perhaps for other technical reasons (like aiding the shift in hands).
Brian,in his lessons will often have a note played on the second string, and then a slide up on the third string to the same note. So, a G on the 8th fret for example, followed by a slide from the 10th to 12th fret on the third string. This gives a “fatter” sound to the second note, and allows a shift in hand position from one “box” to the next.
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