Understanding Diminished Chords

With major and minor chords being so popular in modern Western music, sometimes we forget how to be truly creative and think outside the box.

Diminished chords aren’t a newfound musical sound, nor are they unknown. However, they are underutilized as they don’t fit into the norm of having a consonant (pleasing) sound, as diminished chords are dissonant (displeasing).

In today’s post we’ll be looking at the diminished chord and…

What they are
How you build them
Their relationship to scales
And how you can use them in your song

Let’s get started.

What is a diminished chord?

The best way to describe a diminished chord is to think of a startling, unsettled sound that causes you to be concerned – here you have met a chord that causes tension, a type of diminished chord.

Out of context, it can sound alarming, unpleasant and a chord you perhaps want to avoid in your music.

Let’s listen to a row of diminished chord chords – B dim, C dim, D dim and E dim.

Nicola Bleu · Diminished Chords – 4 Examples

I agree with how you’re feeling. I don’t like that either.

How do you build a diminished chord?

A diminished chord is built using a diminished triad which consists of 3 notes, and is built by stacking a minor 3rd (3 semitones from the root) and a diminished 5th (6 semitones from the root) giving you the chord formula: R – b3 – b5. It is also known as stacking two minor 3rds.

For example if C is our root note, Eb is our minor 3rd which is 3 semitones away from C (b3), and Gb is our diminished 5th which is 3 semitones away from Eb, and 6 semitones away