Head to curiositystream.thld.co/DAVIDBENNETT and use promo code DAVIDBENNETT to get a year of *CuriosityStream for only $14.99* 😁 I really do think that CuriosityStream is great so do check it out! Thank you 😀
Overture, This Jesus Must Die, and Trial By Pilate from Jesus Christ Superstar have really interesting uses of Dim chords too... I know your main focus is pop music and not really a lot of musical theater
Hi! There is a beautiful song from late 90's, from a brazillian band, called "Os cegos do castelo" (something like "the blind from the castle"), where most part of the music is I and viiº (C and Bº). Take a look at th-cam.com/video/FMeyuDAR_BE/w-d-xo.html Oddly enough, it sounds very pleasant...
It’s incredibly helpful when Mr. Bennett shows an example, and then shows an alternate version of what it would sound like in another instance - In this case, what would happen if the chord wasn’t diminished. He does this often in his videos, and I learn so much from it every time. Thank you for your time and your talent.
I think one of the most useful and insightful things that David does in these videos is record and play the alternative. As in "They didn't have to do it this way, they could simply have done this..." What a considerate addition. Thanks for all your work!
I love diminished chords. As a child, playing electric organ there were pre-programmed chords and I loved to play along with them. I felt they sounded mysterious and exciting and today I really love when they are incorporated in modern music.
Trembling arpeggiated diminished chords rising by half steps is a classic silent film (with live musical score) high tension cliche, on piano or organ.
@@tedl7538 For Hallowe’en a few weeks ago, I went to see “The Cabinet of Dr Caligari”, a silent film which had live improvised piano accompaniment, with a lot of this “trembling arpeggiated diminished half step climb” played .... but it didn’t sound like a cliche to me. Instead it sounded as if played by a beautifully haunted fresco of lost souls 🎹👽
I spent so many years learning music theory by shear force in classical music school, but feeling like it wasn't useful at all, and now in my thirties I am actually understanding practical harmony thanks to amazing youtubers such as David Bennet! Thank you so much!
Dude I play not one but several instruments. You can play classical music by just being able to read sheet music... in fact I know lots of people who had the same experience as me, studying harmony by the book but not being able to understand it and apply it
Yeah Randy Newman writes some amazing progressions. I'd always wanted to be able to play that song on guitar, and now I can, but I have to read the chords as I go...too many to remember lol
You’re talking about the II - V - I progressions in a minor key, which is extremely common. Listen to all the minor key songs in the man of La Mancha guitar parts.
Your piece at the end that only uses diminished chords is actually pretty cool. It may not be very practical for a song on the radio, but I can totally hear that being used in a film score.
@@nexas3018: It sounds like something from a video game, probably a SNES or N64/Playstation era Japanese game. Can't quite place it, though. Maybe A Link to the Past
there's a brazillian song called "Ela Partiu"(she left) that has a cool diminished guitar lick, where the guitarist plays a diminished chord, and moves it above it a minor third repeatedly, thus changing chords several times, but never changing notes. as you explain in 17:37
Here in Brazil, diminished chords are pretty common in many forms and styles! Samba, bossa nova, forró/xote and so on. It's also common in the traditional music of other Latin America nations
@@ithan0404 sim, principalmente o semi-diminuto, tb chamado de m7(b5). Por ex: em Tropicana do Alceu, tem a sequência Bm / F#m / C#m7(b5) / F#7. Existem zilhões de exemplos!
@@pepafonico aaata kkk É muito legal saber q nessas músicas há bastante elementos desse tipo. Por elas serem nacionais ainda da até mais orgulho kk Vlw por explicar
I've been a musician for nearly 30 years and I was totally blown over by 'love is a losing game ' Amy was 17 when she wrote that ...I think some people are just born to do it . The use of the dim chord in ' God only knows ' is just sublime...that's another song that is full of fantastic chords ...the way he uses inversions is just genius
@@DavidBennettPiano great video, but I'm surprised you didn't mention that the next chord in God Only Knows after the segment you analysed is a min7b5. It's how I learned the difference between the two types of chord.
The tension built by the diminished chord is like the tension I feel while waiting for David to use an example from a Radiohead song. Radiohead is my resolved chord.
I’m studying music theory at university and this is the best way I’ve heard this concept explained so far. Thanks, I’ve been trying to understand this concept of what you use a diminished chord for. I thought this would be a fun trivia video, I love random knowledge, and I got that and more understanding of my degree :)
Thanks for yet another fantastic songwriting lesson! This was really interesting. I appreciate all the examples and the clear explanation of how to use diminished chords when composing. Keep up the great work! Thank you!
Thank you for making this video. I actually requested it a few months ago, and you responded that you'd make it. I can't imagine how much work one of these videos takes. So I really appreciate it. Diminished chords are my favorite songwriting tool. I use them in almost every song I write. The most common way I use them is the "Don't Look Back in Anger" style of progression (as a transition between the V and vi chords). But one song of mine uses a B dim 7 to resolve to G minor 7. The B resolves to Bb, the D stays on D, the F stays on F, and the G# resolves to G.
