Diminished 7th Chords – Transition Chords

Good morning. This is Duane. We have been doing a series called. “Good Stuff You Really Need To Know About Music!”, based on all about music theory kind of things. Yesterday I talked about diminished 7th chords, and how there was only really just three diminished 7th chords because if you go up a half step from each one, if you go up another half step, you have the first chord turned upside down. That chord is C diminished 7th, E-flat diminished 7th, G-flat diminished 7th, A diminished 7th, D-sharp diminished 7th, F-sharp diminished 7th. It can function as any of those, okay? If you go up a half step, that’s C-sharp diminished 7th, E diminished 7th, G diminished 7th, B-flat or A-sharp diminished 7th. You go up another half step, you have D diminished, F diminished, A-flat or G-sharp diminished, and B diminished. If you go another half step, however, you come to the same chords, so there are really only three different diminished 7th chords.

Now, somebody asked an excellent question is, “I know them, but how do I use diminished 7th chords?” Well, they are transition chords. Unless you are trying to build tension … If you hear … In a lot of movies you hear this kind of thing. That is designed to build tension. You hear that in any kind of scary situation, usually with an orchestra, not piano, but the same principle.

When you’re just playing, you can use them as transition chords. In other words, they’re not the meat and potatoes of music. They’re the salt and pepper. Augmented chords are like that too. For example, yesterday I used the example of “America The Beautiful.” Right here, before we go to the G-chord, we can do this. That is a diminished 7th chord. That is that C-sharp diminished 7th chord because I am going from there to there. Okay, once more.

Now, I can use diminished 7th chords in transition if I want to. See that? There is another place. See that? When I move between chords, I can use that as a transition. Usually, if you are going up a whole step. In other words, if I am going from a C-chord to the D-chord of any sort, D-minor, D-7th, whatever, I can use that C-sharp diminished 7th chord because it is only a half step slide from there to there, right?

Later in “America”, I’m going from the C-chord to D-minor 7th chord. As I do that, I can go down from C to E-flat diminished, and then … See that? Any time you have a transition, you can think about using those diminished 7th chords as transition chords. The same thing is true of augmented chords. Say you are moving from C to F, you can use C augmented to move up to F. F, any time you go up a fourth, you can use an augmented chord to lead you up there, in other words. It does not have to be … It can be like this. That’s C, that’s C augmented. You’re going up a fourth to F. See that?

Okay, that is it for today. If you enjoy this sort of thing, come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for our free series of piano tips because they are free, so I hope to see you there. Bye-bye for now.

***For lots more good stuff on piano playing come on over to my website at https://www.playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips – “Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!”

Here’s a great little book on chords and chord progressions on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chords-Chord-Progressions-Exciting-ebook/dp/B0076OUGDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404158669&sr=1-1&keywords=piano+chords+duane+shinn

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMMN4fyvF10&feature=youtu.be

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