use of diminished chords

[bass555]

i'm a pretty good student of diatonic harmony and I have played numerous songs with dim chords (covers), but, as a writer, I simply have not had the "instinct" of where and when to apply dim chords in my songs...is it a setup thing?

A dim chord is basically two min 3rds stacked, right?...do you fellows just play the root or do you get adventuresome and play the extended chord tones, as well

I guess aug chords are welcome in this thread, too...

Stupid aug chords (/Homer)

[small, heavy be]

i'm actually dealing with the aug thing right now.
i have a progression that goes from Bbminor to A aug to Dmaj, which is cool because it allows me to do a chromatic descent while pedaling the third on my G (for the first two).
i kind of came into this accidentally, though, and i really don't know much past that about it.
wish i did, though, cuz if i were more familiar with the aug. chords i think the bassline could really pick up some steam.

[Correlli]

A Diminished chord can have 4 possible key centers - Root, 3rd, 5th, and 7th.

That's as much as I know.

[Petary791]

A Diminished chord is a minor chord with a flat 5th. Check out the song Glass Sandwich by Primus. It's based on an A diminished.

[Getao]

Diminished is more than flat fifth... that's half diminished (locrian)

Diminished also has a double flatted seventh

EG in Cdim, the notes are C, Eb (min 3), Gb (min 5), Bbb or A (dbl flat seven)

[Tash]

Fully diminished chords are wonderful things, especially the Dim7. As other have noted they are made of stacked minor 3rds, which makes them symetrical. That means a given Dim7 chord could actually be an inversion of 4 different chords. This makes them a great tool for modulating (Bach was very fond of this).

Also they have a pair of tritone, which aside from sounding cool by themselves, have nifty ways of resolving to a variety of stable chords.

[Jazzin']

Originally Posted by Getao

Diminished is more than flat fifth... that's half diminished (locrian)

Diminished also has a double flatted seventh

EG in Cdim, the notes are C, Eb (min 3), Gb (min 5), Bbb or A (dbl flat seven)

Locrian isn't a diminished 5th, it's an augmented 4th. The 5th is a perfect 5th in a locrian scale. Locrian is R , +2 , +3 , x4 , P5 , +6 , +7 (+:major , x:augmented , Perfect)

[slybass3000]

There is a lot in a diminished chord. First it is a symetrical chord with 3 minor thirds on top of each others: Co7 would be C,Eb,Gb and A (or Bbb). If you add an other minor third, you are back to the starting point (C). So every diminished chord could be thought as 4 chords Co7,Ebo7,Gbo7 or Ao7. The root movement will tell you what is the starting note of the diminished chord. Actually there are only 3 differents diminished chords or scales that cover all the keys: Co,C#o and Do. Then you are back to an inversion of C diminished startind on Eb.
Here is an example of an use of this chord: you're in C Maj moving to a D min7. You can link the 2 chords by using a C#o7 between the C and D ,making a nice chromatic root movement and adding new colors to the harmony (C# and Bb). Now the fun part is that this chord (C#o7) can be seen as an incomplete A7(b9) or A7(b9)/C# which would be the dominant chord of the Dmin7, making a nice V7 to Imin feel. So there is a lot in that diminished chord.
Hope this will help
Bassically,
SB

[Pacman]

Originally Posted by Jazzin'

Locrian isn't a diminished 5th, it's an augmented 4th. The 5th is a perfect 5th in a locrian scale. Locrian is R , +2 , +3 , x4 , P5 , +6 , +7 (+:major , x:augmented , Perfect)

That's Lydian, the 4th mode of major. Locrain, which is 1, b2, b3, 4, b5, b5, b7, is the the 7th mode of major.