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haggis - Posted - 06/18/2019: 13:18:50
Can anyone give me a good practical use for the diminished SCALE other than creating a diminished arpeggio? Even the arp I find difficult to place, other than theoretically?
pete_fiddle - Posted - 06/18/2019: 14:04:46
Use it over the dominant seventh chord in a minor chord progression eg: Bm7b5///|E7///|Am///|.... use G# dim scale over the E7 Chord....
maybe over the Bm7b5 as well????
ChickenMan - Posted - 06/18/2019: 16:26:04
The band Phish has a few songs that use the diminished scale during instrumental parts. The Rift album and the Junta album both have songs that use it.
Lonesome Fiddler - Posted - 06/18/2019: 17:01:53
I've found the diminished scale isn't the most useful one for fiddling (at its best it just adds a little spice), but the diminished chord makes for a wonderful, jazzy passing chord when you are doing accompaniments. It is also extremely easy to make on the guitar. Because it is a closed chord it is also very easy to move around.
RobBob - Posted - 06/19/2019: 05:10:26
Often important in rags and some old raggy tunes the older rural and newer tunes don't use it much.
pete_fiddle - Posted - 06/19/2019: 07:11:20
Gypsy swing uses it A LOT in improvising, mostly in the way i described earlier (over the dominant chord in a minor progression), as it is the 7th mode of the Harmonic minor scale. And as such, both the Chord (and arpeggio), and the scale/mode can be substituted for each other, or played over each other. Just like substituting the V7 chord for the VII chord, or the Mixolydian and Locrian modes in a Major chord progression...Suppose it could be used in a "Borrowed" chord/arp/scale/mode context as well??
pete_fiddle - Posted - 06/21/2019: 14:39:52
quote:
Originally posted by haggis
Can anyone give me a good practical use for the diminished SCALE other than creating a diminished arpeggio? Even the arp I find difficult to place, other than theoretically?
so did you find a practical use?
Dick Hauser - Posted - 12/11/2019: 07:40:35
In one of my 5 string banjo books. the author not only identified the major chords, but at the end of some licks identified the portion which is really a part of a different chord. Lots 7ths, augmented. and diminished chords. Usually just a couple of notes. But until I used that Bill Knopf book, I had never thought much about using these chords. That got me into studying chord transitioning techniques.
One of the few incidents where a banjo instructional provided info I can use when playing fiddle or guitar. It is usually the other way around.
pete_fiddle - Posted - 12/11/2019: 10:24:22
Play E7 arp over an E7 chord and it will sound lifeless (in Amin). Play G#dim (or G mixolydian with a sharpened root), over it and it injects life
The beauty is in the difference not the similarity.
mmuussiiccaall - Posted - 12/11/2019: 14:04:19
Here's an exercise for using it during a dominant V chord. (WH & HW sequences)
Edited by - mmuussiiccaall on 12/11/2019 14:06:58
Humbled by this instrument - Posted - 07/10/2020: 20:35:25
At Humboldt State University back in the 80s my flatmate and I took this Jazz Theory course. As Pete on fiddle notes, we learned that we could use a diminished scale over the dominant 7th. So OF COURSE we started to inject these diminished lics into blues and southern rock songs. Indeed, at one of our gigs with our band, we were playing "Musta Done Somebody Wrong" by Elmore James (or Allman Bros.) when right afterwards my girlfriend (now wife) said, "Whatever you guys are doing on guitar, STOP! Use the lics you usually use!"
The problem, I'm certain, wasn't with the diminished scale but rather our delivery of it!
The moral here, I think, is that the good players know HOW to spice up some songs/tunes with the diminished.
snakefinger - Posted - 07/11/2020: 12:42:29
quote:
Originally posted by ChickenMan
The band Phish has a few songs that use the diminished scale during instrumental parts. The Rift album and the Junta album both have songs that use it.
Wow! A Phish reference, and I didn't even have to make it myself!
'Mezzo-Soprano clef' 17 hrs
'Glory in the Meeting House' 2 days
