The 'Forgotten Chord' And How To Use It In Your Songs [Music Theory, Chord Progressions]
If you are writing a song in the key of C major (or A minor), you are probably going to use the following chords: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am.
Most musicians though forget that there is another chord in these keys: the B (half) diminished chord. There are a few reasons for that:
This chord does not sound good 'immediately'. The first time you use it, it sounds positively yucky as you don't expect its peculiar sound
This chord does not 'jive' really well with the other triads in the key - unless of course you know exactly when and where to use it.
Many songwriters have no idea how cool this chord sounds in the right place... so they never use it
In this short video I show you a few ways to use the diminished chord in both major and minor keys so that it sounds good. These tricks are all super-simple and yet add something special to your music that you can never get if you use only major and minor chords.
I'm sure your next song can use this new 'color'!
You can get even more mileage out of the B diminished chord if you learn to play it in first inversion in the way described in the following video.
There are so many good songs that are just waiting for you to learn this chord and use them... don't let the Muse wait! After all, the whole idea behind Music Theory is to learn how to write better music and how to access new sounds. Go and watch this now:
There is much more about the half-diminished chord in the Complete Chord Mastery guitar course.
In fact, if you follow this course, you will find many more chords that do not sound good the first time you try them, but when used in the right moment, sound absolutely wonderful.
Don't get imprisoned by using only major and minor chords!
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