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Guitar Chords Ain’t Sexy But The Results Rock, The Mighty Diminished Chord

By Mike Hayes | January 13, 2010

You can always tell when a diminished chord is in a song …
that’s usually when the guitar stops playing! Seriously,
diminished and augmented chords get a bad wrap with guitarists,
players either don’t know them or find them too hard to play.

Actually, diminished and augmented chords are easy to play, their
names sound difficult however once you understand how they are
constructed you will find they are just as easy to play as the
major and minor chords.

The basic four harmonic sounds all guitarists should be familiar
with are: major, minor, augmented and diminished chords or triads
as they are also called, learning how to play these four triads
is essential to our ear training as they make up the bulk of the
music we hear on commercial radio.

The good news is there are many ways to approach learning chords
on the guitar; here is just one of the ways to learn diminished
triads.

Learning diminished chords:

The musical shorthand way of writing the diminished chord is:
C dim

Step 1. The spelling of the C dim chord is C-Eb-Gb

We arrived at this answer by applying the diminished chord
formula of 1-b3-b5 to the C major scale.

C major scale = C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C

Diminished chord formula 1-b3-b5

To arrive at C-Eb-Gb = C dim

As the name implies the concept of the diminished chord is to
retain the keynote i.e., the name of the chord (in this instance
the note ‘C’) and flatten (or diminish) the remaining two notes
of the chord Eb and Gb.

An easy way to learn the diminished triads on the guitar is to
play them on string grids.

Step 2. creating string grids

String grids are combinations of strings e.g., string grid one
would be strings 1,2 & 3; string grid two would be strings 2, 3 &
4 etc., here is a list of the common string grids used for
diminished triads.

grid 1 = strings 1, 2 & 3

grid 2 = strings 2, 3 & 4

grid 3 = strings 3, 4 & 5

grid 4 = strings 4, 5 & 6

Since the diminished chord consists of three notes and each of
our grids has three strings it stands to reason that there would
be three ways of playing the C diminished chord on each string
grid.

Here is how it looks on the guitar:

String set 1 = strings 1, 2 & 3 (chord 1)

C dim

—2——
—4——
–[5]—–
———-
———-
———-

Keynote or root note indicated [ ].

String set 1 = strings 1, 2 & 3 (chord 2)

C dim

–[8]—-
—7—–
—8—–
———
———
———

Notice how the keynote has moved to the first string for this
shape.

String set 1 = strings 1, 2 & 3 (chord 3)

C dim

—11—–
–[13]—-
—11—–
———-
———-
———-

Now the keynote has moved to string two!

The same C dim chord transferred to the second string grid
would convert to the following shapes.

String grid 2 = strings 2, 3 & 4 (chord 1)

C dim

———-
—4——
–[5]—–
—4——
———-
———-

String grid 2 = strings 2, 3 & 4 (chord 2)

C dim

——–
—7—-
—8—-
-[10]—
——–
——–

String grid 2 = strings 2, 3 & 4 (chord 3)

C+

———-
–[13]—-
—11—–
—13—–
———-
———-

A great ear training idea is to compare the sounds of each of the
basic four triads like this:

1. C to C minor triad.

C /// | Cm /// |

One way you could play this would be …

C

—3——
—5——
–[5]—–
———-
———-
———-

Cm

—3——
—4——
–[5]—–
———-
———-
———-

2. C to C augmented triad.

C /// | C+ /// |

Could be played this way …

C

—3——
—5——
–[5]—–
———-
———-
———-

C+

—4——
—5——
–[5]—–
———-
———-
———-

3. C to C diminished triad.

C /// | C dim /// |

One solution would be …

C

—3——
—5——
–[5]—–
———-
———-
———-

C dim

—2——
—4——
–[5]—–
———-
———-
———-

Try designing your own chord shapes by starting on a any
major chord of a string grid of your choice then creating the
closest minor, augmented and diminished triad, remember there are
always multiple ways of playing any one chord all over the
fingerboard of the guitar.

And now I’d like to invite you to get free access to my “How To Remember 1,000 Songs” eCourse. You can download the course for free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com

You’ll learn about hit song templates, easy chords,simple scales, red hot rhythms, and successful practice strategies in text, audio and video.

From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar
System

Topics: Beginner Guitar Lesson, Guitar Chords, Guitar Fretboard, Learn And Master Guitar | No Comments »

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