The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #33236   Message #442215
Posted By: Mark Cohen
16-Apr-01 - 11:19 PM
Thread Name: Help: Diminished chord???
Subject: RE: Help: Diminished chord???
Yes, it's the same, WW. I tend to think of my chord theory on the piano rather than on the guitar (guess that's one reason I'm not that great a guitarist!). So if you take a garden-variety dominant 7th chord like your old friend G7, which is G-B-D-F, and then diminish the 3rd, 5th, and 7th, you'll end up with Gdim ( a/k/a Gdim7): G-Bb-Db-E. Or, contrariwise, if you just raisethe tonic and leave everything else the same, you'll get G#dim, which would more commonly follow G in standard swing/jazz progressions. (Try, for example, G-G#dim-Am7-D7.) I don't know if that helps or not.

And remember what happens when you mix a diminished chord with an augmented chord... (the solution is left as an exercise for the student)

Aloha,
Mark