Songs that use Diminished Chords

this video is sponsored by curiositystream this is a diminished chord c diminished it's just like a minor chord but with the fifth degree lowered or diminished by a semitone and we can label it either with a little degree mark like this or simply by writing the word dim next to it now as you can hear the diminished chord is almost an inherently dissonant sound particularly when we hear it in isolation like this it's quite hard to imagine how it could ever sound pleasant or musical but diminished chords are far from weird obscure chords used for making dissonant sounding music to hear the true power and potential of diminished chords you need to hear them in context you need to hear them in a chord progression benny in the jets by elton john uses a g sharp diminished chord as you can hear the g-sharp diminished chord allows this smooth movement from the tonic chord of g to the two chord of a minor there was nothing stopping elton from just shifting straight from g to a minor like this but by bridging the gap with this diminished chord we get a super smooth satisfying climb up to the a minor chord the tension of the diminished chord also injects a bit more energy into a chord progression when we're on the diminished chord the harmony sounds unresolved in limbo giving the music a sense of forward momentum because our ears want to hear that dissonant diminished chord collapse forward onto a more consonant chord this is the beauty of diminished chords they introduce tension that wants to resolve somewhere else so they kind of project the song forward they give it forward momentum whilst also introducing drama and tension to the music in don't look back and anger by oasis a diminished chord is used to travel from the v chord g to the sixth chord of the key a minor simultaneously building some tension and also lending a super smooth way to travel between these two chords [Music] if oasis had just sat still on g for two bars rather than using a g sharp diminished chord to bridge the gap we wouldn't get that same satisfying release when we land down on the a minor chord i stand up beside the fireplace take that look from off oasis have used their diminished chord on the sharpened fifth degree of the scale but another common scale degree to build a diminished chord on is the sharpened fourth degree the raised fourth this is particularly common in jazz music we can see it here in hogie carmichael's famous georgia on my mind made most popular by ray charles in this example the diminished chord lifts us up from the fourth chord of the key up onto the tonic chord in second inversion creating a classic silky smooth voice leading between the three chords a more modern song to use the raised fourth diminished chord is none other than all star by smash mouth in the chorus we climb up from the four chord the b major up to c diminished and then down again so rather than resolving the diminished chord upwards to get that satisfying climb that we've seen in other examples so far here the diminished chord is just introducing some tension and then returning back down to the regular fourth degree a similar use of diminished chords is the guitar riff from my iron lung by radiohead the end of the riff outlines a a diminished chord and then a c diminished chord lending the song an unnerving quality [Applause] as we've seen in many of the examples so far diminished chords are great for moving us from one chord to another almost like a harmonic glue that sticks the chord progression together and even if used briefly even if used in passing a diminished chord can really lend a cohesion to a chord progression for example during the bridge of when the part is over by billy eilish this brief a sharp diminished chord guides us up from the fourth chord of the key a to the fifth chord b [Music] they didn't have to add this in they could have just moved straight from a to b like this [Music] but the brief diminished chord just gives that extra moment of interest and satisfaction when it leads us up from the fourth chord to the fifth chord likewise in the chorus of bridge over troubled water by simon garfunkel this brief f sharp diminished chord gives us an even sweeter resolution to the tonic chord particularly because it's coupled with the space movement of a natural moving to b flat [Music] once again a very brief use of a diminished chord that doesn't have to be in there to make the song work but its inclusion just gives the harmony an extra depth and richness one of the best examples of diminished chords creating smooth harmonic motion is line cliches a line cliche is when we take a chord like f major for example and then with each subsequent chord in the progression we just adjust its highest or lowest note by a semitone so starting with this f chord we could then take the bottom note f and lower it to e natural and then for the next chord do that again so the e natural becomes an e flat resulting in this really smooth line between the different chords [Music] and although all we were focusing on as we wrote that progression is lowering the lowest note in the chord we've wound up with this chord progression that as you can see includes a diminished chord and this is actually exactly the progression used in the verse of life on mars by david bowie [Music] a similar line cliche features an elton john's your song at the end of the chorus we get this line cliche and serving as one of the steps in that line cliche is this a diminished chord [Music] so far all of the examples of diminished chords that we've looked at have not been built on one of the diatonic notes of the scale but instead been built on a chromatic note in between