

It acts like a stepping stone between chords. For this reason it’s often thought of as a “leading chord”. The diminished chord gives us an unstable and restless chord that wants to lead to or resolve on something else. It can really get confusing to keep track of whether or not diminished means the four-note/all-minor-thirds form or the seventh degree of the major scale with its b7. Unfortunately, some things are arbitrary.

Other names include diminished triad and half-diminished.ĭiminished chords also have many abbreviations. But many musicians refer to this as a diminished chord anyway. It has the root, minor third (b3), flat fifth (b5th), but no double flat 7 (bb7th).
#Free passing chord dictionary full#
This scale degree has three of the four notes needed to build a full diminished chord. The closest you come is the seventh chord (see Fretboard Theory Chapter 6 Guitar Chord Progressions and Playing By Numbers). If you know anything about guitar music theory, then you know that true diminished chords do not fully occur in the major scale. Move the same chord fingering up 3 frets again and you have the next inversion, and so on until you match the first position exactly one octave higher. Since diminished chords are built on fixed minor third steps, you can simply slide any diminished chord fingering up 3 frets for an inversion. The neat thing about guitar diminished chords is how their inversions are formed on the fretboard.

Three of the most common diminished chord fingerings can be seen in the guitar tab below.Į-10-|ī-3-6-9-| In order to combine these notes and make a chord shape you have to transpose some intervals up an octave. The notes of a Bdim guitar chord can be seen in the tabs below.Į-|ī-| And B is a minor third above Ab to complete and repeat the formula. Each note is a minor third, or three frets, above the note before it. For example, a Bdim chord includes the notes B D F and Ab. It consists of a root, minor third (b3), flat fifth (b5th) and double flat 7 (bb7th). This song features the chord changes D-Daug-G-Gm-D-A7.Ī full diminished guitar chord is based on all minor third intervals. Sometimes an augmented chord functions as a passing chord, bridging the gap between chords with chromatic half-step movement as heard in “Crying” by Roy Orbison. Diminished chords are typically used to create chromatic half-step movement between chords as shown here in this guitar tab example based on Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places.”
