Diminished/Diminished Seventh(7th) Passing Chord #3

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                                                                            (👆intro.vid)

In the previous article we learnt a very interesting concept under this series (Fundamentals of passing chord) talking about the dominant 7 passing chord, we learnt its basic meaning, how to form them and most important we learnt some very effective methods/techniques to apply it in our songs/playing. Just in case you haven't seen that post and you are interested  in it, simply click on the 'pages' drop down you can find and select it there or  you can simply Click here..

 In this article we would be looking at another really popular concept of passing chord in music, the "diminished passing". We are going to learn about two types of diminished chords(Diminished triad and Diminished 7th chords), Their basic meaning, How to formed them and as always, very simple steps to apply them in you own music or playing.The intro. video is a simple progression with stacks  of different diminished passing chords. The interesting thing is, you can do that to any chord progression! Now the aim of this post is that you learn how to do all of that.. so please i encourage you to ask questions if you ever get confused or lost anywhere along the line.

    What are Diminished chords?      

(Diminished triad)

In order for us to really understand this concept well enough as passing chords it is important we take a look at the diminished chord itself. The word "diminish",(if you didn't know prior to visiting this blog) simply means to reduce, to cut down or to fade out. so a diminished chord simply mean a chord that is reduced.. specifically a chord whose 3rd and 5th degree in a major scale has been reduced or flattened by a half-step. what do i mean by this? well here is what i mean. In a major scale, using the number system/solfa 1(d) 2(r) 3(m) 4(f) 5(s) 6(l) 7(t)... out of that we have a major triad chord
1(d) 3(m) 5(s)  so to form our diminished here we need to 'diminish' it by dropping/reducing the 3rd(m) and 5th(s) i.e moving it to the next note backward for example in key C if we have a C major triad chord ; C E G when we dropped the 3rd and 5th we have a C diminished(C°) chord ; C E♭ G♭.. you can remember it using this formula ; R ♭3 ♭5.. (where R=root or tonic.) hopefully i didn't just take you back to math class😆

C Diminished triad chord

Diminished 7th

 This is simply an extended version of the  diminished triad chords which we just saw. Just as described above it is a Major 7 chord with a flattened or reduced 4th 5th and 7th.. as seen above the 4th and 5th are flatten by a half-step but the unique thing about the dim.7th is that the 7th is flatten twice as much. The 7th is dropped by 2 half-steps or by a whole steps. Another way to easily form this chord is to stack 3 minor 3rd's what do i mean? Its practically taking the note you want to diminish count a minor 3rds ahead(3 half-steps forward/2notes) you'll get your 2nd note count another forward you'll get your 3rd note and another minor 3rd gives you get you 4th note and you dim.7th. For example, in key C if we have a Cmaj7 ; C(1) E(3) G(5) B(7).. We can diminished this by dropping the E and G by a half step and dropping the B by a whole step..(♭♭). So when that is applied, we'll get our C-diminished 7th chord as this C E♭ G♭ B♭♭/A (We dropped the 'B' twice). So  you can also remember how to form this chord using this formula ; R ♭3 ♭5 ♭♭7(6th)..or R ♭3 ♭5 6.

 One interesting fact about the diminished  is that there are only 3 diminished 7 in music namely Cdim7, C♯dim7 and Ddim7 all other diminished 7th chords are simply inversions of those 3. just in case some terms used here like "minor 3rd" and inversions etc don't worry we would learn them all in subsequent post. However, you can comment which one of them you would want to learn then we can consider posting on that as soon as possible.

    Applications

We would be focusing on two simple yet colorful methods to used the diminished chords. The methods are ;

1. Resolving to a Half-step

2. Resolving to a whole step

1. Resolving to a Half-step

  diminished chord are known for resolving to chords a half-step(1 note) away.  Diminished or  diminished 7th chords can be used as a passing or bridge chord to any major/minor chord a half-step ahead of the diminished chord E.G in the key of C if we we want to move from Cmaj to Dmin in order to fix a dim chord we need to figure out the major chord that is a half-step from our destination chord, Then we simply diminish it and play as a passing chord so in this context we would simply find the major chord before Dm the that major chord is D𝄬 so a we need to do is diminish it be flattening the 3rd and 5th and flattening the 7th twice which would give us a D𝄬dim(7th) so a Ddim(7th) can smoothly serve as a transitional/bridge chord to D-minor

so we did have a chord progression like this

before = C E G B(CM7)=>D F A C(Dm7)

Now = C E G B(CM7) =>D𝄬 E G B𝄬(D𝄬dim7)=> D F A C(Dm7)                 {'M'=major, 'm'=minor}
                                               
     
                           (See video illustrations below for practical understanding)
                                                                          (1)

                                                                           (2)

we can see from the video how we simply connected that CM7 and Dm7 with our Dbdim7 passing chord. 

2. Resolving to a whole step

Diminished chords also can resolve to major or minor chords a whole step/tone(two notes) backward.
to use diminished chord using this method, we simply play it as a bridge chord to reach a chord that is 1 whole step
backward. This was clearly done in the intro.vid.. For example  if we have a progression  moving from a 4(fa) to a 3(mi) you can simply play the diminished chord of the note a whole step ahead of the 3(mi) as a bridge chord to get to the destination chord 3(mi).. now for a more practical example,  in the key of C as on the video, still using the 4-3 progression we have an Fmaj7 going to an Emin7 

 to add a diminished passing using this method we simply check which chord is a whole step(2notes) ahead of the 
destination chord its simply 'F♯' so F♯dim7 is our passing chord to the destination chord Em7.. so we would have
a chord progression like this;

Before ; F A C E(FM7)=> E G B D(Em7)

now ;  FM7=> F♯Dim7=>Em7...


                           (See video illustrations below for practical understanding)
                                         
                                                                                   (1)

This illustration clearly shows how that diminished chord helped to add color to that simple progression. Now stacks of diminished chords in a progression using this method just as used

in the illustration is also commonly a described by gospel musicians as "Diminished walk-down" 

ex :- Practice your diminished 7th chord in all keys by play the diminished 7th of in each, forming them using the formulas  "R+♭3+♭5+♭♭7(6th)"..or "R+♭3+♭5+6" for dim.7 and R+♭3+♭5 for dim.triad.

I hope this article has helped your musical advancement..🙂 Please feel free to leave your questions your thoughts and your suggestions i will do my very best to attend to them all. 

Thanks and Good luck.