Diminished Chords on Guitar Video Lecture - The Ultimate Guitar Course

today we're going to talk a little bit
about diminished chords now the very
definition of diminished means less than
whole as you can imagine this does
wonders for the self-esteem of a
diminished chord being that it's name is
literally pointing how it is
shortcomings which makes it no surprise
that diminished chords sound so unstable
because of this glaring lack of
self-esteem so I thought we'd kind of
break down what they mean and hopefully
it they will be more easily understood
when to use them what they are etc
cetera now there are three types of
diminished chords as a diminished triad
a half diminished or minor 7 flat 5
chord or a full diminished chord which
is also known as a diminished 7th chord
so let's start with a diminished triad
again a triad is just a three note chord
so diminished triad would be a minor
chord with a flat 5 now what does that
mean let's take let's take a let's take
a right here right so a minor is a a C
and E playing together mid chord is a
nice minor sounding chord now if we were
to flatten the 5 the 5 being 1 2 3 4 5
right here this e here to flatten it
flatten it it make any flat right so on
our and arpeggio for a diminished triad
in a would be an a C and E flat now we
can put that together as a chord
starting with the root note here and it
would look like this we'd have the a on
the fifth fret of the E string the C on
the 3rd fret of the a string and then
the E flat right here but look at that
that's oh my god that's ridiculous
ok so I think especially like in rock
music diminished triads will be more
used between just using the flat 5 as
its own thing between the 1 so I'll
demonstrate that right now now if we
just take a power chord right in a power
chord and we kind of shoe like a rock
chug we can flatten the 5 just by taking
your ring finger going your middle
finger like this so
so we're taking a cord and we're making
it less stable by altering the
relationship between the 1 and the 5
which is like the strongest relationship
in music right now technically I don't
have the minor third in this chord I've
just taken a to know thing so one thing
you can do with diminished chords you
can take existing chords and make them
less stable and add a lot of tension
just by flattening the 5 now if we want
to take a more appropriate hand position
for a chord that is technically a
diminished triad you do an inversion so
let's do that same thing we're going to
do an a a C and E flat let's start with
the C now this is a really great lesson
in intervals right so a diminished chord
is essentially stacked intervals what
that means is an interval is just two
space between two notes so with an a we
have a three note interval also known as
a minor third right now a minor third
from a minor third will end up giving
you that flat five that's why that first
kind of voicing we did mmm we're just
going from five e to 3a and down a
string back two frets is a way to get to
a minor third if you just repeated that
here and minor third minor third we're
stacking these intervals on top of each
other but we're going to do it now and
in a way that makes more sense by doing
an inversion where we play the the third
first so the C is going to be first
we're gonna have to see here we're going
to have the flat five of a here there's
that minor cleared again but we're going
to take the octave a here so the
diminished triad voicing we're gonna
learn looks like this
and not just remember your root no is
actually we're middle finger is so you
can kind of take a root note that you
know maybe if you know this is a G you
can play it's triad by octave and down
and then making that chord just like
that right so those are diminished
triads and again we're just taking two
minor thirds and stacking them on top of
each other now the next type of
diminished chord would be a half demisch
more commonly known as a minor 7 flat 5
chord now I'm going to link to a video I
did on just minor 7 flat 5 chords but
again I think these are some of the
prettiest diminished chords like for
example here's a B minor 7 flat 5 now
the reason it's called half diminish is
because we're taking those minor thirds
but then we're adding um an interval
it's not a minor 3rd right so and a half
diminished minor 7 flat 5 but we're
taking a minor 7 chord and we're
flattening the 5 so it's a cool name of
court because it's telling you exactly
what you're doing now these are really
good and not just jazz progressions but
uses like passing tones now the half
diminished chord the minor 7 flat 5
chord occurs on the seventh note of any
scale right so in the key of c we have c
d e f G a B so in the key of C B half
diminished or B minor seven flat five
would be the chord that you could use
the natural extension and the key so
what does that mean let's take a
progression where we just go from a C
major to an a minor and back to a C
right to kind of create a little bit
more tension and release as they call it
in chord progressions we're going to add
that half diminished minor 7 flat 5
chord in there on the beat right so we
need a voicing for that the voice you're
going to use is an a string root voicing
that looks like this
so my root note is on the B the next
note is going to be the D string three D
to G with my middle finger my pinkie is
going to be on the D which is 3b right
so it would be two three two three
not really a super difficult voicing but
has a cool sound to it now this is going
to naturally resolve as this this is the
seventh chord in the key it's going to
naturally resolve on the one and again
this is the key of C so now if we added
it in that progression like we did
before between the a and the C it's
going to create more tension that's
going to be released with the C so we
have a which sounds a lot better than
just
I mean better is relative obviously but
half diminished chords are use as
passing chords you can connect any two
chords even if it's not in the key right
like let's just say I'm gonna go from
like a C major seven into like a D minor
seven I'm kind of skipping this note
right here right so let's say I'm going
back and forth so it's a different type
of tension it's not something that
resolves on the one but you can always
use it in passing so I just threw that -
7 flat 5 chord on the note in between
