Hey Friend,
Next up in line is G# Diminished (G#°). Today is its debut in the minor keys, and it plays the role of the II° as you would expect any diminished chord would - dissonant and moody (like some teenagers and cranky old dudes). Hey, we just need a little love!
We get the chord from combining the 1 3 5 notes from the G# minor scale. We also have to remember that the 5 note (D#) gets lowered a half step (one fret) to make it a flat 5 note.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (8)
G# A# B C# D# E F# (G#)
So we grab the G#, B and D# notes, then drop the D# down to D, and that give us our G#° chord.
Yeah, that’s a mess. Like some teenagers and cranky old dudes… But I digress.
That slides right into our II position in the F# minor harmonic scale, as you see here:
I II° III IVm Vm VI VII
F#m G#° A Bm C#m D E
That brings us too the exercises. As always, there are nearly a dozen places on the guitar neck you can play a diminished chord without having to resort to a full-on barre fingering. Diminished chords are three notes (triads) and you can usually get away with playing just those notes.
Work through them and let your fingers get used to the shapes. You use the same shapes for every diminished chord, so the sooner you make you fingers do the dance, the better. Rock it out!
Peace~
Dave
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