Thanks once again David! Might be no exaggeration to say that 25% of everything I've learned about the deep & wondrous pool that is music theory, I learned from watching your videos, sitting at the piano, trying it out as I go.
Diminished chords are so intriguing to me because of their symmetry. That attribute wasn’t explicitly mentioned here, but it seems to be implied by a lot of what you demonstrated. While I hear a lot of diminished chords as being added in between chords as cool connective tissue, their symmetry also allows them to be used as interesting tools for modulation. Also, the piece you composed for the ending sounds like it belongs in the EarthBound soundtrack. I dig it.
Augmented triads have that symmetry too, but by using major thirds instead of minor. Just as four similar diminished triads cover an octave, so do three augmented triads.
As a long-time guitar player, I was always baffled as to how a writer would think to chose a particular diminished chord for a transition in a song. I recently set a goal for myself to learn to play keyboards and I started playing songs that I had played many times on guitar on the piano. While playing these changes on a keyboard I had an epiphany. The most common use for a diminished triad (not the dim 7ths) is simply to create a line cliché by moving the ROOT of the chord up one half step and leaving the 3rd and the 5th alone. So, if you start with a C and move the root up one half step, you get a C#dim. The vast majority of the pop songs I had been playing with diminished triads had the diminished chord immediately preceded or immediately followed by the major chord one half step away. So, in Bennie and the Jets the change is G, G#dim, Am7. G#dim is just a G with the root raised by a half step leading to the Am7. The change in Don't Look Back in Anger is G, G#dim, Am. Again G#dim is just a G with the root raised by a half step. Georgia on My Mind - C7, C#dim7, G/D. This time the C#dim7 is just a C7 with the root raised up one half step. All Star - B, Cdim, B. Cdim is a B with the root raised up one half step. So all you're doing is moving the root up one half step and then back down again. When the Party's Over - A A#dim, B7. The line cliché in Your Song goes backwards it moves from an Adim to an Ab. An Ab is just an Adim with the root dropped by a half step. This little revelation suddenly made it clear why diminished chords were so often a natural result of changes when you're moving only the bass line or the root to transition into another chord.
Still Got The Blues by the late great Gary Moore uses a m7b5 to great effect. Lady Gaga’s use of a G#dim in Bad Romance before resolving on the relative minor is another favourite of mine. Absolutely makes that whole chorus.
I love how you show so simply both what the concept is and how it's used in practice. The examples make it very clear. Thank you for going to the extra effort of finding/creating covers so we can hear what you mean without you getting demonetized. It's absolutely ridiculous that they make you do that when in reality you're giving the copyright holders free advertising by showcasing the music. Anyway, keep on doing what you do!
@@flynnvanherwijnen7626 Ah - interestingly, the diminished seventh chord isn't there in 'He's So Fine'; the chorus ends with a stop on G major and then goes straight back to Am7.. In 'My Sweet Lord' the G#dim7 is added in as a joining chord back to Am7.
'If I can dream " by Elvis has a nice use of the dim chord and 'Saturday Sun' by Nick drake . Dim chords are used quite a bit in gospel and blues ...' I need your love so bad " by Fleetwood Mac circa Peter green is another nice use of it . The chords to ' bridge over trouble water's ' are all good, after the dim chord he goes to Bmin/A bass note and it's just a thing of beauty .
I’ve also heard that some Christmas songs use diminished chords, including the miner flat 5. I’ve saw on Adam Neely’s video on Seline Dion’s version of all by myself, she used that miner flat 5 in what he calls, "The greatest key change in pop music."
@@ericforsyth thanks for bringing that to my attention. I’ve heard this song on what used to be Radio Disney a lot, and never noticed how it Modgulated. The miner 7 does give this song a sence of suspence.
Thanks so much for actually showing musical examples and then how they'd sound *without* the chord. Most music theory videos don't do this, which always makes me think "well, what's the alternative? What's the big deal here?" Showing both is super helpful. This was a really educational video. Thanks for posting, David. Subscribed!
Great video and explanation... especially the bit about the 3 ways to include a 7th. Never heard it put so clearly. I've got a piece that ends on a I dim...sort of an unresolved resolution. Pretty neat trick when it works.
The fully diminished track at the end sounds like you're in a mist-filled graveyard late at night, slowly making your way down into a spooky crypt, lantern in hand. I'm sure there's at least one piece from the Monkey Island games that sounds just like this.
I was thinking the same! The ambient music from the swamp in MI2 was my first thought, though there are other similar tracks in the series. th-cam.com/video/OTzqFB6KQSU/w-d-xo.html
@@MisterM2402 Scrolling through the comments I was glad to see your profile pic, because the only reason I came down here in the first place was to say how it literally sounds like straight out of Twilight Princess to the point that, before he started explaining that it was his own, I thought he was actually gonna talk about Zelda and how diminished chords are used in soundtracks or something (kinda what @FuzzzWuzzz) said
I have been in several rock bands over the years and wrote and co-wrote songs all the while, WITH NEXT TO NO TRAINING. The David Bennett Piano channel is fascinating and helpful to me, so thanks! In this case, I will be looking over some of my songs to see if any of them could be enriched with diminished chords in the existing progressions.
this is a FANTASTIC video, thank you david! i'm using these in conjunction with your 'music theory concepts ranked by importance' video to fill the holes in my understanding of music.
