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Diminished Chords
NylonDave
Glasgow✭✭✭ Perez Valbuena Flamenca 1991
There are only three diminished chords.
In any key it can be confusing to try and work out the function of twelve diminished chords because in reality there are only three and when it comes to playing lead thinking of twelve confuses matters.
I have been so confused so now I try and focus on three. I offer the following as clearly as I know how to in order to try and simplify things for anyone else who, like me, cant think of twelve chords in the heat of battle.
Here are the only three diminished chords as I like to think of them.
There is one that contains the root, the one that contains the leading tone and the one that contains the sharp supertonic.
It is easier to think of these in a key so, in C.
C,C# and B diminished are all the diminished chords that there are.
To work out which seventh chord the diminished is likely to be functioning as you need to know the chord that FOLLOWS it (NB assuming that the chords are resolving/don't get too bogged down in that thought though).
Here are the most basic 'major key' option.
The B one is often G7(b9) and often wants to go to C(tonic resolution)
The one with C# is often C7(b9) often wants to go to F(subdominant resolution)
The one with C since it already contains the root can go either way, or any way. But when it doesn't resolve to C it often precedes G7 which makes it D7b9
When I say 'often' I do not by any means mean 'always' or 'should' or 'has to'.
So much for basic three chord harmony.
The diminished chord containing C has four notes C A Eb and F#.
Each of these are often used as the root for strong substitutes for C itself.
A mostly as Am and sounding 'sad' as a substitute for the tonic.
Eb is the relative Major of the Parallel minor and sounds Bluesy because it is somehow major and minor at the same time.
F# is the tritone substitution and that has it's own quality too.
The diminished chord containing B (in the key of C) may also go to the relative minor Am so it can also sometimes be E7(b9).
The diminished chord containing C# may be really A7(b9) and will happily go to Dm
The one containing C can go anywhere so it may resolve to C or Am or Eb or F# but also to Em (the relative minor of the dominant chord G) which would make it B7b9 (NB since most swings tunes are STRONGLY TONAL that B7b9 is much more likely to go to E7 than Em but that is another story).
If you look at that last list above you will see that the function of the three diminished chords is the same in both the key of C and its relative minor A (chords one four and five being approached by the same diminished chord in both cases).
You can continue with the bluesy option (Eb/Cm) and the tritone (F#). I won't go too far into that but for example if you add an F to the diminished chord containing C you get F7(b9). This is the Bluesy substitute for D7. It may either go to G7 for a cadence to C or straight to C as happens in the blues.
In a very real way it is useful to think that there are only really three chords in any key. And I don't just mean diminished chords I mean there are only three chords (if you are looking at SWING HARMONY).
Everything else is just colour.
SO WHAT ?
If, like me, you are pretty new to Early Jazz/Swing harmony it can be really hard to understand how swing tunes are put together because you have to reverse engineer the work of the original composer to see how SIMPLE they really are. It is much easier to reharmonise SIMPLE THREE CHORD MAJOR KEY TUNES in the style of swing tunes and see the classic clichés emerge.
**I like to take a folk or pop tune with a slow moving three chord (one four and five, tonic subdominant and dominant ) progression. It needs to be tonal which means the melody is, in the key of C for simplicities sake, feels AT HOME on the C chord. It can have some or all of the seven notes of the C scale in it but no others. It should sounds great and clear and full and RIGHT with just the chords C F and G. Chords should change on a new bar and preferably not terribly frequently.**
I think it would be great if some people tried this here. None of this theory stuff is remotely interesting unless you put yourself in the driving seat and PLAY WITH IT. Then it is great fun.
If anyone is interested and wants to propose a tune then it might be great fun to post some ideas here and get out of the dusty boring world of theory as a chore and into the world of playing with harmony on the guitar and singing and feeling in a real visceral way how harmony can change how a tune feels and how we can use craft to tell a story. Ok it will still be maths and numbers but think of it more like building a chair than an exam, craft craft craft. And with a bit of work you will find yourself reaching for the chord you want to hear in your head and finding it on the fly (or if you are me one time in a few instead of one time in zero which was my old average).
