Diminished seventh chords are very important in jazz, gospel, and a variety of other music genres.
However, a lot of musicians struggle when it comes to its formation. This is my observation based on my interaction with musicians in our community: The Gospel Music Training Center.
In today’s blog, I’ll take you by the hand and show you how to play a diminished seventh chord on the piano; not minding if you’ve never played a diminished seventh chord before.
Let’s get to it!
“Do You Know How To Count Half-Steps On The Piano?”
This blog post is dedicated to all my esteemed beginners and I want it as basic as possible. So, the requirement for forming diminished seventh chords is the knowledge of half-steps on the piano.
A half-step (aka – “semitone”) is the shortest distance between adjacent keys on the piano. Going from C to D:
…is a whole-step that can be broken down into two half-steps:
C to Db:
Db to D:
Let’s quickly go over the half-steps on the piano from C to C:
C to Db:
Db to D:
D to Eb:
Eb to E:
E to F:
F to Gb:
Gb to G:
G to Ab:
Ab to A:
A to Bb:
Bb to B:
B to C:
If you follow the progression of notes above, you should be able to count notes in half-steps.
Simplified: Diminished Seventh Chords Using A “Three-Half-Step” Count
A classic example of the diminished seventh chord is the B diminished seventh chord:
If we look at the distance between sequential notes:
B-D (three half-steps):
D-F (three half-steps):
F-Ab (three half-steps):
…it’s basically three half-steps.
Following the break down of the B diminished seventh chord, we can figure out the A diminished seventh chord in two shakes of a dog’s tail.
“Here’s How…”
Start on A (the root of the chord):
…and go up three half-steps (to C):
…and up by another three half-steps (from C to Eb):
…and another one (from Eb to Gb):
If you put all of that together, you have the A diminished seventh chord:
“Are You Ready For Yet Another Three-Half-Step Count?”
Let’s form the E diminished seventh chord starting on E:
Then count three half-steps up (from E to G):
…and three half-steps up again (from G to Bb):
…then from Bb, we can go up three half-steps up again (to Db):
If we put the E, G, Bb, and Db together:
…that’s the E diminished seventh chord.
Go ahead and work out the rest of the diminished seventh chords on the piano and kindly post it in the comment section below. For example:
C# diminished seventh chord = C# + E + G + Bb
Final Words
For those who are beyond the beginners level, there’s a fancy way to describe a three-half-step count. Musicians often times say stuff like, “minor third.”
So, a minor third from A is C:
…and from C, a minor third takes us to Eb:
…and another minor third from Eb takes us to Gb:
Altogether, A-C-Eb-Gb:
…is the A diminished seventh chord.
If you come across musicians who go up in minor thirds, they are not doing anything different from those of us doing three-half-step counts.
All the best and see you next time!