The Shadows' Chattanooga Choo-choo instrumental starts with three pairs of diminished chords in different inversions giving the illusion of a train whistle.
I have been hearing The Beatles "Because" in my head for years and had no idea what the song was. God bless you for finally revealing it to me. I feel like I can die at peace now 😂
Was it American Beauty, perhaps? I just checked John Lennon's credits on IMDb. The ones that came up were American Beauty and a Cirque du Soleil movie (and a bunch of Beatles-related movies, like Across the Universe).
Excellent tutorial David, I’m a composer from Ireland and I really enjoy your videos, your channel is great and you provide a wonderful service to aspiring musicians, thank you.
4:15 I think everything can be reduced to playing two major keys at the same time. The first two chords are G and F played in arpeggio. The next two diminished cords are really G major and B major played in arpeggio (each minor third implies the missing root, because they are the third and fifth harmonic). Resolution can then be seen as moving to the closest key represented by the two simultaneous keys. For example, G7 resolving to C is the two keys G and F, whose major chords cover the whole major scale of C except for the note E (the fifth harmonic of C). So resolution is kind of a union of two keys. Also want to point out that classical music generally seems to have a lot simpler harmonic structure than modern music, making the latter more advanced but without the virtuoso
7:36 Tom Waits actually uses a diatonic dimished vii chord in his song Martha, which is in major. The main piano riff simply switches back and forth between the I chord and dimished vii. Works quite well :)
16:04 - THANK YOU, YA BASTARD. I held out to see if he would include God Only Knows on the topic of diminished 7ths. Great video, love a being able to see the Beatles and The Beach Boys (Brian Wilson) show up in these videos, a testament to each group using musical ideas to great effect, unique or otherwise.
Super appreciate your explanations in this video. I was trying to understand why the vii dim was a "bad" chord to use in a progression and it makes total sense
Also "In The Lap Of The Gods" has at least one and "My Melancholy Blues" a some. There's lots of peculiar chords in Queen songs, especially in Freddie's more unique ones.
I’m so glad this popped up in my feed. I recently encountered a diminished 7th chord, and couldn’t figure out why Google was telling me the answer it was telling me. This was a nice refresher since my chord reading is a little rusty. I’m looking forward to discovering any of your videos on augmented 7th chords.
This has to be one of the best guitar lessons I’ve come across on this site. Ever! It’s one thing learning a song with a diminished chord in it. But quite another learning HOW to use them yourself to compose a song. Thank you!
Great, I just started looking at a few of your videos. I am amazed of how well you explain things. Some other teachers just don't get the point. Your way gets the point across. Thank you, keep up the great work you do.
I think my favourite instance of a dimished chord is in the main Hamilton chord progression. It's just Bm F# G D Bbdim over and over again, but is captivating nonetheless.
I never really got so much insight on how some songs were built on diminished chords. Your videos with song examples are much better than any other videos that classicaly teach it. You are giving real life examples and as a singer songwriter myself i really appreciate understanding and appreciate your help
George Harrison used so many diminished chords in his solo songs that Eric Clapton once chose to cover a GH song ("Run So Far," from Journeyman) because it *didn't* have a diminished chord.
In Don't Look Back in Anger, another way to view that diminished chord is as the 7th degree of a harmonic minor scale in Am, rather than as being based off of the #5. That's one reason why it sounds so smooth to us, it brings us home to the temporary one chord of Am.
Yeah, pretty sure you're right on that. There's an investigative video I saw which comes to the same conclusion: th-cam.com/video/cXd9JmkywJc/w-d-xo.html
I've watched that video (which somebody linked below) where he claims that it is an E7/G# but, if you listen to the acoustic version that he is going by (th-cam.com/video/FZqq1yp6P0E/w-d-xo.html) or look at the song's original stems (which are available online) you can't hear an "E" in that chord. The only difference between a G#dim and a E7/G# is whether or not it has an "E" so, without that essential "E" note, the chord is actually a G#dim 😊 There really isn't much difference between the two chords though 🙂
I love the structure you give to your lessons. I often think: Now would be a good moment to mention this or that. Instead you take a different way and it almost always turns out to be much smoother and easier to understand than if I would have done it. And you never miss anything that I would have thought important.
Very well discussed. Diminished chords always fascinate the tympanic membrane and pull a person in to the song in which they used. We have to hear where that diminished cord is leading us. Brilliant. (The unsung suspended fourth 😊)…
I'm surprised you didn't include "Til There Was You". John really goes to town on the diminished chord on that one. Guess he discovered that each time you slide the Diminished7 chord shape up three frets you get the same chord in different inversions and he really has fun with it on that recording.
I wish you could have shown an example from baroque era. JS Bach used Diminished chords multiple times that I think it's worthwhile to include him. Like what you have said in 7:42, JS Bach used Viidim many times in his pieces. He uses this chord to move to dominant chord or different keys. Check out WTC and 12 Little Preludes!
