![]() ![]() The the entire point of a dim7th chord is that it has many different interpretations and this can help one reinterpret it different to lead to different harmonic consequences. (e.g., if you are improvising you might want to think of it as sort of Lydian augmented so you can come up with new material that still relates in some way) Ultimately it depends on context and what one is trying to do with it. Maybe the lydian explanation I gave is nonsense because it makes more sense to think of it just as a C#o7 chord over a G# pedal. The point here is that it doesn't matter how you think about it. The G and A# are the maj7th and maj9th and act as dissonances but work because they make sense locally(It's just a Dim7 chord) and make sense globally as just dissonances that resolve to something that works/make sense next(A true G7b9). In the case of C#o7 over the G# bass, it creates a Lydian augmented sound: G# C# E(D#) G Bb(A#). In each case though they are variations of coloration of the V7b9 chord. All these though are essentially a G#7b9 sound as Beethoven peddles the G# to reinforce this. The G# acts as the V7b9 chord for the C#min tonic but the diminished sound is expressed and not the dominant sound due to the arpeggiation of D#o7(a V7b9), then C#o7(a io7 or a #ivo7 etc), then F#o7(V7b9). You just know how to communicate the basic color and then use your intuition(experience) to interpret it and understand it.įor example, in moonlight sonata there is a section of 3 dim7th arpeggios(2 out of the 4 possible) over a G# bass. Once you understand it through experience then you realize it is not something that can be explained using worse because the words are not the thing. Ultimately one just needs to familiarize themselves with how harmony works and how to name chords/colors and then everything else takes care of itself. We get in to the trap because "basic" harmonies are generally not ambiguous(but they can be) and we think all other harmonies sorta have the same simple interpretation. It's not about tying things down and saying it has to be X. Also different people will have different "expectations". Of course it might be clear it is part of something else, e.g., G7 Ab7b9 G7 if that is more natural. E.g., if you play Cmaj7 Cdim7 Cmaj7 and Cmaj7 is clearly the quality for the C chord then that Cdim7 is functioning as an alteration of Cmaj7 and it will sound different than if you did G7 Cdim7 G7 in which case the Cdim7 will be functioning in terms of G7 giving a sort of G7 Lydian augmented if the context is appropriate. It is harder to do but if you've established Cmaj7 as the quality for the C chord and then play Cdim7 you are essentially combining Cmaj7 and Cdim7 and it will color that Cdim7 as a Cmaj7 sound. You can make a diminished chord be a minor chord, a major 7th chord, or whatever. You simply want to learn how it works by usage rather than try to peg it to some ideal or specific thing that it must be. It is not about it being a specific thing. You want to always think of a dim7th as also being 4 V7b9 along with variations such as #ivo7, #vio7, io7, etc. The issue is that a diminished 7th chord has 4 V7b9 chords and not every one will work in the global context and they do have different sounds in some cases. Every diminished 7th can substitute for a V7b9 and vice versa. :)Ī diminished 7th chord is a V7b9 chord without the root. It would be a stretch to declare all of them V7-ish, unless one had a very limited list of allowed labels. Further, as in George Shearings "locked hands" voicings, diminished chords are simply not-quite-in-the-scale passing chords between inversions of something like I69 or other pentatonic-ish chords. Not going to the tonic or even secondary tonics, etc. Not always, though! Already in Brahms, and in jazz-standard-type stuff, the voicings often are stretched-out diminished chords, whose function is as much voice-leading as V7. But, still, I'd agree that its sound/function often is V7-ish. If the question is about whether or not various specific practice traditions would consider it so. I recall, as a kid, thinking that the diminished chords in classical music "really needed to be filled out to V7 chords". Interestingly/ambiguously, depending on the inversion/voicing, it can pretend to be an incomplete V7 in 4 different (major) keys. Certainly in some circumstances it functions as a V7 chord. ![]()
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