# Diminished keys and modulating to and from them?



## alex103188 (Oct 14, 2011)

So lately I've found myself greatly interested in the diminished scale (hwhwhw etc) for its various qualities and phrasing options. But im curious about a couple of things that hopefully some friendly theory buffs could help out with!

First off, what kind of chords can be found in a diminished key other than the obvious diminished triads and seventh chords? 

And also, what are some possibilities for modulations into other keys that sound really natural ? For the sake of a reference/example I've been working a lot with A half/whole diminished.

Thanks in advance for your input!


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## Solodini (Oct 14, 2011)

The thing with diminished being so repetitive is that it is also quite limited. You're pretty much stuck with the diminished chords or dominant 7s. You can imply other things with more creative voicings and missing out certain chord tones which the diminished scale doesn't provide. If you lean on the root enough, you can imply a major 13 chord but it'll lack the 3rd and the 5th. It's basically an inversion of the major triad (3rd becomes 6th, 5th becomes 4th) but it can work in the same way as how there are 12 diminished 7th chords but they can be seen as 4 inversions of 3 chords. Whih it sounds like depends on voicings and how you emphasise the root.

Diminished keys modulate well in to the major key a semitone above the root of the diminished scale (think diminished chord built on the leading note of a major scale) or a semitone above the min 3, dim 5 or dim 7. As the diminished 7th is enharmonic to a major 6th, dim 8ve is enharmonic to a major 7th so you can also quite easily modulate to a major key on the same root, min 3, dim 5 or dim 7, or use the min 3rd, naturalise the 5th and simply modulate into melodic minor. As diminished has the minor 6th, harmonic minor of the root, min 3, dim 5 or dim 7 is equally possible. 

An alternative is a minor key a tone below the root, min 3, dim 5 or dim 7. This implies relative minor with dim implying a more Locrian feel then. A minor key a 4th above the root, min 3 dim 5 or dim 7 should work as well, to imply a move from Locrian to Phrygian.


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## niffnoff (Oct 14, 2011)

Instead of writing in a diminished key why don't you just write in a key and use a Diminished 7th as a modulation? S'what I use them for if I ever use em.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 14, 2011)

So far, I don't think this scale is getting the credit it deserves in this thread. The octatonic scale is an extremely rich source of harmonic materials, and you can come up with a number of ways to organize it. Let's take a quick look at the tertian harmonies you can get from a C h/w scale. (I use h/w here, because it makes it easier to conceptualize in a tonal mindset. I'll be using enharmonic spellings where applicable, since spelling doesn't matter a whole lot with these scales.)

C Db Eb E F# G A Bb

Diminished scales are symmetrical, so you'll find the same intervallic pattern repeating every minor third. In other words, we'll get the same chord qualities off of C as we get from Eb, F#, and A. Likewise, we'll get the same chord qualities on Db as we will on E, G, and Bb. This affords us the advantage of only having to look at two scale degrees to describe the harmony in the rest of the scale. Let's take a look at what we can get from C first.

Triads: C Eb G (Cm), C E G (C), C Eb Gb (C°), and C E Gb (Cb5, although this isn't really a tertian chord).

As far as sevenths go, we only have the minor seventh (Bb) available for most of these, other than the diminished seventh chord, which uses the diminished seventh (Bbb). So, from C, these are our seventh chords: Cm7, C7, Cø7, C7(b5), and C°7. Replace the "C" with "Eb", "F#", or "A", and you have 85% of the regular seventh chords you can get out of the scale.

From Db, we only get a diminished triad (Db Fb Abb) and a fully diminished seventh chord (Db Fb Abb Cbb, alterately C# E G Bbb), but you already knew that. Remembering the symmetry of the scale, we can build Db°7, E°7, G°7, and Bb°7 as well.

Now we have our harmonic materials, so it's time to find some applications. This song accomplishes a tonal setting of the scale pretty well.

Van Der Graaf Generator - Scorched Earth


Between 2:24 and 3:06, they're using the A h/w scale (A Bb C C# D# E F# G), and the riff is strongly centered around an Am arpeggio. Not counting the pickup notes, the first motive in the riff is just A E C, A E C. The second bit, Bb Bb A Db, suggests either a Bbm or Bb° chord, but the operative harmony is pretty much Am throughout, with this octatonic stuff going on around it.

