M.Ted, Thanks for your input, maybe one of these days I'll have it all straight.Still, I think I need further explanation of your spelling for F#° (F#dim7). I have understood diminished seventh chords to be spelled as tonic, flatted third, flatted fifth, flatted flatted [sic] seventh. One notable characteristic of the dim7 chord is that each note in the chord is a minor third from the note above and below it and, since that is true, a diminished seventh chord may be named for any one of the four notes it contains. For this reason, any given closed fingering for a diminished seventh chord played one fret higher, and then one more fret higher, will have produced some inversion of all possible diminished seventh chords.
Since E is the dominant seventh note of the F# scale, it must be flatted (diminished) for use in the F#° chord. To quote Lee Evans and Martha Baker in their book “How to Play Chord Symbols in Jazz and Popular Music,”
A diminished chord is a chord built in minor 3rds from the root up, and appears in the leadsheets as any of the following chord symbols: C°, C°7, Cdim, Cdim7.A diminished chord occurs most frequently in jazz and popular music as a four-note chord, as shown above, regardless of whether the symbol says C° or C°7. The 7th of the chord is a diminished 7th but is sometimes spelled as a major 6th. Enharmonic spellings are frequently used in jazz to facilitate reading, as seen in the following...
They go on to explain the harmonic spelling of C° as C Eb Gb Bbb. In “The Musician's Guide To Harmony And Theory” by Leon White the author states:
When a MINOR interval is reduced one half step, the new resulting interval is also known as “DIMINISHED.” A to C is a Minor third. A to Cb is a Diminished third.Since the interval from the perfect fifth to the dominant seventh is a minor third, I think that again argues for the diminished seventh being Eb in the F# scale. Mr. White also spells Cdim7 as C Eb Gb Bbb adding as a footnote, “This is a special chord with a double flatted 7th note: flatted two times, from B to Bb, and then from Bb to A.”
I'll be very interested in the explanation supporting the use of E in the F#° chord.
- Mark