I think this is a correct statement that almost noone uses dimished chords in pop rock genre

My question is..
For the chords within a key statement

isn't it possible for the dimished chord to become minor or major instead so thats its more usable

for example for C key...

The B is dimished

Can't we instead make it B Major, or B minor? or would that sound too bad to be used in this way within the C key?

 

Sad to think that anyone 'needs to avoid' using the flattened fifth in that chord instead of finding a colourful way of using it.
Try being more imaginative instead.

 

The only heptatonic without at least 2 "bad" intervals is... 7 equal temperament (which is also out of tune).
Your suggestion works only if in your melody you don't use pure fifths or fourths near the point where you make alterations of the chords or else it will sound like a false relation or modulation.

 

i like using chords like the diminished minor ninth (e.g. in the key of G minor that chord would be D Fsharp A Cnatural and E flat) After that the sky is the limit

 

Ever used a G7 chord in C?

 

You can make it B major, or B minor, or anything else for that matter, try it and see which one you like - lesson being don't try to make every single note of every single chord always stay in key. If you like the sound of something use it.

But, having done that, you might ask yourself why would you think a diminished chord was less usable. If you're allowed to go out of key, why would you not be allowed to use a triad with a more interesting sound than the standard (and therefore once overused quite boring) major and minor.

In actuality diminished chords are used a lot, at least in R&B, gospel, jazz, and deep house that has influences from any of those, usually in relation to and as a variation on playing a V7 chord, IE a dominant chord, with alterations to it. Also a half-diminished II chord. And yes sure as a VII chord too.

So do both. Change your VII chord from a B diminished to a B anything else. And, at the same time, try changing any other chord you were playing as major or minor, to a diminished chord!

And don't always play them as triads. Add the 7th note. And then add the 9th.

 

Wasn't disagreeing with "the sky's the limit" but you labelled your chord incorrectly.
The example you gave D F# A C Eb is not a diminished ninth; that's a dominant min ninth.

If you want examples of diminished ninths in G minor, here are two possibilities
[1] A C Eb G Bb (G natural minor)
[2] A C Eb Gb Bb (G harmonic minor)

Maybe make it easier to see - in A minor
[1] B D F A C (A natural minor)
[2] B D F Ab C (A harmonic minor)

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2020

Some songs that use either a diminished 5th (b5):
"Purple Haze" - Jimi Hendrix, Busta Rhymes — “Woo-Ha!! Got You All In Check”, G. Love & Special Sauce’s “Special Beverage”, “Painkiller” by Judas Priest, King Crimson’s “Red”, Metallica’s “The Call of Ktulu”, "Find 100 ways" - Quincy Jones/James Ingram, The Pink Panther Theme Song, Roberta Flack - "Feel like makin' love".......etc etc

Diminished chord:
“All I Want for Christmas” by Mariah Carey, “Michelle” by the Beatles, “This Love” by Maroon 5, “Every Time You Go Away” by Paul Young, ABBA - "SOS", “When You Wish Upon A Star" and "Somewhere over the Rainbow" - Disney (Pinocchio and Judy Garland), "When I'm 64"-The Beatles, Heartache tonight by The Eagles.

the list goes on and on.. It can be a passing chord , a mood chord, a transition chord or an intentional tension chord or many other things. These are but only some of the uses. Dear Thread author, assumptions are the mother of all mess-ups.

The trick is not to think about using it. People that have been writing a long time recognise when to use it because for example, the bass movement might determine it or going to where the melody wants to go determines it or any other logical reason.
A common example is a chord movement that might go C, to G to Am, but the bassist does C,G,G#,then the A on the Am. Even if nobody plays the chord, the G# implies a diminished anyway moving onto the Am. Do some investigation. A diminished chord or flattened fifth has its own special place, mood, usage and tonality.

 

black keys matter

 

you can view it as G7 without the root note, boom problem solved
B major/minor have different functional implications than B diminished
try it out for yourself:

Code:

Bdim/D Cmaj Fmaj Gmaj Cmaj
Bmaj Emin Dmin Gmaj Cmaj
Bmin Emaj Amin Dmin Gmaj Cmaj

now you can switch around the first B chord and see that they dont follow the logic of the original progressions

nope, they get used fairly often in passing motion and sometimes held out aswell

this video shows examples of both cases

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2020

Kpop music. They use it all the time, especially for the Ballad.

 

Personally i find the diminished 7th and m7b5 very useful for creating tension and interest in an otherwise vanilla progression.

 

There's lots of reasons to use diminished chords but if you're going for a standard pop aesthetic, you might as well be asking why use any but I-V-vi-IV progression that 90% of pop music uses.

Diminished chords lend themselves into creating a harmonic narrative and to manage around that, it is no longer a simple matter of just treating the chord progression as a mere 4 bar loop; having a diminished chord typically begs for resolution (either a proper one or something that cops out but still "resolves" it). That's where you have to begin to understand the concept of cadences and suddenly the phrases you use have to suit the cadential movement.

A lot of chord progressions are loopable without really such a strong sense of a cadence. The ones based on minor, or aeolian to be particular, tend to just loop around through the bVI or at most through the bVII which would be closest thing to a "cadence" (but still doesn't have _that_ strong pull as a V).

Whenever you could use a VII or a vii instead of the viio (B major or B minor instead of B diminished in C major) is entirely up to you, but you'll find that making chord progressions around that is quite difficult. If it's B major, it's close to impossible without sounding like your phrase is modulating. B minor is slightly more doable, but still requires some navigation.

Reason for this is simple. For B major, you would have to use the note Eb which in C major would be very problematic because in relation to C, it is the minor third. E is the tone that defines the most important quality of the tonality in C major; it's the major third of C. Playing Eb instead has a very intrinsic tendency to sound "weird" - but it's doable especially if weird happens to be your thing though.

There is another problem too, though. Now B minor has no Eb, it has D instead. But B minor has Gb in it. G happens to be the fifth of C major - and perfect fifth no less. Perfect fifth isn't really important note in itself because of how stable it is. But Gb forms a diminished fifth against the C; that makes it very unstable instead in the context of your tonality. So again, it's bound to get into the "weird" territory, which might easily end up sounding like sudden modulation.

Personally speaking, if you want to be exploring diminished chords, you're better off exploring minor tonality - it lends itself to diminished passages rather naturally. But there's no point unless you want to approach this matter from the perspective of a composer, rather than just producing some music.

 

Me. Every chance I get. Not using all chord qualities available to you, is like choosing to only use some of the letters of the alphabet.

 

Where's the faceplant emoji superhero when you need him?

 

The Theramin could not have been created without the advent of the diminished chord.

 

One of the most ingenious instruments ever made. Huge respect for anyone that can play any high dexterity-based piece of music on it in tune.

 

DIMISHed chord? Never heard of it!

 

Only the short people.

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2020

Here is a super simple chord part for a number one hit using a diminished chord pulled from the Internet. A lot of guitar places it seems while looking for this as there seem to be many guitarists who are members (I'm not), some online parts put an A7 or C7 here (red arrow) which is incorrect. It's not what you use, it's how and why you use it.