Guitar Tactics
Chord Voicings

Using Half-Diminished Chords in Your Playing

have an upper voice that sounds like a dominant 7

Key Takeaways

  • Half-diminished chords have an upper voice that sounds like a dominant 7
  • E half-diminished over C7 sounds great (they share notes)
  • In major keys: use half-dim as a substitute for the V chord
  • In minor keys: half-dim naturally appears as the ii chord (e.g., Em7b5 - A7 - Dm)

Transcription

If you've ever wondered how to use half-diminished chords, how they work, and how to apply them, this lesson is for you.

One way to hear this: half-diminished has an upper voice of a dominant 7 chord. If I have a C7 chord droning, and I put E half-diminished on top, it sounds really good.

In a chord progression in F major: F to C7 to F. The C7 is the five chord, the point of tension, the dominant chord. I can replace that with an E half-diminished.

A half-diminished chord is very common in minor chord progressions. In the key of D minor, here's a very common progression: E half-diminished to A7 to D minor.

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