Rob is clearly a very smart man and a great guitar player.
I support him on Patreon.

I am a guitar player.
Sometimes my eyes glass a bit listening to 20 minutes of theory.
I get the math, but not a lot of guitar players do.
So, without all the underlying theory here's 2 situations where the diminished 7 works great for me.

The quick and dirty if you will.

Consider a standard 12bar blues in F.
I will assume Nashville notation is understood. This helps moving it to other keys.

1.
I use the 1 diminished chord against the 4 chord (Bb) in the progression.
Call it Fdim, Abdim, Bdim, Ddim - whatever you like.
I'll normally hit the Bb for a beat then quickly voice the diminished for the remainder of the bar.
This sounds best where the 4chord is a dom7 (b7) vice a maj7 or maj6 chord. More tension.
Comping I'll run the inversions up the neck. Good guitar practice
Soloing I often get by just playing the arpeggios. Again Good practice
Sounds great there. Get in get out before you get back to the 1.

2.
I use the #5 diminished against the 5 chord (C7).
It also works great against altered chords (b9,#9, b13,#13) either comping or soloing
Call it C#dim, Edim, Gdim, Bbdim. Symmetricity is a beautiful thing, even if its not a word.
Same ideas.
It sounds great in a minor blues especially one with a 2-5-1 turnaround back to the tonic.
You can't linger. Whip it out, let it sound, & move on.


Hope this makes sense to somebody. Its not all that hard.
Be fearless. That helps a good bit.

Last edited by mrgeeze; 04/02/23 07:09 AM.
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