the scaled degrees for example in don't look back in anger it was built on the sharp five and in georgia on my mind it was built on the sharp four but diminished chords don't have to be built on chromatic scale degrees we can have a diminished chord without ever leaving the major scale if we diatonically build a chord on the seventh degree of the major scale then we will get a diminished triad [Music] so in the scale of c major we can naturally get a b diminished chord the thing is though in practice we rarely ever see this diatonic diminished chord used the only examples i was able to find of this diminished chord on the seventh degree of the scale were from classical pieces of music for example here in mozart's piano sonata number five we can see the c sharp diminished chord in the left hand which is the diatonic diminished chord on the seventh degree because at this moment in the piece we're in the key of d major the reason that the diminished chord built on the seventh degree of the scale is such a rare beast is because it's generally considered to be an incomplete version of the dominant chord in the key of c major for example the seventh chord of the key is this b diminished the dominant chord of the key the fifth chord is this g7 chord and as you can see and also here the top three notes of the g7 chord are just a b diminished triad this means that both chords sound and function in a near identical way they both introduce tension that wants to ultimately resolve back to the tonic chord of c major the only difference is that i think most people would consider the g7 to be a more powerful resolution back to the c major so the b diminished is kind of a lackluster version of that classic perfect cadence sound but there is another diminished chord that we can play without using any chromatic notes and this one is a lot more common if we build a chord on the second degree of the minor scale the natural minor scale that chord will be a diminished chord and unlike its major scale counterpart this chord is generally considered a lot more useful for example maroon 5 used it here in their hit this love in a moment we'll look at how diminished chords are used in because by the beatles but first i'd like to tell you about today's sponsor which is 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the link below and use promo code david bennett to get a whole year of curiosity stream for just 14.99 i've mentioned already that diminished chords are tense they're dissonant and they want to resolve somewhere else but one of the great things about diminished chords one of the things that makes them so versatile is that they don't really mind where they resolve to they just want to resolve somewhere because diminished chords are inherently unstable and dissonant our ears are pretty content to hear them resolve to any nearby major or minor chord particularly if each note of the diminished chord doesn't have to travel far to get to the resolving chord our ears will be relieved to hear that diminished tension collapse into a good old reliable major or minor chord so for example this d diminished chord could resolve to c could resolve to d to f to g to a to e flat to f sharp of course particularly depending on what key you're in some resolutions will sound more final than others but all of these resolutions offer a point of relief from the tension of the diminished chord the beatles actually show us two possible resolutions of this d diminished chord in their track because at the end of each verse we get a d diminished chord the first time it resolves downwards to the tonic chord of c sharp minor [Music] but at the end of the second verse the d diminished chord now resolves instead to f sharp major offering a different but also satisfying resolution now beyond this d diminished chord because actually features another diminished chord however you may not have spotted it because it's in disguise it's this one the d sharp minor seven flat five as the name suggests a d sharp minor seven flat five is a d sharp minor seven with its fifth flattened but despite the name if we look at the notes of this chord we can see that we now actually have a d sharp diminished chord with a added seventh on top so why isn't this chord just called d sharp diminished seven well this is because when it comes to putting sevenths on diminished chords things get a little confusing a d sharp diminished seven chord would actually be this chord this is almost exactly the same as the chord we got him because but the seventh note the top note here in the chord has been lowered by yet another semitone unlike with major and minor chords where there are only two types of seventh we can add a dominant seventh or a major seventh with diminished triads we can actually add a third type the diminished seventh this is because diminished chords have a lowered fifth so by lowering the fifth we're actually opening up a little bit more space between the top note of the triad and the octave so we can add another seventh note in with any given diminished triad we could add one of three types of seventh we could add the major seventh giving us a diminished major seventh chord this is admittedly quite a rare chord but it's good to acknowledge it because it effectively completes our set the second type of seventh we could add to the diminished chord is a dominant seventh giving us the chord we saw in because the minor seven flat five this chord's technical name is actually half diminished and is usually labeled like this with a degree mark with a little line through it but because this symbol could be confusing to some players many just describe this chord as minor seven flat five as that is a