Hey Friend,
Happy Friday!
Ha, got an email from Nancy yesterday about enjoying margaritas on Cinco de Mayo. She said ALL her chords are diminished after a couple of drinks... ROFL!
First off, a bit of news. Remember that little bout of stage fright I had earlier in the week? Well it turns out, I ended up rocking the audition, so I did a second call back over Skype with them. I must have been having a good day, because they offered me the gig within a half hour after the meeting ended.
It'll be a good gig, I think. 18 month contract, working from home, good rate of pay, and I only have to babysit about a dozen computers. Couldn't have asked for much better since being out of work for almost a year and a half.
It's all in fun - I really am grateful for the opportunity.
Okay, back to diminished chords...
Let's lay out the notes of the C major scale to see how this scale gives us all the notes we need to construct the base chords for the key of C major.
C => Dm => Em => F => G => Am => Bdim => C
C => D => E => F => G => A => B => C E => F => G => A => B => C => D => E G => A => B => C => D => E => F => G
B diminished is built using the key of B major. Here's the scale:
B, C#, D#, E, F#, G#, A#, B
Nasty little bugger, isn't it? Five sharp notes, getting all crazy on us. But look how nicely things line up because we're working in the key of C major.
If we were making a B major chord, the notes would be B, D# and F#, right? But we're making a B diminished chord. So we know that the only note that doesn't change is the root note B. We have to flatten the third and fifth notes, making them D and F, respectively.
If you look above to the chart, you see that the notes work out exactly as the formula says they should - B, D and F.
Do you see what's going on here? It's the primary key of the song that tells us the notes that are will be used to make the majority of the chords. I say primary key because the key can (and does) change in songs, but you still have the main key as your foundation.
I understand that all these little factoids are like the tiny pieces in one of those thousand-piece puzzles of some historic battle or mound of ice cream (I love 'em!). It takes some time for things to click and start making sense, but hey, repetition, repetition, repetition...
Think of me as your guitar "Deja Vu Tour Guide!"
I've worked up a couple exercises for you. The first shows you the notes as they progress up the staff (the top set of five lines with dots and symbols), all straight and in order like soldiers on parade. Each chord shown is a Root inversion chord, meaning that the strummed note order is 1, 3, 5. As you can see, the only "normal" open chord is the first C major.
The second exercise shows the same harmonic progression using the regular open chords we know and love.
You can use these both as visual references, and you can try playing through each exercise as well. The first one will give you some experience using chords up the neck - and a better understanding of why we don't always use root inversions. The second is a bit more manageable using chords you're already familiar with.
Got another big job lined up for the weekend - a new floor in the family room. I finally finished up the bathroom renovation yesterday (okay, there are a couple odds-and-ends to wrap up), so on to the next home improvement project. Gotta get it done before the 'rents are down for my daughter's graduation.
Back at you tomorrow - have a great Friday!
Peace~
Dave
P.S. Don't forget to check out my go-to tools for learning songs and practicing below... | 