In my view, the combination of your excellent commentary and your excellent examples really creates engagement with your videos. Very well done! I keep coming back for more.
I never really understood how effective diminished chords could be till now. I just added 2 diminished chords to each of my 2 new songs. You’re a gifted educator, David Bennett. Very grateful.
Head to curiositystream.thld.co/DAVIDBENNETT and use promo code DAVIDBENNETT to get a year of *CuriosityStream for only $14.99* 😁 I really do think that CuriosityStream is great so do check it out! Thank you 😀
How’d you comment this 30 minutes before the video came out?
Overture, This Jesus Must Die, and Trial By Pilate from Jesus Christ Superstar have really interesting uses of Dim chords too... I know your main focus is pop music and not really a lot of musical theater
In queen's "In the lap of the gods" they use a diminished chord in the chorus
Hi! There is a beautiful song from late 90's, from a brazillian band, called "Os cegos do castelo" (something like "the blind from the castle"), where most part of the music is I and viiº (C and Bº). Take a look at th-cam.com/video/FMeyuDAR_BE/w-d-xo.html Oddly enough, it sounds very pleasant...
in the description, you listed the time stamp for the Billie Eilish song off by a minute
It’s incredibly helpful when Mr. Bennett shows an example, and then shows an alternate version of what it would sound like in another instance - In this case, what would happen if the chord wasn’t diminished.
He does this often in his videos, and I learn so much from it every time. Thank you for your time and your talent.
Totally steals my attention with that. He's brilliant.
Yes very well said! Those examples are such useful learning tools!
I agree! He is a great teacher. 👍
Agreed, it's among the best of his many great learning tools/tricks
I’m not getting Ben kidding that’s my orchestras directors last name, mrs Bennett, she even has her husband teaching jazz, which I’m in too 💀💀
We should never diminish chords. They deserve our respect and esteem for their contribution to music. Don't diminish chords, praise them.
Augment them, even.
Give them extensions of praises.
Ко је разумео, схватиће.
Yeah shame on these music theorists. They even call some of these chords “dim” 😔
These chords are really good and should be augmented, but recent media has inverted their beauty which has made people dissonant towards them.
The dim7 chord is really just three minor thirds in a trenchcoat
Named Vincent Majorchord
Also just a Dom7b9 you know :) One man's C# dim7 is another man's A7b9
@@ThePromptWizard2023 yessir
Haha that’s good 😂
It is also two interlocking tritones ready for modulation. :-)
I think one of the most useful and insightful things that David does in these videos is record and play the alternative. As in "They didn't have to do it this way, they could simply have done this..." What a considerate addition. Thanks for all your work!
My love and respect for the diminished chord has been sharply, augmented.
Hahaha
I’ll admit I snorted
I see what you did there
Ar ar ar ar…🥴😉
If you could take it down a notch, that'd be perfect.
I can't even put into words the joy that seeing All Star in a David Bennett video gives me.
I love diminished chords. As a child, playing electric organ there were pre-programmed chords and I loved to play along with them. I felt they sounded mysterious and exciting and today I really love when they are incorporated in modern music.
I used to call them "horror music chords" before I knew what they were
@@mgbchoralmusic6443 right spooky 👻
@@bigkeezo especially when played on the keyboard with the pipe organ sound!
Trembling arpeggiated diminished chords rising by half steps is a classic silent film (with live musical score) high tension cliche, on piano or organ.
@@tedl7538 For Hallowe’en a few weeks ago, I went to see “The Cabinet of Dr Caligari”, a silent film which had live improvised piano accompaniment, with a lot of this “trembling arpeggiated diminished half step climb” played .... but it didn’t sound like a cliche to me. Instead it sounded as if played by a beautifully haunted fresco of lost souls 🎹👽
I spent so many years learning music theory by shear force in classical music school, but feeling like it wasn't useful at all, and now in my thirties I am actually understanding practical harmony thanks to amazing youtubers such as David Bennet! Thank you so much!
Same. My theory teacher never played the piano. . .
I learned it in high school and found it very useful . I guess you don't play an instrument
Dude I play not one but several instruments. You can play classical music by just being able to read sheet music... in fact I know lots of people who had the same experience as me, studying harmony by the book but not being able to understand it and apply it
I’m also relearning music in my thirties. This content is good!
I love the diminished chord in "youve got a friend in me", especially because its almost immediately followed by an augmented chord
Double cool chord whammy!
Randy Newman >>>>>>>
Yeah Randy Newman writes some amazing progressions.
I'd always wanted to be able to play that song on guitar, and now I can, but I have to read the chords as I go...too many to remember lol
You’re talking about the II - V - I progressions in a minor key, which is extremely common. Listen to all the minor key songs in the man of La Mancha guitar parts.
Songs that include diminished and augmented chords are my favorite when they’re done right. They add so much variety to songs that I love so much
Your piece at the end that only uses diminished chords is actually pretty cool. It may not be very practical for a song on the radio, but I can totally hear that being used in a film score.
