One of the most useful chords of all is the diminished 7th chord, often notated as “dim7” as in “Cdim7”, “Dbdim7”, “F#dim7” and so on. They can be used for so many different things, from transitions to transposing to modulation to increasing the emotional intensity of a song. If you listen to “Moonlight Sonata” you will find an entire section of the piece where Beethoven toggled back and forth between a diminished 7th chord and a minor triad, then back to a dim7, then a minor, etc, etc. Watch this short video on dim7th chords and you’ll catch on quickly:

Diminished 7th chords are wonderments that do so many different things in music — they are nearly inexaustible. There are only 3 diminished 7th chords because all the rest are simply inversions of those 3.

You can use dim 7th chords to modulate to a different key, to locate clever chord progressions, and as doorways to get you to dominant 7th chords, minor 6th chords. major 7th chords, and on and on.

There are 4 notes in each diminishted 7th chords, each a minor 3rd away from the previous note. Any note in a dim 7th chord can be the root of the chord, so every dim 7th chord can function as 4 different chord names.

Listen to this podcast and you’ll get the idea:

Diminished 7th chords Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Learn to play Diminished 7th Chords - Doorways To Everywhere

Diminished 7th Chords - Doorways To Everywhere Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Diminished 7th chords are amazing. There are only 3 of them because each is composed of a stack of minor 3rds. So each note in a diminished 7th chords can function as the root. Watch this short video to see what else you can do with them: