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Diminished

Chord

All

Diminished

Chords

Diminished Chords

To diminish something is to make it smaller. To create a diminished chord, we can simply take a Major chord and make the intervals between the notes smaller. Let's start with a simple C Major chord. The root note is C, the 3rd is E and the 5th is G.

To create a C diminished chord, take the C Major chord and lower (flatten) both the 3rd and the 5th by a half step:

We now have the notes C, Eb and Gb. These three notes make a C diminished chord. Let's listen to the sound of this chord:

Intervals of the Diminished Chord

A diminished chord consists of two minor 3rds:

The reference for a diminished chord is either "dim." or "o".  So, either "C dim." or "Co" denotes a C diminished chord.