Diminished chords

[jzucker]

Originally Posted by Richard Lindsey

It's entirely relevant. If, for instance, someone's a folkie

Whether you're a folkie or not doesn't matter. What matters is the tonality of the song. Yes, there are many rock songs where the I chord is a 7th chord and yes there are examples of min keys where the ii chord is a min7 put for the most part, the ii chord in a minor key is a half diminished chord.

anyway, whateva - you are just looking for a fight.

bye

[Richard Lindsey]

Originally Posted by jzucker

Do you just like arguing?

About as much as you do, it seems.

[Richard Lindsey]

Originally Posted by jzucker

anyway, whateva - you are just looking for a fight.

bye

Fight? What fight? Do you always regard disagreement as fighting? Whatever.

[Correlli]

There's a very dissonant tone to this thread

[All_¥our_Bass]

hahaha

[cowsgomoo]

Originally Posted by btrag

How often are these chords featured in pop music?

i'll assume we're talking about good ol diatonic half-diminished, minor7flat5 chords, since I don't want to get into a willy-waving competition

aswell as functioning as yer typical subtonic/leading chords, where they resolve a semitone up to the tonic chord, in pop music you'll also often find diminished (and augmented) chords functioning as passing chords, chromatically linking two less tense chords together... eg... Cmaj7 - C#m7b5 - Dm7... in that example the C#m7b5 functions as a Cmaj7 with a raised root, moving you towards the Dm7

chromatically sliding around chord tones is always a fun way to introduce tension & release & direction into your chord sequences... eg C /// C+ /// Am /// Ab+ /// augmented is even more fun than half-diminished because it's symmetry (enharmonically there are only 4 different augmented chords) means it can resolve effectively in several different places

[stratology]

A few thoughts about using diminished 7th chords: (not m7/b5)


- the scale underlying these chords is not minor, it's symmetrical diminished.

- you can also call it half-step/whole step, or whole step/half step (depending on which note you begin with), as this is the way the scale is constructed.

- it has 8 different notes, as opposed to major or minor, which have 7

- use half step/whole step if you play over a dominant chord, e.g. if you play over A7/b9, use A half step/whole step:
A Bb C C# D# E F# G = 1 b9 #9 3 #11 5 13 b7 (ignore spelling)

- use whole step/half step if you see the underlying chord as diminished 7th, e.g. if you play over Adim7, use A whole step/half step

- diminished 7th chords are constructed by stacking minor 3rds

- you can move the same voicing of the chord up in minor thirds on the fretboard, the chord remains the same

- take a diminished 7th chord, like (ignore spellings) Bb-Db-E-G, and add a leading note to each tone -> A-C-Eb-Gb, (a dim7 a half step below the original one). The notes of both chords added are the notes of the symmetrical diminished scale.

- there are only 3 symmetrical diminished scales.
Example: E, F, Gb. (G would be the same as E, Ab same as F, etc)

- all notes of a dim7 chords can be the root, e.g. Bb-Db-E-G works as Bbdim7, Dbdim7, Edim7 and Gdim7. This means the chords are ambiguous, you can use them to shift between keys.

- I like to think of the 'root' of a dim7 chord as 'leading note' to the following chord. You can use dim7 as passing chords between chords a step apart, e.g. Fm6-F#dim7-Gm7

- Dim7 are most often used for dominant chords (7/b9). Again, 4 possible roots per chord, this time the leading notes are the roots: Bb-Db-E-G works as A7/b9, C7/b9, Eb7/b9 and Gb7/b9.

- check out the major and minor 3rds, and major and minor triads contained within the symmetrical diminished scales.

- for variations on a dim7 chord, you can lower each chord note 1/2 step, or rise it 1 step.
E.g. variations of Bb-Db-E-G:
A-Db-E-G (= A-C#-E-G, a plain A7), or
Bb-Db-E-A
(leaving 3 original chord notes and rising 1 leaves enough of the original dim7 flavour..)

- does using F melodic minor over E7alt look a lot easier now?


Frank