You don't have to think chords to do tonal stuff with this scale, though. Check it, son:

Béla Bartók - Song of the Harvest (from 44 Violin Duets)


Score:






Look at the first two phrases of the piece (up until 0:40 in the video). You probably notice the independent key signatures, which gives us a clue as to how this piece works. For the first five measures, we have the pitches A, B, C and D in the first violin and D# E# F# G# in the second violin. Put those together, and you get A w/h diminished (A B C D D# E# F# G#). So, he's partitioned the scale into two minor tetrachords so that there is some familiar scalar material for us to hang on to. However, they're in two different keys. If you've ever wondered what bitonality sounds like, there you go.

In measures 6-14, we get a transposition of the same idea: violin 1 has a D minor tetrachord (D E F G) and violin 2 has a G# minor tetrachord (G# A# B C#). Once again, put those together and you get an octatonic scale - D w/h - D E F G G# A# B C#. Generally, what he's doing is extracting diatonic material from the octatonic collection. There's a bit more of that in the rest of the piece, so he keeps the idea consistent. Finally, the last phrase (m.29) is a statement of an Eb minor scale, giving us a complete picture of that minor idea he was developing the entire time.

One of the things that I like to do is to think of things as big extensions of harmonic functions. I don't have audio available for this, but this is part of a song I wrote for my band:






I'm not thinking about any specific tonality here. Measures 63-66 are in some octatonic collection that contains B C D D# E# F# G# A, but I wouldn't really call it a B h/w scale. It runs into a whole tone scale in measure 67 that ends up on Eb, and that's the end of the phrase. This whole bit is supposed to have a dominant kind of feel, so I'm just throwing sounds in that I know produces the effect of a dominant function without any strong need to resolve to a specific pitch. The octatonic bit is organized by the first guitar doing diminished seventh arpeggios up the scale and a stepwise melodic line in the second guitar and bass, making a combination of two different approaches. (Also, those chords should be F+, F+, and G+; when I lower the resolution on Finale, it takes those off for some reason.)

Or you could look at it without any tonal or functional ground whatsoever. We're going to be sight-singing melodies like this in my musicianship class soon:






No tonality whatsoever, and the only real structure that's given by the music is the contour of the melodic line: it starts on G, falls pretty quickly to Bb, then ascends to A, which is the first peak in the melody. There are some rhythmic changes as the melody works its way further down, to the lowest note of the melody and then rises quickly to the highest note in wide intervals. You can look at the collection as C h/w, if you'd like.

As you can see, the rules are pretty non-existent with octatonic scales. Apply what you know, learn about things you can do with diminished chords, work it around other tonalities, treat it without tonality, anything goes. Here's a thread that I made that examines octatonics a bit:
http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/music-theory-lessons-techniques/133908-show-me-some-octatonic.html


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## alex103188 (Oct 16, 2011)

Schecterwhore, I have to admit that when I was initially posting my question, it was with hope that you'd come across it. Not only did you do so, but you also provided an insane amount of extremely detailed information and insight and answering my questions in full and even elaborating upon it. 

I sincerely appreciate it the time in your response and I cannot wait to start putting some of those ideas to work!


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 16, 2011)

You're welcome. It's what I do.


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## stuglue (Oct 17, 2011)

I'd like to add that any dominant7th chord can have its root sharpened.by a semi tone and you've got a diminished 7th chord, the music that uses dim7ths is jazz and blues
Lets apply your A dim scale in a jazz style. We'll take a IIV I in D which is Em7 A7 Dmaj7.
Now from our analysis you'llsee that there are fourdominant 7th arpeggios which are derived from the diminished scale, they are all a minor third apart , we have A7, C7, Eb7 and Gb7.
We can superimpose these arpeggios I've the V chord, which is A7, the one I like the most is the Eb7, this gives a descending progression of Em7, Eb7, Dmaj7


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## Konfyouzd (Oct 17, 2011)

I'm subscribing to this thread so that I can read SchectorWhore's post again when I'm more awake. But I'm pretty sure it answered a shit ton of questions I've had about the diminished scale as well.


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## ElRay (Oct 17, 2011)

I know this is a bit of a detour, but what do the 2+3/4 and 3+2/4 time signatures represent and why are 2+3/4, 3+2/4 and 5/4 not equivalent?


