At the Colorado School of Music we have students come from all over the Denver metro area and nearby for private music lessons including Lakewood, Wheat ridge, Arvada, Golden, Morrison and Evergreen. We offer piano lessons, guitar lessons, ukulele lessons, violin lessons, viola lessons, vocal lessons, voice lessons, clarinet lessons, saxophone lessons, drum lessons, percussion lessons, trombone lessons, tuba lessons and euphonium lessons.
Today I will be discussing the diminished chords and the minor 7th b5th chords along with some other basic key and chord knowledge. Both of these chords are native to a major or minor key and at this point is where a key has the most tension. I will be using the major key as our tonic or reference point. Your major key is comprised of seven chords that are built off each scale degree. Our C major scale would be: C, D, E, F, G, A and B. The seven chords that are built from this scale and our native to the key are: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am and Bdim. To better under stand the difference between these different chords I will use what I refer to as chord definitions. Major chord = R-3rd-5th (C-E-G) Minor chord = R-b3-5th (C-Eb-G) Diminished chord = R-b3rd-b5th (C-Eb-Gb)
As you can see from these definitions that changing one half step on our instrument can create a different quality chord. If you are not familiar with the sound of a diminished chord the first time you play it you may think you have one of the notes in the wrong spot. The sound of the diminished chord does have that feeling about it. It is dissonant and has tension in its sound.
The diminished chord in the key of C would we the seventh chord in the key and would be B diminished which badly wants to move up to C to resolve the tension in the chord and key. I think its best when you play all the chords in a key from the one chord through the seventh chord and finish your cycle back on the one chord. When you try this take note of how all the chords sound as they fit together, even the diminished chord! One reason they sound like this is because all the chords you play in a key are all created from the same scale.
Now I am going to move on to the minor 7th b5 chord. The minor 7th b5 chord takes the place of the diminished chord in a major or minor key. Therefor the seventh chord in a major key is the minor 7th b5 chord. If we stay with the same key of C major then your seven chord in C would now be Bmin7b5. How we arrive at minor 7th b5 chord is we are adding a fourth note to our chord. Again to better understand how a chord is comprised I will use the definitions of the four different kind of seventh chords that are native to a key. Major 7th=R-3rd-5th-7th Minor 7th=R-b3rd-5th-b7th Dominant 7th=R-3rd-5th-b7th and your minor 7th b5th=R-b3rd-b5th-b7th. The minor 7th b5th chord is a strong sound in jazz music. Again it may sound dissonant by itself but used in the right context is very hip!
I hope this blog on Van Halen has got you inspired to better your skills. Please contact us to come in for your $10 introductory lesson from one of our great instructors or myself. We offer guitar lessons, piano lessons, drum lessons, violin lesson,vocal lessons as wells as some orchestral instruments and more.