Anyone who wants should chip in with ideas once a tune is selected.
D.
PS this bit is really important, not every tune will be amenable to the method I have in mind.
** a folk or pop tune with a slow moving three chord (one four and five, tonic subdominant and dominant ) progression. It needs to be tonal which means the melody is, in the key of C for simplicities sake, feels AT HOME on the C chord. It can have some or all of the seven notes of the C scale in it but no others. It should sounds great and clear and full and RIGHT with just the chords C F and G. Chords should change on a new bar and preferably not terribly frequently.**
PPS. Sorry if this isn't clear, this stuff is MUCH MUCH simpler face to face guitar in hand and both people singing and FEELING and experimenting and being EMPOWERED not oppressed by the theory.
PPPS. Lots of people can do this stuff without having to think too much about it. I wasn't one of them, Django probably was, you probably aren't and if you aren't then accepting that fact and finding a way to work can only lead to more fun and more insight.
PPPPS If you can do this without ever having thought about it then please accept my congratulations and (pretty) please don't tease us poor tortoises too much.
In any key it can be confusing to try and work out the function of twelve diminished chords because in reality there are only three and when it comes to playing lead thinking of twelve confuses matters.
I have been so confused so now I try and focus on three. I offer the following as clearly as I know how to in order to try and simplify things for anyone else who, like me, cant think of twelve chords in the heat of battle.
Here are the only three diminished chords as I like to think of them.
There is one that contains the root, the one that contains the leading tone and the one that contains the sharp supertonic.
It is easier to think of these in a key so, in C.
C,C# and B diminished are all the diminished chords that there are.
To work out which seventh chord the diminished is likely to be functioning as you need to know the chord that FOLLOWS it (NB assuming that the chords are resolving/don't get too bogged down in that thought though).
Here are the most basic 'major key' option.
The B one is often G7(b9) and often wants to go to C(tonic resolution)
The one with C# is often C7(b9) often wants to go to F(subdominant resolution)
The one with C since it already contains the root can go either way, or any way. But when it doesn't resolve to C it often precedes G7 which makes it D7b9
When I say 'often' I do not by any means mean 'always' or 'should' or 'has to'.
So much for basic three chord harmony.
The diminished chord containing C has four notes C A Eb and F#.
Each of these are often used as the root for strong substitutes for C itself.
A mostly as Am and sounding 'sad' as a substitute for the tonic.
Eb is the relative Major of the Parallel minor and sounds Bluesy because it is somehow major and minor at the same time.
F# is the tritone substitution and that has it's own quality too.
The diminished chord containing B (in the key of C) may also go to the relative minor Am so it can also sometimes be E7(b9).
The diminished chord containing C# may be really A7(b9) and will happily go to Dm
The one containing C can go anywhere so it may resolve to C or Am or Eb or F# but also to Em (the relative minor of the dominant chord G) which would make it B7b9 (NB since most swings tunes are STRONGLY TONAL that B7b9 is much more likely to go to E7 than Em but that is another story).
If you look at that last list above you will see that the function of the three diminished chords is the same in both the key of C and its relative minor A (chords one four and five being approached by the same diminished chord in both cases).
You can continue with the bluesy option (Eb/Cm) and the tritone (F#). I won't go too far into that but for example if you add an F to the diminished chord containing C you get F7(b9). This is the Bluesy substitute for D7. It may either go to G7 for a cadence to C or straight to C as happens in the blues.
In a very real way it is useful to think that there are only really three chords in any key. And I don't just mean diminished chords I mean there are only three chords (if you are looking at SWING HARMONY).
Everything else is just colour.
SO WHAT ?
If, like me, you are pretty new to Early Jazz/Swing harmony it can be really hard to understand how swing tunes are put together because you have to reverse engineer the work of the original composer to see how SIMPLE they really are. It is much easier to reharmonise SIMPLE THREE CHORD MAJOR KEY TUNES in the style of swing tunes and see the classic clichés emerge.
