What do you do with a diminished chord? Diminished chords occur naturally within the scale. They start on the seventh degree, so if we start from C and move up, we’ll discover it right here.
One place this B diminished chord is begging to go is up one half step to C. And here’s why. This tritone interval teeters at the precipice of this C major third.
In fact, it’s precisely those ingredients that give the dominant V chord its teeth. It’s what makes V pull so desperately to one. If we keep stacking minor thirds so we have a full diminished chord on the top, we end up with a G7 with a flat 9.
And that’s a real cliffhanger going to C. An interesting feature of full diminished chords is that these four notes don’t invert. That means this one diminished chord is actually four diminished chords, which resolves up a half step to four different chords, either major or minor.
As for my favorite diminished chord resolution, that won’t fit in this video, so you’ll have to wait until next time. Until then, like this post and share it with someone who belongs in a Beat Kitchen class.
