Once you get to the next three, you'll see they all have the same notes as the first three, just in a different order (i.e. Think about it: a diminished chord is built up of notes that are all a minor third (three semitones) apart. The verse in "Friends in Low Places" uses a progression like this.Ī third thing to remember is that there are really only three diminished chords, and the rest are inversions of these three. You said you aren't familiar with theory yet, but once you get to Roman numerals, know that I-♭ii°-ii and V-♭vi°-vi are very common progressions. For example, you can play E-F°-F#m, or B-C°-C#m. It's very common to do this by placing a diminished chord between two other chords a whole step apart. Note that the ° symbol is used to denote diminished chords. So if you have a chord (let's say G#m), you can use the diminished chord a half step above or below to lead up to it (G° or A° in this case) and it will sound good. Since that m7b5 chord can be moved up or down three frets over and over, she's essentially doing what I wrote earlier about putting a diminished chord 1 half-step below a minor chord, so you can also approach it from 1 whole-step above like she's doing with the D#m7b5 - same function, different melody.ĭiminished chords are usually used for chromatic motion (i.e. Right at the beginning, you can see EMaj7 going to an F#m7b5, which then goes to a D#m7b5, which then goes to the C#min7. Here's a good clip of those diminished chords used as passing chords. I'll usually use the root, flat 5th, natural 6th, flat 3rd, which I think is a different chord entirely (some shit about half-diminished and full-diminshed or something I'm too lazy to look it up) which sounds better to my ears than the m7b5 voicing most people think of when they hear "diminished" :) So you could, for example, go EMaj7, Fdim, F#minor7 or something like that. Depending on the context/genre, you can generally precede a minor chord with a diminished chord from a half-step below. A lot of times diminished chords will be used as passing chords.