Or in a video game
Hey, I get dibs for the soundtrack to my (perpetually unfinished) scifi miniseries! ;-)
I believe Matt Bellamy could manage to write lyrics and sing a melody over that
@@nexas3018: It sounds like something from a video game, probably a SNES or N64/Playstation era Japanese game. Can't quite place it, though. Maybe A Link to the Past
@@ericforsyth Yeah I think there’s something like it in Ocarina of Time but I can’t remember exactly what.
these chords are EVIL muhaha
Muhaha
hi shred
EVIL AF
They s are beautiful when used correctly. 😊😊
They sound like dark water
"Songs that use Diminished Chords"
*proceeds to show muse´s entire discography*
Yep - “Stockholm Syndrome” has it.
@@aaronclift Stockholm syndrome, reapers, apocalypse please, new born, screenager... all my favorite muse songs, lol
@@jerebondar8128 plug in baby. Right before the GMaj to start the chorus matt does a F#dim in the upper register.
@@PhoenixFlight94 ... Where else? It's not simple to play a dimished chord on the lower register of the guitar. In fact, nigh impossible.
@@PendelSteven you can do a power chord with a diminished 5th and it implies a diminished chord in the harmony I guess
there's a brazillian song called "Ela Partiu"(she left) that has a cool diminished guitar lick, where the guitarist plays a diminished chord, and moves it above it a minor third repeatedly, thus changing chords several times, but never changing notes. as you explain in 17:37
Tim Maia!
Que beleza ...
Here in Brazil, diminished chords are pretty common in many forms and styles! Samba, bossa nova, forró/xote and so on. It's also common in the traditional music of other Latin America nations
O comentário que eu estava procurando!
Forró tmb? Caraca, nn sabia kkkkk
@@ithan0404 sim, principalmente o semi-diminuto, tb chamado de m7(b5). Por ex: em Tropicana do Alceu, tem a sequência Bm / F#m / C#m7(b5) / F#7. Existem zilhões de exemplos!
@@pepafonico aaata kkk
É muito legal saber q nessas músicas há bastante elementos desse tipo. Por elas serem nacionais ainda da até mais orgulho kk
Vlw por explicar
amo ver brasileiros por aquii 🎉
I've been a musician for nearly 30 years and I was totally blown over by 'love is a losing game ' Amy was 17 when she wrote that ...I think some people are just born to do it .
The use of the dim chord in ' God only knows ' is just sublime...that's another song that is full of fantastic chords ...the way he uses inversions is just genius
Agreed!
@@DavidBennettPiano great video, but I'm surprised you didn't mention that the next chord in God Only Knows after the segment you analysed is a min7b5. It's how I learned the difference between the two types of chord.
You just did better in 15 minutes than 10 years of conservatory for my reading of chords. Brilliant!
Excellent!
Life on Mars is absolutely phenomenal when it comes to diminished chords and is overall such a great song. Love Bowie.
The tension built by the diminished chord is like the tension I feel while waiting for David to use an example from a Radiohead song.
Radiohead is my resolved chord.
I’m studying music theory at university and this is the best way I’ve heard this concept explained so far. Thanks, I’ve been trying to understand this concept of what you use a diminished chord for. I thought this would be a fun trivia video, I love random knowledge, and I got that and more understanding of my degree :)
Thanks for yet another fantastic songwriting lesson! This was really interesting. I appreciate all the examples and the clear explanation of how to use diminished chords when composing. Keep up the great work! Thank you!
Thanks 😀
Dude... Your videos impart what an alcoholic would call a "moment of clarity." Great videos, breh!
Cheers! 🍺
Thank you for making this video. I actually requested it a few months ago, and you responded that you'd make it. I can't imagine how much work one of these videos takes. So I really appreciate it.
Diminished chords are my favorite songwriting tool. I use them in almost every song I write. The most common way I use them is the "Don't Look Back in Anger" style of progression (as a transition between the V and vi chords). But one song of mine uses a B dim 7 to resolve to G minor 7. The B resolves to Bb, the D stays on D, the F stays on F, and the G# resolves to G.
Thanks once again David! Might be no exaggeration to say that 25% of everything I've learned about the deep & wondrous pool that is music theory, I learned from watching your videos, sitting at the piano, trying it out as I go.
Thanks Ben! I’m so glad to hear that you find my videos helpful! 😃😃
Diminished chords are so intriguing to me because of their symmetry. That attribute wasn’t explicitly mentioned here, but it seems to be implied by a lot of what you demonstrated. While I hear a lot of diminished chords as being added in between chords as cool connective tissue, their symmetry also allows them to be used as interesting tools for modulation.
Also, the piece you composed for the ending sounds like it belongs in the EarthBound soundtrack. I dig it.
Augmented triads have that symmetry too, but by using major thirds instead of minor. Just as four similar diminished triads cover an octave, so do three augmented triads.
Best music theory teaching channel I’ve found. Great lessons, David.
Very well structured with such great examples. First rate. Thanks.
Thank you! 😄😃
I'm looking forward for the day you'll release a full video about Brazilian music/bossa nova and its chord progressions 🇧🇷
God Only Knows actually uses both a half diminished chord and a regular diminished 7 chord, it’s such an interesting and beautiful composition!