slightly more self-explanatory way to play this chord and of course there's the third and final type of seventh that we can add to our diminished triad it's the diminished seventh and by adding the diminished seventh to the diminished triad we get a diminished seventh chord labeled either with a degree mark followed by a seven or with the word dim followed by seven adding a diminished seventh basically just means adding a minor third on top of a diminished triad and interestingly because a diminished triad is already just two minor thirds stacked on top of each other a diminished seventh chord is now three minor thirds stacked on top of each other diminished seventh chords are like the evolved form of regular diminished triads they introduce more tension more dissonance and more possible options for resolution love is a losing game by amy winehouse opens with a sustained f diminished seven chord this instantly introduces attention a tonal question that needs to be answered and we then get that answer when the f diminished seven chord resolves onto the tonic chord of c major 7 setting the song in motion [Music] god only knows by the beach boys features the c diminished seven chord in the middle of its verse this c diminished seven chord resolves really neatly onto the e major chord [Music] and this movement from e major seven second inversion to c diminished seven and then back to the e major second inversion lends a satisfying sway of tension and release to the middle of the verse the chorus of we are the champions by queen features two different diminished seven chords first we get this f sharp diminished seven which both injects some extra drama into the chorus whilst also acting to guide us up neatly to the g minor chord then soon after this we get two bars of b flat diminished seven bringing attention that makes the return to the tonic chord of f all the more cathartic [Applause] another song to use two diminished seven chords is michelle by the beatles in fact the guitar is actually only playing these chords as diminished triads d diminished and b diminished but the diminished seven is being introduced by the vocal melody an interesting element to these two diminished seven chords that we're getting here in michelle is that they're actually inversions of each other they're both using the exact same notes do you remember how i said earlier that a diminished seven chord is just three minor thirds stacked on top of each other well the consequence of that is that if you invert a diminished seven chord you just wind up with a different diminished seven chord if i take b diminished seven and put the b on top leaving d as the lowest note it's not a b diminished seven chord first inversion or b diminished over d it's now just a d diminished seven chord this is just an odd quirk of the way that diminished seven chords are built but it's a good thing to be aware of when you're labeling your diminished seven chords so that's the diminished seven what some people would call a fully diminished chord but what about the other type of seven i was talking about the half diminished seven the minor seven flat five well we've already seen the half diminished chord the minor seven flat five at working because by the beatles but the fab four actually used it again later on the same album for this section of you never give me your money here the half diminished chord or what i'll call from now on the minor seven flat five is acting as part of a two five one resolution back to the tonic chord of a minor [Music] the verse of you never give me your money takes us on a little harmonic journey away from the tonic chord of a minor so this 251 progression acts really well to bring us home to the a minor tonic chord in fact the most common setting that you will find of a minor 7 flat 5 chord is as part of a 2 5 1 progression we can see it here in the classic jazz standard my funny valentine with my heart [Music] and also here in between the sheets by the isley brothers [Laughter] [Music] [Music] of course due to the dissonant nature of diminished chords it's very rare to find a piece of music that only uses diminished chords so i've taken it upon myself to write this piece which exclusively uses diminished chords [Music] there are definitely plenty more examples out there of diminished chords at work in classic songs so if you can think of a great example do put it in the comments down below and as always a massive massive thanks goes to everyone who supports me on patreon including the names you see on screen right now and andrei sans diagram andy deacon andrew andrew brown andrew sussman austin barrett justin russell bob mckinstry whitney parker cameron alvila colin aiken chris cabal christopher ryan david rivers donald howard dr darren wicks elena scorchenko eugene leroy fd hodor greg krabowski iolamo latona hamish brookel bank hernick kutcher hugo miller ivan pang jake fisher james chao j.a hookensberger john dye josh sandolin justin vigor lee lauritsen mark ziegenhagen max o'keefe melody composer squared melanie schoenert michael vivian nancy gillard nathan lawrence nathaniel park paul muller paul peter dunphy richard bride roger clay john kennedy steve daly stephen lozaro tim beaker homer aharoni trisha adams tim payne victor levy vidad flowers vladimir kodakov vaulty and weyland fairbanks [Music] you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 277,770

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Keywords: diminished, seven, music theory, explained, how to play, analysis, songs that us, examples, chords, triad, half diminished

Id: 2Q_dpxMb328

Length: 21min 56sec (1316 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 15 2021