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During the last challenge I thought about using a diminished lick for two but quickly realised that outside home base/position 1, I was completely lost. There seemed to be so much to think about. What diminished to play? Where to find it? Getting the timing right and only then, what to actually play!
So I figured out a simple hack to solve the first two of those things for the 1 to 4 chord change and back again. That’s probably more than 50% of the diminished you’re likely to use in a blues anyway.
I’m specifically talking about the diminished 7 chord and the hack is this.
When your playing the 1 chord and it’s time for the diminished passing chord, find a dominant 7 triad for the 1 chord (any is fine, you’re likely playing one, it’s the blues!). Eg if you’re playing in A, seek out an A7. Sharpen the root note by a semitone and you have the right diminished to go to the 4 chord (A# diminished in our example).
When it’s time to transition back from the 4 to the 1, do exactly the same but using a dominant 7 of the 4 chord instead. So in our A blues, we’ll be playing a D, find a D7 triad and sharpen the root to give you D# diminished.
And that’s it.If you’re worried that finding and sharpening root notes is too much mental gymnastics don’t be. There’s only 3 diminished chord shapes you’re ever likely to use and out of those it’s going to be the two shapes that cover the top 5 strings most of the time. So what you really want to be doing is training yourself to target the diminished shape that contains a rootless triad of the 1 or 4 chord. Completing the diminished chord shape takes care of sharpening the root note for you.
It does require you to know your 7 triads but that’s essential knowledge anyway.
If you want to know why this works and a more general way to find a diminished if you know the diminished you’re looking for, then read on, it’s optional but I’ve found that this has fundamentally changed the way I think about targeting diminished chords.
If you pick any 3 notes from a diminished 7 chord, you’ll find they form a dominant 7 chord with the root note missing. The remaining 4th note will always be that missing root note raised a semitone. It doesn’t matter which 3 notes you start with, this is always true.
That’s useful because if you know the diminished chord your after by any of the 4 names it might be known by, you can locate the diminished chord itself by finding a dominant 7 a semitone below and sharpening the root note.
Again as with the hack, it’s about recognising and targeting the little rootless dominant 7 triads that live inside a diminished 7 chord and using those to locate the diminished itself.
One final thing, and it’s a hunch as my theory isn’t strong enough to know any better.
The dominant 7 chord you’re likely to be looking for, ie the one that’s a semitone below the diminished you need?
It’s the secondary dominant for the chord you’re about to go too. We’ve heard that before haven’t we! So going to a D we target an A7 and raise the root to A# and by doing so, dial in a bit more tension.
Going to an E in our A blues it’s the B7 with a raised root to become a C diminished.
If you were to use a diminished to go to a 2 chord from the A in our A blues, you would use an A# diminished. Look at the notes carefully in that diminished and you’ll find it contains an F#7 (plus a G for the sharpened root) which is the secondary dominant for B. So it works for that too.Now the 4 to 1 chord move above breaks that rule so it’s not universal but I think it’s at least a good rule of thumb.
Sorry if this is a bit long but i hope you might find it useful as it definitely helped me.
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Really good analysis, Andy.
My diminished lightbulb moments are similar. Diminished triads are very closely related to dominant chords. Stacking a diminished triad onto a major chord, ie. start the triad on the major 3rd, gives the root, major 3rd and the the two minor 3rd intervalic intervals of the diminished chord gives the 5th and b7. In other words a diminished triad is a rootless dominant chord a major 3rd below.
The #full diminished chord in relation to the implied dominant chord gives intervals of b2, 3, 5, b7. The substitution of the b2 for the root is what results in the increased tension. It creates an altered voicing.
The I to the IV in a blues is already a functioning secondary dominant as is the V-I, so these sharp diminished versions are just that but with more tension. Regarding the IV to I, I guess in a major blues we’re already dealing with all dominant chords anyway so the secondary dominant rule doesn’t really have to apply to any of these changes.
In order to find the appropriate #diminished chord I just look for the nearest #root anywhere in the closest full diminished grip I want to use (implies you know your note names). To work out a diminished arpeggio or lick, I start on any of it’s intervals in relation to the implied dominant chord, ie. b2, 3, 5, b7 and work through successive minor 3rd intervals for an arpeggio or locate the related half-whole diminished pattern on the top 4 strings for more complex licks.
Brian also used the #5 diminished as a substitution for the V in his ii-V-1.
John
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I like the extension to the full diminished. I’d put that on the future home work shelf but you’ve done it for me. I like the idea of the underlying implied chord too. That’s a good way to think about it.
Right now I still need to learn all my full diminished chord shapes so will continue with the dim7 until I’ve got those in the locker too.I’ve got a suspicion that a #5 dim chord would work in the place of that #4 dim chord in the blues it just wouldn’t sound as strong. As you say it may be the fact that 7 chords abound already or that #5 is hinting at the 5 chord at the wrong place in the progression. There’s certaintly a strong pull generated by that sharpening of the 4th with the implied chord already returning to the 1.