As a long-time guitar player, I was always baffled as to how a writer would think to chose a particular diminished chord for a transition in a song. I recently set a goal for myself to learn to play keyboards and I started playing songs that I had played many times on guitar on the piano. While playing these changes on a keyboard I had an epiphany. The most common use for a diminished triad (not the dim 7ths) is simply to create a line cliché by moving the ROOT of the chord up one half step and leaving the 3rd and the 5th alone. So, if you start with a C and move the root up one half step, you get a C#dim. The vast majority of the pop songs I had been playing with diminished triads had the diminished chord immediately preceded or immediately followed by the major chord one half step away. So, in Bennie and the Jets the change is G, G#dim, Am7. G#dim is just a G with the root raised by a half step leading to the Am7. The change in Don't Look Back in Anger is G, G#dim, Am. Again G#dim is just a G with the root raised by a half step. Georgia on My Mind - C7, C#dim7, G/D. This time the C#dim7 is just a C7 with the root raised up one half step. All Star - B, Cdim, B. Cdim is a B with the root raised up one half step. So all you're doing is moving the root up one half step and then back down again. When the Party's Over - A A#dim, B7. The line cliché in Your Song goes backwards it moves from an Adim to an Ab. An Ab is just an Adim with the root dropped by a half step. This little revelation suddenly made it clear why diminished chords were so often a natural result of changes when you're moving only the bass line or the root to transition into another chord.
Two years later, really useful comment, thank you! Also a guitar player mulling learning piano for exactly this reason.
I love the song you made in only diminished chords. Such a eerie and beautiful vibe to it!
Wonderful tutorial! You answered me in 20 minutes questions I had make myself in 40 years. Thank you very much.
Still Got The Blues by the late great Gary Moore uses a m7b5 to great effect. Lady Gaga’s use of a G#dim in Bad Romance before resolving on the relative minor is another favourite of mine. Absolutely makes that whole chorus.
Metallica's Call of Ktulu is a lovely example of a great use of the chord. It switches between Am and Adim to build a "dark" tension.
Living in a cave, I didn't know most of the songs, but this is a superb discussion, worth repeated viewings. Definitely moves me forward. Thanks.
I hope you include a Beatles song for once
😆
Or radiohead
😆
Or muse
Or oasis
Ghost Town by The Specials starts with 4 dimished chords in a row.
(C dim, D flat dim, D dim, and E flat dim)
nice one, absolute classic
Was about to suggest Ghost Town too..!
I love how you show so simply both what the concept is and how it's used in practice. The examples make it very clear. Thank you for going to the extra effort of finding/creating covers so we can hear what you mean without you getting demonetized. It's absolutely ridiculous that they make you do that when in reality you're giving the copyright holders free advertising by showcasing the music. Anyway, keep on doing what you do!
I was already singing Life on Mars in my head when you did that line cliché!!
Genesis loves diminished chords. They’re especially prominent in songs like “In the Cage” and “The Chamber of 32 Doors.”
"Return of giant hogweed" uses several dim chords, from the amazing intro until his powerful ending
great vid as usual completely clearing up all the ragged ends of my knowledge of dims. love your mysterious all-dim piece
Thanks!😃😃
My Sweet Lord is an example which springs to mind (dim7).
I think you mean ‘He’s So Fine’
@@flynnvanherwijnen7626 Ah - interestingly, the diminished seventh chord isn't there in 'He's So Fine'; the chorus ends with a stop on G major and then goes straight back to Am7.. In 'My Sweet Lord' the G#dim7 is added in as a joining chord back to Am7.
@@kevindurkin3864 Hmmm, and I was told they were identical...
@@flynnvanherwijnen7626 The court case told you that maybe lol
@@HAZARDOUS88 in case you didn’t understand I was being _sarcastic_
'If I can dream " by Elvis has a nice use of the dim chord and 'Saturday Sun' by Nick drake .
Dim chords are used quite a bit in gospel and blues ...' I need your love so bad " by Fleetwood Mac circa Peter green is another nice use of it .
The chords to ' bridge over trouble water's ' are all good, after the dim chord he goes to Bmin/A bass note and it's just a thing of beauty .
I’ve also heard that some Christmas songs use diminished chords, including the miner flat 5. I’ve saw on Adam Neely’s video on Seline Dion’s version of all by myself, she used that miner flat 5 in what he calls, "The greatest key change in pop music."
Heigh-Ho from Snow White features the minor miner 7.
@@ericforsyth thanks for bringing that to my attention. I’ve heard this song on what used to be Radio Disney a lot, and never noticed how it Modgulated. The miner 7 does give this song a sence of suspence.
Thanks so much for actually showing musical examples and then how they'd sound *without* the chord. Most music theory videos don't do this, which always makes me think "well, what's the alternative? What's the big deal here?" Showing both is super helpful. This was a really educational video. Thanks for posting, David. Subscribed!
Great video and explanation... especially the bit about the 3 ways to include a 7th. Never heard it put so clearly. I've got a piece that ends on a I dim...sort of an unresolved resolution. Pretty neat trick when it works.