**I like to take a folk or pop tune with a slow moving three chord (one four and five, tonic subdominant and dominant ) progression. It needs to be tonal which means the melody is, in the key of C for simplicities sake, feels AT HOME on the C chord. It can have some or all of the seven notes of the C scale in it but no others. It should sounds great and clear and full and RIGHT with just the chords C F and G. Chords should change on a new bar and preferably not terribly frequently.**
I think it would be great if some people tried this here. None of this theory stuff is remotely interesting unless you put yourself in the driving seat and PLAY WITH IT. Then it is great fun.
If anyone is interested and wants to propose a tune then it might be great fun to post some ideas here and get out of the dusty boring world of theory as a chore and into the world of playing with harmony on the guitar and singing and feeling in a real visceral way how harmony can change how a tune feels and how we can use craft to tell a story. Ok it will still be maths and numbers but think of it more like building a chair than an exam, craft craft craft. And with a bit of work you will find yourself reaching for the chord you want to hear in your head and finding it on the fly (or if you are me one time in a few instead of one time in zero which was my old average).
Anyone who wants should chip in with ideas once a tune is selected.
D.
PS this bit is really important, not every tune will be amenable to the method I have in mind.
** a folk or pop tune with a slow moving three chord (one four and five, tonic subdominant and dominant ) progression. It needs to be tonal which means the melody is, in the key of C for simplicities sake, feels AT HOME on the C chord. It can have some or all of the seven notes of the C scale in it but no others. It should sounds great and clear and full and RIGHT with just the chords C F and G. Chords should change on a new bar and preferably not terribly frequently.**
PPS. Sorry if this isn't clear, this stuff is MUCH MUCH simpler face to face guitar in hand and both people singing and FEELING and experimenting and being EMPOWERED not oppressed by the theory.
PPPS. Lots of people can do this stuff without having to think too much about it. I wasn't one of them, Django probably was, you probably aren't and if you aren't then accepting that fact and finding a way to work can only lead to more fun and more insight.
PPPPS If you can do this without ever having thought about it then please accept my congratulations and (pretty) please don't tease us poor tortoises too much.
Comments
There is no "A" note in C dim, it's a double flat B. Not that I ever think of it like that, but when writing an essay you may as well use correct spelling.
C A Eb F# is what you might come up with if you just put your hands on the guitar like [8x787x] and then read the notes right off the shape. But I've found that listing notes in order (and putting the right intervals) can make things a bit easier when communicating ideas to people on woodwind instruments, and even with some guitarists that are coming to the music from a more theoretical/reading background. That's more obvious that it's made of 3 stacked minor thirds, e.g. C, E♭, G♭, B♭♭ for the Cdim7. And it's not really much harder as a guitarist to spell chords this way, so it's a good habit to get into.
Anyway, that's just a nitpick and it's good advice to just think of the dim chords as a colour on whatever they're substituting. They should almost never be written in charts directly. Another fun exercise is to 3 or 4-part harmonise major scale using only 1-chord inversions alternating with dim7 chords.
Basically at least for improvising, I dumb down harmony to tonic, subdominant and dominant sections and work from there up to the real changes. It makes me feel comfortable improvising and also understanding what's the tune intention harmonic wise.
I like the exercise you suggest, I think I first saw a guy called Mundell Lowe demonstrate it on his excellent instructional video here at twenty eight minutes in.
The Barry Harris sixth diminished scale is great fun too ( basically an eight note major bebop scale) it works beautifully in minor too. In major you play a voicing of the tonic sixth and ascend one note at a time in each voice which means you will be alternating between tonic sixth and rootless dominant flat nine voicings.
I am not one for second drafts and I just felt like setting the ball rolling. Essays are dull unless you are going to put stuff directly into practice and I claim no expertise in them, I just had itchy fingers tonight.
