What makes a scale diminished

The diminished scale is a special scale that accompanies a fully diminished 7 th chord. Just to review, a diminished 7 th chord is constructed by stacking minor thirds on top of each other until you build a 7 th chord. There are 3 ways to think about constructing the scale that corresponds to the diminished chord:. Combine two minor tetrachords a tritone apart a tetrachord is a 4-note scale, and a minor tetrachord is basically the first 4 notes of the Dorian minor mode, so for example, combine the first 4 notes of a C- scale with the first 4 notes of an F - scale 2.

Play alternating whole- and half-steps:. Combine two fully diminished 7 th chords a whole step apart, for example, combine C dim.

As it turns out, there are only 3 diminished scales. Using only notes derived from a given diminished scale, you can extract a lot of useful and familiar-sounding harmonic structures. There are major triads, dominant 7 th chords, dominant 7 th b5 chords, minor 7 th chords, and minor 7 th b5 chords you can build off of the 2 nd , 4 th , 6 th , and 8 th scale degrees of the diminished scale.

There are also fully diminished 7 th chords you can build off every note of the diminished scale, and there are diminished major 7 th chords you can build of the 1 st , 3 rd , 5 th , and 7th scale degrees. There are a few other types 7 th chords you can extract from the diminished scale — see if you can find them for yourself: diminished major 7 th , minor major 7 b5, major 7 sus 4 5, and major 7 sus 4 b5.

Over a minor II-V7 with the diminished scale starting on the root of the II-7 b5 chord resolving to the diatonic Dorian mode on the I- chord — note that one diminished scale works nicely over both the II-7 b5 and the V7 b9 chords:. Over a pedal point any diminished scale will work, but most often the chord with the same root as the pedal note works best :.

Most importantly, it also makes resolving into the next chord generally easier and more natural. For example:. I hope you find this a helpful guide for exploring diminished scales.

Be aware that there a number of exotic sounding melodic patterns you can create from the diminished scale because it is symmetric — see if you can come up with your own patterns, and happy practicing! Etc etc. Could you explain please? This scale is used to solo over diminished seventh chords. Dim7 chords are not as commonly used as minor, dominant or major chords, but when they do pop up, they have a tendency to handcuff beginning improvisers.

This lesson will introduce you to the diminished scale. Mastering this scale will allow you to confidently and musically solo over Dim7 chords the next time you encounter one in a jazz tune. This lesson will explain how to build, play, and solo with the diminished scale. You will learn practice patterns, arpeggio patterns, and sample licks to help take your Dim7 soloing phrases to the next level.

The diminished scale is an eight-note scale that is built by picking a tonic note, and then alternating whole steps and half steps from that starting note. Because of that it is also commonly referred to as the whole-half diminished scale. To help you visualize how the diminished scale is constructed, here is a chart that lays out the interval structure for this scale.

It also shows you how the whole W and half H steps are used to create this octatonic scale. The diminished scale is different from the dominant diminished scale , which alternates half and whole steps and is used to solo over dominant 7b9 chords.

When first exploring diminished scales on guitar, it is easy to confuse these two scales. Remember that every 7th chord has a set of guide tones , which refer to the 3rd and 7th of the chord.

Guide tones are important because they give a chord its quality — major, minor, dominant. In dominant chords, the 3rd and 7th are a tritone away an interval of a diminished 5th or augmented 4th.

So the big secret about the diminished scale is that it contains 4 sets of tritones, which means… 8 potential dominant chords in this one scale! You said there were 8. That is, instead of the sequence being: tone-semitone-tone-semitone, etc; starting from the second degree, we will have: semitone-tone-semitone-tone, etc. Notice now that we used exactly this second sequence on top of the dominant chords, because in the previous example we played the G diminished scale starting from the G note, that is, the structure was semitone-tone-semitone-tone, etc.

Moral of the story: the dom-dim scale is the diminished scale applied on top of the dominant chord. This will facilitate logic. Create your own musical phrases and get fluent in this topic. It is very worthwhile to invest time in this study. The diminished scale is a fantastic feature; has a unique sound and enchants any listener. We are calling a virtual diminished chord a diminished chord that does not exist in the song, but one that could exist.

It sounds crazy, but it is very simple. Imagine that your band is playing a song that contains the chords C D Em , repeated in that sequence. Obviously, we are not creating another bar , the diminished chord is just dividing the same bar as D. The cool thing is that this passing diminished is so well accepted in this context that we can make a solo as if this chord were there , even if it is not there. In this case, we are deceiving the listener by making him believe that there is a diminished chord at that point.