The fully diminished track at the end sounds like you're in a mist-filled graveyard late at night, slowly making your way down into a spooky crypt, lantern in hand. I'm sure there's at least one piece from the Monkey Island games that sounds just like this.
I was thinking the same! The ambient music from the swamp in MI2 was my first thought, though there are other similar tracks in the series. th-cam.com/video/OTzqFB6KQSU/w-d-xo.html
Yep. I was thinking of something like Luigi's Mansion, myself, but, yep, definite video game mood music.
@@SoleaGalilei Definitely that one too, but I was thinking more the Goodsoup Family Crypt from MI3: th-cam.com/video/76aX1sQ9dA8/w-d-xo.html
@@MisterM2402 Scrolling through the comments I was glad to see your profile pic, because the only reason I came down here in the first place was to say how it literally sounds like straight out of Twilight Princess to the point that, before he started explaining that it was his own, I thought he was actually gonna talk about Zelda and how diminished chords are used in soundtracks or something (kinda what @FuzzzWuzzz) said
your Majora's Mask pfp is also fitting. very spooky
I have been in several rock bands over the years and wrote and co-wrote songs all the while, WITH NEXT TO NO TRAINING. The David Bennett Piano channel is fascinating and helpful to me, so thanks! In this case, I will be looking over some of my songs to see if any of them could be enriched with diminished chords in the existing progressions.
Finallyy, I’ve been searching for your diminish version
this is a FANTASTIC video, thank you david! i'm using these in conjunction with your 'music theory concepts ranked by importance' video to fill the holes in my understanding of music.
Wow that resolution into the Bdim from the Bbdim7 in your piece was very impressive! I never thought I could experience such a thing.
Thank you!
This Video is beyond applause. It has answered many musically emotional questions for me as a songwriter. Thank You from Tucson Arizona.
Thank you David. Finally I found a video that helped me to better understand diminished chords.
Wow-Best explanation and examples of what and how to use diminished chords! Thank you!
The Shadows' Chattanooga Choo-choo instrumental starts with three pairs of diminished chords in different inversions giving the illusion of a train whistle.
I’ve been studying dim chords lately, and this is the most complete video I’ve watch yet! As always, Amazing job, thank you!
Thanks Manuel! That means a lot 😃
Thank you for your great lessons!!! 🌞
I have been hearing The Beatles "Because" in my head for years and had no idea what the song was. God bless you for finally revealing it to me. I feel like I can die at peace now 😂
I'll bet it was that first line - I've had that in my head too, for years
@@GaZonk100 it was indeed the first line! It played over the closing credits of a movie. Still trying to figure out what movie it was.
I'm so happy for you! That's a great feeling.
Was it American Beauty, perhaps? I just checked John Lennon's credits on IMDb. The ones that came up were American Beauty and a Cirque du Soleil movie (and a bunch of Beatles-related movies, like Across the Universe).
Check out Elliott Smith's cover.
Absolute masterclass. The amount of time and effort to put this together, and the value contained here. Just brilliant mate.
Woo I've never been this early for one of David's videos. Thanks for the great content!
Thank you!
Excellent tutorial David, I’m a composer from Ireland and I really enjoy your videos, your channel is great and you provide a wonderful service to aspiring musicians, thank you.
So that piece of yours at the end could've come straight out of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. It's really hauntingly beautiful.
Came here to say this!!
Reminded me of copy x's theme from megaman zero lol
Reminded me of the Shadow Temple in OoT
4:15 I think everything can be reduced to playing two major keys at the same time. The first two chords are G and F played in arpeggio. The next two diminished cords are really G major and B major played in arpeggio (each minor third implies the missing root, because they are the third and fifth harmonic).
Resolution can then be seen as moving to the closest key represented by the two simultaneous keys. For example, G7 resolving to C is the two keys G and F, whose major chords cover the whole major scale of C except for the note E (the fifth harmonic of C). So resolution is kind of a union of two keys.
Also want to point out that classical music generally seems to have a lot simpler harmonic structure than modern music, making the latter more advanced but without the virtuoso
Came here to see if All Star is included. Was not disappointed :)
Cheers for the great work on your videos!
Thank you! 😃
Just discovered this channel yesterday off of my recommended, absolute goldmine. The visuals and explanations are superb
7:36 Tom Waits actually uses a diatonic dimished vii chord in his song Martha, which is in major. The main piano riff simply switches back and forth between the I chord and dimished vii. Works quite well :)
It is extraordinary the amount of work you put into these videos. Thankyou.
Thank you Rex!!
16:04 - THANK YOU, YA BASTARD. I held out to see if he would include God Only Knows on the topic of diminished 7ths.
Great video, love a being able to see the Beatles and The Beach Boys (Brian Wilson) show up in these videos, a testament to each group using musical ideas to great effect, unique or otherwise.
Super appreciate your explanations in this video. I was trying to understand why the vii dim was a "bad" chord to use in a progression and it makes total sense
The all diminished song sounds like a suspense movie soundtrack...