I really hope some simple tunes get suggested as tunes really breathe life into dusty old theory in a way that exercises just don't for me at least.
And I like simple tunes and maybe I'll learn one I don't know I love yet. So it would be a treat if someone is interested in the concept and brings a tune to the table (apologies in advance if someone does and I can't make it jibe with my plan).
D.
That's it exactly !
Dumbing down doesn't sound great but it really is useful. But I also like what happens when you start to replace one cadence with the same underlying structure with another so it can be a dumbing up too. The idea is that you see the simple underlying structure and are then more free to play by ear and can borrow from alternate cadences. But that comes later (and I'm still waiting on it, I am no expert and quite new to jazz) I really like the idea of starting simple getting complicated and then seeing the simple in superficial complexity.
Hold on I'll try again, it is much easier to learn to simplify harmony if you have learned some devices for embellishing it. That's why I used the term 'reverse engineer' no one learns reverse engineering easily if they have not learned engineering principles first, if you get what I mean.
D.
'Les Onions' ?
'Simple Gifts' ?
Only kidding.
Great suggestion ! It has the benefit of being just the thing I was asking for (although the chords are a little brusque) and being, mostly, completely unknown to me.
How about you draft the simplest chart in C that doesn't violate the tune (fewest changes) and maybe one original variation. Just a Grille.
I'm busy over the next few days but I should be able to listen a few times to familiarise myself.
I will add that I would consider it to be a two chord song given that it need never go to the four chord. This accounts for it's six note sum total. But I don't want to be too finicky as I am grateful that you have generously set the ball rolling.
D.
Django example: The first nine notes of Swing 42
(actually 11 ascending notes from the scale, starting on the fifth, plus some not adjacent...)
Ascending CDEFGG#AB. (it may be observed that since the G# is the flat nine of the dominant it could more aptly be called Ab, but since it is resolving upward to A and I am naming the scale..... blah blah.)
I shouldn't have mentioned Barry Harris as I don't find his explanations useful and haven't really pursued his nomenclature, sorry about that. I doubt that I will ever be as accomplished as him though.
In Minor the idea works exactly the same except with an Eb replacing E. I think that is why the added sixth is much more effective to establish a Minor tonic sound than a dominant seventh. Django used this exhaustively and pretty much all the time.
It is also part of the broader phenomena I find of all works which take Baker as a starting being somewhat incomplete theoretically and inappropriate for much of the material that Django recorded. Precisely because of the obsession with stacking chords in thirds which needn't be seen as the only way of looking at things.
It seems that quibbling about nomenclature may be more tempting than putting theory into practice. But that's OK, I needn't go on if that is the case. We can leave that to Youtube.
D.
Get back when I can sing the tune from memory and give some basic things a try. Can't seem to get the energy to play today.
D.
C6-Bdim, C6-Ddim(Bdim), C6-Cdim, C6-Csharpdim,
Dm7/C-Csharpdim,Dm7-Ddim(Bdim),Dm7/C-Bdim,C6-Ddim
.
It makes a nice little study. Four note voicing on inner strings.
You take the bridge in same style Lango ?
I'm not at home (what on earth is the sharp doing there next to the pound sign ??!!) but can do a little video tomorrow showing fingerings.
D.
I see, yeah well i get what you mean i wouln't be able to explain it for real if i wasn't studying jazz. when i started to get into jazz i had cero knowledge about harmony and stuff, i used to improvise straight by ear but had really no idea of what i was doing, it was a pain for my peers to ask me anything as i had really nothing to answer else than "just hear/look what im playing".
I've never been really fond of thinking strictly eveything of what I do, i just try to please my ear.
I mostly think of 2-5-1 (and variations of it). for me its all about 2-5-1 on different contextss.
Currently i'm studying this for donna lee, it's simple sustitutions a third above which is just different variations of 2-5-1's and it results very interesting to emphasize tensions over the whole song. which the melody itself makes very obvious.