Interesting 🤨
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I like your thinking on this as it gets us all to think through why something works or it doesn’t. What Brian has been teaching makes it even simpler in my opinion and I wouldn’t have known how to reduce it down to such a simple thing, but for these lessons of his. So when I first tried to absorb it, I went down a theory rabbit hole which is a good thing to do when you have some time to think things through, but by far the simplified rule for using the #1 dim7 to go the 4 chord and using the #4 dim7 when going back to the one is as simple as you can get it once you understand one very important fact that I’ll show you below. It’s all based off the ONE and FOUR chord root notes. Just use the one chord and sharpen it to get the dim7 that goes to the IV chord and vice versa to get back to the ONE.
In key of B, to transition to the IV (E or E7), sharpen the B to C (Cdim7).
To go back to the I chord (B), sharpen the E (IV) to F and that results in (Fdim7)The key is to understand where the root notes are. For the ONE chord the root is on the high E-string. But on the FOUR chord it’s on the B-string and A-string. The one on the A-string is not as helpful as the one on the B-string because that’s where we want to play our dim7 at. As it turns out, the higher octave E note is one full step down from where we play the E9 chord, so sharpening the E to F simplifies to sliding back a half step from the previous Cdim7 that we already established. Think this through and you will see that it all boils down to the fact that there only 3 possible dim7 positions. Either lined up on the structure of the ONE chord or down a half step, or the unused dim7 that is up a half step.
So the way I see it now is going to the FOUR, the dim7 always fits neatly into that E-Shape pattern of the ONE chord. Going back to the ONE, that same dim7 will physically shift down a half step even though it is technically sharpened FOUR chord. I had to work it out several times before the realization hit me like a ton of bricks, but it makes it infinitely easier to know where you are by thinking this way.
When I first heard Brian talking about sharpening the 4 chord and seen him physically shift the previous dim7 pattern DOWN instead of up a half step, that confused the heck out of me. I can see why many of us were confused on first or even second viewing. I think if he had pointed out that the root note of the 4 chord is one step lower if looking at the B-String first, it would have made sense to everyone right away.
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Hi Ken,
This is very much how I would play things out of the E shape (or home base as I referred to it) until my little epiphany. I basically knew where the #1 and #4 dim7 chords lay or had little navigation aids to find them. But moving to playing in (say) the Key of G in the C shape and those aids were of no help. The roots for 1 and 4 chords are on different strings and I needed a new set of aids.
However, I do know where my G7 is there and C7 for the 4 chord and that’s all I need to know now, they’ve become my aids. Same for the other 3 shapes. One rule to rule them all 😄
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In order to find the appropriate #diminished chord I just look for the nearest #root anywhere in the closest full diminished grip I want to use (implies you know your note names). To work out a diminished arpeggio or lick, I start on any of it’s intervals in relation to the implied dominant chord, ie. b2, 3, 5, b7 and work through successive minor 3rd intervals for an arpeggio or locate the related half-whole diminished pattern on the top 4 strings for more complex licks.
Brian also used the #5 diminished as a substitution for the V in his ii-V-1.
Yes sir, that is a good explanation as well. For reference, that diminished arpeggio and H-W-H-W scale is discussed way back in EP-072. And that lesson has the key in B for comparison sake.
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Locating the diminished by its root note is a very sound strategy and I’ll probably still continue to do that in those parts of the fretboard and/or keys I’m very familiar with.
My knowledge of the notes across the fretboard is pretty good but it doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny of finding those root notes in less familiar locations when I’m improvising and want to grab a lick or chord quickly.
I think part of that is, even if I “see” the root note, arranging the remaining 3 around it takes too long. Practice might fix that but I don’t use a whole lot of diminished chords so it will take time.
For me, finding the triad of the implied 7chord (I really like that term John) and filling in the remaining 4th note is easier and quicker as I use 7 chords all the time. In fact I can get away without locating that 4th note if I’m really short of time or playing a lick.
It’s also opening up a wider pallet of diminished chord possibilities.
Prior, I’d gravitate to a few tried and trusted locations within a shape but now I’m seeing other locations. For instance if I were to be playing a D6 across the top 4 strings at fret 7 as part of my 4 chord, I can see the #4 dim7 chord that lives there too because I already know my D6 becomes a D7 if I fret 8 on the E string and that’s enough of a location aid.
Converting it to the dim 7 by fretting 8 on the G is easy.This would never have occurred to me before. I might have got there by sliding up from the grip on fret 5, but not start there.
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Great stuff and spot on here Andy!
I had my own lightbulb moment on diminished chords, and even did a little write up. Hopefully this info is useful and not terribly redundant!
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