I love the half diminished chord. It's such a unique kind of tension that is so satisfying to me.
"I'm going slightly mad" by Queen is stuffed with diminished chords
Also "In The Lap Of The Gods" has at least one and "My Melancholy Blues" a some. There's lots of peculiar chords in Queen songs, especially in Freddie's more unique ones.
I’m so glad this popped up in my feed. I recently encountered a diminished 7th chord, and couldn’t figure out why Google was telling me the answer it was telling me. This was a nice refresher since my chord reading is a little rusty. I’m looking forward to discovering any of your videos on augmented 7th chords.
sheeeeesshh this one was super instructive and helpful
This has to be one of the best guitar lessons I’ve come across on this site. Ever! It’s one thing learning a song with a diminished chord in it. But quite another learning HOW to use them yourself to compose a song. Thank you!
Eerie piece! loved it!
Great, I just started looking at a few of your videos. I am amazed of how well you explain things. Some other teachers just don't get the point. Your way gets the point across.
Thank you, keep up the great work you do.
I think my favourite instance of a dimished chord is in the main Hamilton chord progression.
It's just Bm F# G D Bbdim over and over again, but is captivating nonetheless.
I never really got so much insight on how some songs were built on diminished chords. Your videos with song examples are much better than any other videos that classicaly teach it. You are giving real life examples and as a singer songwriter myself i really appreciate understanding and appreciate your help
George Harrison used so many diminished chords in his solo songs that Eric Clapton once chose to cover a GH song ("Run So Far," from Journeyman) because it *didn't* have a diminished chord.
In Don't Look Back in Anger, another way to view that diminished chord is as the 7th degree of a harmonic minor scale in Am, rather than as being based off of the #5. That's one reason why it sounds so smooth to us, it brings us home to the temporary one chord of Am.
I might be wrong, but I believe that the chord used in Don't Look Back in Anger is actually a E7/G# chord.
Yeah, pretty sure you're right on that. There's an investigative video I saw which comes to the same conclusion: th-cam.com/video/cXd9JmkywJc/w-d-xo.html
It serves the same role, but yeah that's a more accurate description of it
Correct, though others like rick beato also describe it as a G# diminished chord.
I've watched that video (which somebody linked below) where he claims that it is an E7/G# but, if you listen to the acoustic version that he is going by (th-cam.com/video/FZqq1yp6P0E/w-d-xo.html) or look at the song's original stems (which are available online) you can't hear an "E" in that chord. The only difference between a G#dim and a E7/G# is whether or not it has an "E" so, without that essential "E" note, the chord is actually a G#dim 😊
There really isn't much difference between the two chords though 🙂
Fast becoming one of my favourite music channels. Well done.
Thank you!
Was just wondering if these were used... very convenient
This has been the most helpful lesson for me on how to build interesting chord progressions, thank you.
Between the Buried and Me is a metal band where you are surprised when they DONT use a diminished chord
That filled in a number of aspects of diminished chords that I was not totally clear on. Will watch it again when I'm at the piano.
9:41 At last!
It wouldn't be a David Bennett video without the Beatles 😂
Your self-composed outro has quite an appealing, rather haunting and foreboding tone to it; nice work!
Your Diminished Chord-only song at the end sounds like a song one would hear in a Legend of Zelda Dungeon
I love the structure you give to your lessons. I often think: Now would be a good moment to mention this or that. Instead you take a different way and it almost always turns out to be much smoother and easier to understand than if I would have done it. And you never miss anything that I would have thought important.
The piece at the end sounds like one of the tunes in Zelda.
Very well discussed. Diminished chords always fascinate the tympanic membrane and pull a person in to the song in which they used. We have to hear where that diminished cord is leading us. Brilliant. (The unsung suspended fourth 😊)…
I'm surprised you didn't include "Til There Was You". John really goes to town on the diminished chord on that one. Guess he discovered that each time you slide the Diminished7 chord shape up three frets you get the same chord in different inversions and he really has fun with it on that recording.
George not John
No, it was definitely John playing the acoustic rhythm guitar, George was playing the nylon string lead guitar.
Im not even a musician or play an instrument and I get so much joy from learning all these. Thank you for enlightening my universe young man!
What I always take from this channel is that all of Music Theory can be extracted either from Something, ADay in the Life or Because. 😂😂
I wish you could have shown an example from baroque era. JS Bach used Diminished chords multiple times that I think it's worthwhile to include him.
Like what you have said in 7:42, JS Bach used Viidim many times in his pieces. He uses this chord to move to dominant chord or different keys. Check out WTC and 12 Little Preludes!
Could you make a video on songs that use the whole tone scale or double harmonic minor/major scales? If there are any that is.
Whole tone is certainly on the list!!
In my view, the combination of your excellent commentary and your excellent examples really creates engagement with your videos. Very well done! I keep coming back for more.
can't believe you mentioned the I-Imaj7-I7-IV line cliche without mentioning "something" by the Beatles!
I never really understood how effective diminished chords could be till now. I just added 2 diminished chords to each of my 2 new songs. You’re a gifted educator, David Bennett. Very grateful.