Ray


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## in-pursuit (Oct 17, 2011)

stuglue said:


> I'd like to add that any dominant7th chord can have its root sharpened.by a semi tone and you've got a diminished 7th chord, the music that uses dim7ths is jazz and blues
> Lets apply your A dim scale in a jazz style. We'll take a IIV I in D which is Em7 A7 Dmaj7.
> Now from our analysis you'llsee that there are fourdominant 7th arpeggios which are derived from the diminished scale, they are all a minor third apart , we have A7, C7, Eb7 and Gb7.
> We can superimpose these arpeggios I've the V chord, which is A7, the one I like the most is the Eb7, this gives a descending progression of Em7, Eb7, Dmaj7



I believe what you're describing there is more about chord substitution or reharmonisation, whatever you prefer to call it. personally I like to think of the concept of altered dominant chords to be somewhat seperate to the diminished scale itself, because altered dominants are really applied mostly within the framework of a major/minor tonality. the diminished scale to me is a completely seperate beast, especially when you're talking about constructing chords from it.


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## SirMyghin (Oct 17, 2011)

stuglue said:


> I'd like to add that any dominant7th chord can have its root sharpened.by a semi tone and you've got a diminished 7th chord, the music that uses dim7ths is jazz and blues
> Lets apply your A dim scale in a jazz style. We'll take a IIV I in D which is Em7 A7 Dmaj7.
> Now from our analysis you'llsee that there are fourdominant 7th arpeggios which are derived from the diminished scale, they are all a minor third apart , we have A7, C7, Eb7 and Gb7.
> We can superimpose these arpeggios I've the V chord, which is A7, the one I like the most is the Eb7, this gives a descending progression of Em7, Eb7, Dmaj7



Yeah that is a tritone substitution, pretty common. in jazz as you probably know. A7 and Eb7 share the same tritone, which dominates the sonority of the chord anyway. C# and G is the tritone in this case. That is why it resolves well compared to say the C7 or Gb7.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 17, 2011)

ElRay said:


> I know this is a bit of a detour, but what do the 2+3/4 and 3+2/4 time signatures represent and why are 2+3/4, 3+2/4 and 5/4 not equivalent?
> 
> 
> Ray


In the original score (which you can download here: http://imslp.org/wiki/44_Duos_for_2_Violins,_Sz.98_%28Bart%C3%B3k,_B%C3%A9la%29 ), that's actually two measures. Violin 1 has a measure of 2/4 followed by a measure of 3/4, and violin 2 has the reverse. He does this to maintain the motivic 'look' of the part. As you can imagine, that would make the distribution of the barline unequal between the staves. When I tried doing that in Finale, it kept the barline equal, and interpreted it as a cross-rhythm (that is to say, three notes in the space of two, then two notes in the space of three, not the constant beat we want). There's a way to get around that in the program, but I couldn't find it in the few minutes that I transcribed it in and decided instead to break it up with a compound time signature. It's absolutely equal to one measure of 5/4, but I wanted to preserve the division of the motives to the best of my ability. And apparently it worked: it's one of those things where you're supposed to look and figure out why the composer or transcriber notated it in that way, and let it affect your interpretation of the music.


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## ShadyDavey (Oct 17, 2011)

Mike's posts are always what I seek for. I even have a word document with much of his wisdom contained within...

Anyway.

Tom Quayle has a nice lesson up on his site outlining the use of the diminished scale and diminished 7th chord as well as the dominant 7th - plenty of cool ideas even if the theory is presented neatly in this thread


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## stuglue (Oct 18, 2011)

in-pursuit said:


> I believe what you're describing there is more about chord substitution or reharmonisation, whatever you prefer to call it. personally I like to think of the concept of altered dominant chords to be somewhat seperate to the diminished scale itself, because altered dominants are really applied mostly within the framework of a major/minor tonality. the diminished scale to me is a completely seperate beast, especially when you're talking about constructing chords from it.


I'd have to disagree on that one , the diminished scale has all the elements that work over altered dominant chords , youve got the b9 , #9, b5 ,13th all within that scale 
Look at the diminished scale and compare it to the Altered scale (7th mode of melodic minor )you'll find them to be very similar


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