How To Play Guitar
Learn Diminished Guitar Chords
Diminished guitar chords are one of those oddities than can a new dimension to your guitar playing with very little effort.
The strange feel they add to a song can make your playing sound weird and almost trippy, a la the Beatles in during their psychedelic phase in 1968.
Diminished chords are ‘odd’ in every sense of the word. For starters there are only 3 of them. Have a look at the diagram below. This is C dim (i.e. C diminished). It is also D# dim, A dim and F# dim.
Diminished guitar chords can take their name from any of the notes in the chord. As there are only four notes in the chord, it has four different names.
Another thing to note is that there are no open strings in the chord. This allows you to use the diminished chord shape in the same way as a barre chord.
If you slide the whole chord shape up one fret it looks like this and will be called E dim, Bb dim, C# dim or G dim.
If you slide the shape up one more fret it will be F dim, B dim, D dim, Ab dim.
And finally, sliding it up one more fret it will be Eb dim, A dim, C dim, F# dim.
Have a look at the names for this last chord. They are exactly the same names as the very first diminished chord you looked at. The names of diminished chords repeat themselves every three frets – so there are only three diminished chords.
What Do You Use Diminished Guitar Chords For?
Diminished chords are what I would call a stopover chord. They are ‘extra’ chords added into a song to give it a different sound. They are never absolutely necessary and a lot of internet guitar tabs will leave them out. Adding them in though can give a whole sound to a song.
Normally diminished guitar chords are used as a transition between two ‘more important’ chords – the Beatles used them a lot – they are what gave songs like Strawberry fields and Michelle those weird, almost haunting changeovers even though most of the time internet guitar tabs just ignore them.
October 29, 2008 at 8:39 pm | Learn Guitar Chords | 4 comments
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hey is this chord moveable all over the neck on the 4th string only?
@ Joe The diminished chord is movable right up the neck. I have only shown the 4 string version here.A diminished chord can be named after any note in the chord. Look closely at the notes of the chord and you will see that the notes when you play the chord on the 4th fret are the same as when you play the chord on the 1st fret (i.e. they are the same chord) so all you need are the 3 chord shapes shown on this post to be able to play all the diminished chords. Hope this answers your question. If it doesn’t let me know…