It's been a very long time since my last post, but I said I'd be looking at diminished chords.
Diminished Chords A bog standard plain diminished chord, is in reality nothing more than a standard minor chord triad (which as I've stated before has a scale spelling of 1, b3, 5) and flattening the 5th note as well. So going back to C you'd get. 1 = C b3 = Eb b5 = Gb So this would be called a C diminished chord. Half-Diminished or m7b5 chords So how do we make it a half-diminished chord. Well bizarrely a half-diminished chord is really a minor 7th chord (remember the scale spelling for that 1, b3, 5, b7) but with the 5th flattened also, so you get 1, b3, b5, b7. So again in C. 1 = C b3 = Eb b5 = Gb b7 = Bb So if you think about this as it's a minor 7th chord with a flattened 5th, it's become more popularly known as a minor 7 flat 5 (m7b5) chord and certainly in popular music you'll find more people who know it by that name, rather than half-diminished. Diminished 7th chords So how do you make a full diminished 7th chord. Pretty easily actually. All you need to do is take a half-diminished (m7b5) chord and flatten the 7th note AGAIN. Yes that's right again. So the scale spelling of a diminished 7th chord is 1, b3, b5, bb7. So again in C you get these notes. 1 = C b3 = Eb b5 = Gb b7 = Bbb (yes music theory caters for double flats so whilst it's actually the same note that we'd generally call A it's called Bbb).
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One of the items you'll find in this blog and also in the RGT syllabus is the concept of scale spelling. In practise this is something that can be a bit confusing so I thought I'd try and explain it here using examples.
So the first thing is 'What is a scale spelling'. Simply put this is just giving each note in the scale a number. Each major scale has 8 notes (including the octave, more on what an octave is to follow), so the numbers run from 1 to 8. The two main things to bear in mind with scale spellings is that they are all intended to show how the scale you are looking at relates to a major scale and secondly, that just because a scale spelling might contain a flattened note it doesn't mean that the actual note you play is a flattened note (see told you it could be confusing). Let's use the C Major, A Major and C Natural Minor, A Natural minor scales to explain this. If you read last months scale of the month (C Major) you'll see that the scale spelling for major scales is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. This means that the notes in the C Major scale are 1 = C, 2 = D, 3 = E, 4 = F, 5 = G, 6 = A, 7 = B, 8 = C as they say in the meerkat add 'simples'. Now the scale spelling for a Natural minor scale is 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 8. So if you take the 3rd, 6th and 7th notes of the C Major scale (E, A and B) and take them down a fret on your guitar So the E becomes Eb, A becomes Ab and B becomes Bb. Which means the notes for a C Natural minor scale are C, D, Eb, F, G Ab, Bb and C with the scale spelling underneath. 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 8 So what's confusing about that. Not a lot really until you apply the same logic so something like the A Major and A Natural minor scales. The key signature for the A Major scale is 3 sharps so whilst the scale spelling remains the same some of the notes are sharpened thus. 1 = A, 2 = B, 3 = C#, 4 = D, 5 = E, 6 = F#, 7 = G#, 8 = A. So where does the confusion come in?. Well if you take the scale spelling for the natural minor scale again to this scale you'll have to again take those notes down by a fret on your guitar. BUT whilst you're flattening a note (remember is b3, b6, b7) the notes that you're applying that to are already sharpened by the key signature (C#, F# and G#.) so what you end up with is that the C# becomes a C (not a Cb), the F# becomes a F (not a Fb), and the G# becomes a G (not a Gb), so the notes in the A Natural minor scale are A B C D E F G A, again with the scale spelling underneath. 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 8 Once you get your head around this you can then use the same logic to work out any scale from it's scale spelling as long as you know the key signature of the major scale your applying it to. More on key signatures later. |