and I can just added something a little
bit different right now this is going to
take us to our third type of diminished
chord which is a diminished 7th chord
otherwise known as a full diminished
chord now this is actually pretty
interesting chord and this also comes
from stacking intervals so the first
tribe we did we stacked minor thirds on
top of each other that gave us three
notes a triad now this is going to be a
7th course there's gonna be four notes
but all stacked in minor thirds so let's
play this on just one string the open E
string right so if we start with the E
and do a minor third we go three frets
higher to a G go a minor third from
there three frets higher B flat or a
sharp three frets another minor third
from here C sharp or D flat
now go another minor third from here and
we end up right we started on an E so
the interesting thing about this is
there's only twelve notes in music and
if you go three notes at a time you'll
start with one note three notes three
notes three notes you're back to where
you started so the interesting thing
about diminished 7th chords is that one
chord voicing could actually be four
different chords because if you keep
circularly going through minor thirds
where you started is really kind of
inconsequential right it'll make more
sense in a second so let's learn a
voicing for a diminished seventh chord
and since we already know that a string
voicing of a minor 7 flat 5 chord it's
really easy you just take that voicing
and you move it down one string
so I have my pointer finger on the D
string to my ring finger on the g string
three my middle finger on the B string
two and my pinky on the high E string
three now I can perceive any one of
these four notes as being my root note
because as I cycle through they're just
gonna that you can look at them as
inversions because they're all the same
chord okay so if I move this down three
frets one two three I'm getting the same
four notes that I did here just in a
different order so is the first a minute
seven I'm gonna move it up a minor third
from I can think of it as like the
second fret to the fifth fret 2 2 5 8 11
and then I go back another minor third
go up another minor third and I end up
an octave higher than where I started so
it's a really unique chord because you
can just kind of cycle through the
inversions and the same chord can have
four different names and it's just how
you're perceiving the root note now this
actual stacking of intervals and again
let's just look at a real quick arpeggio
right if we were just to take anything
right if we took like like a D and we
wanted to make it D diminished seventh
we could just stack minor thirds on top
of each other so it's right here go to
here mmm so one two three four and the
next time I would go up one or third I'd
end up back on adeno right so it's a
good way to kind of connect a note to
each other now no individual major scale
key has all these same four notes in
them so it creates a really kind of just
just more tension really now another
interesting way to look at that is its
relationship to the dominant seven chord
so stay with me here right if you take
any kind of down in a seven chord like
let's just take the a string voicing of
that D right so a d7
if you drop the the root note or
actually raise it if you raise it a half
step you get a diminished seven so the
way I kind of like to look at diminished
sevens is I'll take a chord I'm already
very familiar with right like a d7 you
might even know this voicing where the
open D string is our root note if we
just raise that a half-step a semi tone
we'd end up with that voice and we just
learned so I kind of like to see
diminished 7th chords as just an
alteration of a dominant 7th chord and
what you can do there is you can use
that in different chord progressions so
let's just take something like a like a
d7 to an E minor 7 to an a and then back
to a d right now I can easily alter this
d7 to make it a diminished 7th chord by
just raising that root port
so it's a very jazzy type thing to do
I'm starting with a d7 I'm raising the
root which now this is my new roofer
diminished 7th chord so I can look at
this as like a D sharp diminished 7 e
flat diminished 7 so the 7t flat finish
7 e minor 7 to an a back to the d
there's a lot of different things you
can do so on top of this voicing that we
did for a diminished 7 we also have
another one in the a string where you
can just think of a voicing you may
already be familiar with a dominant 7
voicing with a raised and root note
right so it ends up looking just like
this anyways you can really feel free to
plug these into any spot the the cool
thing about diminished chords is they
kind of sound unstable right they sound
a little strange because it's almost
like you're going out of the key even if
you're staying in that in the key so
it's a really great thing to do to kind
of just experiment throw it on any root
note see how it sounds and then kind of
search for the resolution because there
are kind of different types of
resolution that you can achieve
depending on the chord progression in
question so just learned a couple
voicings and then just throw them on
different root notes and kinda you'll
really develop an ear for how you want
diminished courses on whether they're
triads whether they're minor seven flat
five chords whether they're full
diminished diminished 7th chords and
it's kind of experiment with them and
your own ears are going to kind of make
these different connections and really
once you know about handed the
construction of the diminished chords
you'll start seeing them more in all
types of music not just jazz and even
just kind of like pieces of it like that
like the relation between a root and a
flat five
like right now again the arpeggio
remember for the diminished ride was an
A and C in E flat you just kind of take
pieces of like first take the flat five
relationship and then take the third to
the flat five which is just a minor
third and there's really no limit to
what you can do with diminished chords
but now that you know how they're
constructed a couple of different ways
in which you can use them hopefully we
can start getting this diminished chord
self-esteem back up to where it belongs
and it have it be a very easy to use and
well-executed addition to anybody's
chord vocabulary