Half Diminished

JoCo

This explanation is long overdue - I use this chord a lot, maybe too much. I call it a half-diminished chord, but you can call it all kinds of things. I think someone on this forum referred to it as the Neil Finn chord. You could also call it a m7b5 (minor 7th flat 5), and I think it's also a French Sixth or a German Sixth or something like that depending on the context. Though I'm not sure about that, it's been a while since music theory class.

You can hear it in many places. Don't make me *GO* over there. They really need to put a *LIGHT* there. A broken *FINGER* will not bend. Because it's all I can do *FROM* my womb with a view. Sometimes my chord progressions are all about getting to that chord.

I play it two ways - both forms you can move around the fretboard. For instance in Shop Vac ("They really need to put a *LIGHT* there") it's x4545x. In Womb with a View ("Because it's all I can do *FROM* my womb with a view") it's xx2333. With this formation especially you 9th lovers may notice that all this one needs to become a C9 is a C in the bass.

So that's it, the Coulton mystery is solved. Promise me you'll only use this knowledge for good.

Skullcrusher

I said that the Neil Finn chord is specifically an Em with a C# in the base. He writes a lot in G and Em, so he uses it often, especially with walking basslines. It might be a diminished in a different scale (C#, E, B, G), but I've always seen it in sheet music written as Em/C#.

One of my favorite uses of the diminished chords is in God Only Knows. You can hear it on the lines "You'll never NEED to doubt it" and "The world would show NOTHING to me." It slows down the bassline progression just enough to get to the release of "God Only Knows what I'd be without you."

Clapton once said that he was in awe of George Harrison's ability to use diminished chords, so you're in pretty good company, there.

M_pony

I love the fact that I have learned some more music theory by repeatedly transcribing these songs. Hooray for musical geekery! Diminished chords are perfect for doing transitions.

Khavall

Just for some extra clarification, while German Sixth is close to the dominant seventh save function, since it goes to a cadential 6-4 instead of what would be a tonicized I chord, no "sixth" chord(German, french, or italian) emulates the Half Diminshed 7th chord.

I'm pretty sure that Italian is Flat 6, 1, and flat 3, French is the same but adding in 4, and German is same, but swapping 4 for flat 5.

So in C Major, the chords would be:

It6: Ab, C, Eb
Fr6: Ab, C, Eb, F
Ger6: Ab, C, Eb, Gb

BuddhaBrot

I don't speak your crazy moon language!

JoCo

Khavall, I stand corrected. Also: dude!

Now, is there some other more official name for a half-diminished chord in music theory?

Khavall

Not that I know of, at least, not that I've ever heard used. It's possible there's some high and mighty technical term that has been hidden from us all, but to the best of my knowledge, in both classes and practice, I've just heard it referred to as half-diminished.

BrettGlass

Jim Burrill, with whom I played in the comedy band "Sounds Like Fun," calls it a "demolished chord." This leads to some bad puns. For example, if the root note were Bb, it would be called "Be flat, demolished." Appropriate for a song with a name like - just by way of example - "I Crush Everything."

kate

Demolished chord.  Nice.

autojim

All I can think of while reading this is Steve Martin trying to finger some impossibly long chord on the banjo, eventually using his nose along with the fingers, while singing "I Get Paid for Doing This". (this doesn't have any video of said act, just the audio.