For me this exercise is a great “chops” builder, I still do it today. It is also a great way to learn what the 12 diminished 7th chords are while working on your technique at the same time.
So what is a diminished 7? A diminished 7 is a interval produced by narrowing a minor seventh by a chromatic semitone which is en-harmonically equivalent to a major sixth.
A good way to look at the diminished 7 chord is to think of it as all minor thirds. For example the C˚7 (Cdim7) chord the C to Eb is a minor 3rd, then Eb to Gb is a minor third and Gb to A is another minor third. The diminished 7th is a 6th.
Sometimes you see the diminished chord written with the double flat (bb) on the b7th note shown below:
I like to make the - double flat - a 6th instead to make it easier to read and that is what is in this exercise below.
Both ways of looking at it are of course correct as you get the same result.
The diminished 7th chord is a special chord as it can be more than one chord depending which note you start on within the chord. So C˚7 could be - C˚7, Eb°7, Gb°7 and A°7 as all these chords are made of the same notes! Db˚7, E˚7, G˚7 and Bb˚7 are all made from the same notes PLUS - D˚7, F˚7, Ab˚7 and B˚7 are…yes! You guessed it, all made up from the same notes!
So this exercise in the FREE PDF moves through these inversions/chords of the 3 diminished chords using C˚7, Db˚7 and D˚7 as a starting point. Have a look below…
If you move the above exercise up a half step (semi-tone) to Db you will get 4 more diminished chords.
Then do the same exercise again up another half step to D and you will get the last 4 diminished chords.
Above are all 12 Diminished 7 chords as broken chords.
If you play the 4-notes under the diminished chord together you will get the Diminished 7 chord. How cool is that!
One last thing is that I have seen this chord written a few ways on chord charts:
dim7
˚7
sometimes only with the ˚
Later in future videos I am going to deep dive more into this topic and show you how to use these exercises in your playing on the piano so stay-tuned for that!
So for now check out the full exercise BELOW and GRAB all three C-Db-D diminished exercises on the FREE sheet music above now!
Grab this exercise in C - Db and D diminished above in FREE PDF.
Take it easy,
Greg.
P.S. If you have a question or a topic you would like me to cover leave a comment below or email me at: greg@classicaltojazzpiano.com