Your Online Guide to Playing Better Jazz Guitar
Jazz Guitar Chords: Jim Hall Diminished Voicings
Diminished chords are one of the most commonly used voicings in jazz guitar, especially as substitutions for Dominant 7th chords. But, while they are commonly used, many players get stuck relying on the same old Drop 2 and Drop 3 1-3-5-7 voicings since they don’t know how to extend or alter Diminished chords as they do m7, 7 and Maj7 chords.
If you’re stuck as to how to spice up your Diminished chords you have to look no further than Jim Hall to find a very easy and cool sounding way to take your jazz guitar chords to the next level.
Taking the standard Drop 2 Diminished Chords, Jim alters one note to bring a fresh perspective to his comping and chord soloing.
While it may seem like a simple idea, Jim’s Diminished voicings have helped to define his harmonic playing, and should be in the chord vocabulary of any jazz guitarist.
If you want to go deeper into this concept you can check out my articles “Diminished Extensions for Jazz Guitar,” which extrapolates Jim’s concept to all four notes of any Diminished chord.
First let’s refresh our memories and take a look at the standard way to play Drop 2 Diminished chords with 6th, 5th and 4th strings roots.
Since the Diminished chord is symmetrical, each of these fingerings is the same for every inversion. Just keep the same shape and move it up or down by a minor 3rd interval and you’ve got the next inversion in the chain.
This knowledge will come in handy later on when we learn one of Jim’s favorite licks to pay with these voicings.
Standard Diminished Chord Voicings
Now that we’ve reviewed how we would normally play these chords on the guitar, let’s take a look at one of Jim Hall’s favorite ways to spice up these chords. All we’re going to do is take the third note of the voicings, for this Gdim7 chord it will be E, and raise it by a tone, two frets, to F#.
By doing so, we are creating a new parent voicings, GdimMaj7, which we can then move around the neck in minor 3rds the same way we would any standard Diminished chord voicing.
Notice how the color of the chord has changed, it’s a little more dissonant because we now have a M7 interval embedded into the voicing, but it still retains its Diminished quality.
Before we look at a specific example of how Jim uses this chord in his playing, try taking it around the neck to see how it fits under your fingers, as well as give your ears time to digest this new sound.
Jim Hall Diminished Chord Voicings
With Jim’s voicings under our fingers and in our ears we can look at one of his favorite ways to apply this voicing to a playing situation.
Here, we find Jim starting on one Diminished chord, and then moving chromatically up to the next inversion which lies a m3 higher, before returning chromatically to the original voicing.
When you are practicing this lick, on any string set, try only plucking or strumming the first chord and moving up and down to the other chords with as much legato as possible.
Jim likes to use this lick to make his chords sound as “slippery” and crunchy as possible, so don’t be afraid to get down and dirty with this lick to make it sound as authentic as possible.
Since we don’t see many plain dim7 chords in the tunes we’re learning, make sure to practice these voicings and this lick over top of any Dominant 7th chord.
Since a Diminished chord spells out the 3 to 9 Arpeggio of a 7(b9) chord, we can simply play these voicings starting on the 3rd of any Dominant chord and we’re in business.
So, if you had a C7 chord you could play Edim7, or if you had a G7 chord you could play Bdim7. This is a very common application of Diminished chords in jazz harmony, so if this is new to you make sure to take some time to check it out in your practice room.
Jim Hall Diminished Chord Lick
Return to the Learn from Jazz Guitar Masters Homepage.
******
Do you have a favorite Diminished or Jim Hall voicing that you like to use in your playing? Share it in the comments section below.
Matt Warnock Guitar on Facebook
Are you on Facebook? If so, follow the Matt Warnock Guitar Page and enjoy these great benefits:
- Monthly giveaways of free ebooks, skype lessons and more
- Access to Exclusive Lick of the Day Posts
- Access to exclusive video lessons that aren't found anywhere else on the web
- Be the first to get the latest articles from my site
- Be able to ask me questions about jazz and jazz guitar and get in-depth and prompt responses
- Participate in the weekly Reader Question Article discussion
- Connect to other jazz guitarists in an interactive way
Click to visit the Matt Warnock Guitar Page on Facebook and give it a like while you're there!
Check Out Related Jazz Guitar Lessons
9 Responses to "Jazz Guitar Chords: Jim Hall Diminished Voicings"
Leave a Reply
30 Days to Better Jazz Guitar
Get Your Copy Today!
Rhythmic Fundamentals Ebook
Get Your Copy Today!
Great lesson Matt, as usual! that’s a classic sound, never get tired of it.
It’s cool to use it as a tonic chord too,(DimMaj7) and you can also spell it as GMaj7#9#11 or F#/G, which is easier to read.
Besides the dim scale(with all its triads) and the triad of the slash chord, you can also use the harmonic minor scale of the third of the chord (B harm in this case). Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor use that color a lot in their compositions and it’s also a cool improv trick to get an “out” color off a Maj7 chord, playing B/C over CMaj7 for instance.
For sure, it’s amazing how just adding one note to a tired old Diminished chord can spice up our solos and comping. This is one of the reasons why Jim is such a genius, he didn’t go looking for a mega-complex idea to explore, just slightly tweaked what he already know and took his playing to the next level.
A lesson we could all learn from!
damn straight!
Hey Matt, Just wanted to say that I’ve been enjoying all of your posts recently. Your blog is really happening these days!
Thanks John i appreciate you checking out the site! More to come, and if you are ever interested in a guest post just say the word. Love to feature your teaching and playing on the site.
Cool Matt. I recognized the chord as an F#/G. I have used this shape a zillion times while playing in harmonic minor. I should have recognized it as an altered dim. Great concept. The 1/2 step interval between two major chords is a perfect setup for phrygian dom. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Britt. When you add this idea to your dominant 7th vocabulary it really takes your playing in new directions!
Weird me. I always thought of this shape as a rootless 13(b9)
Yeah I think of it that way too if I start it off of the 7th note of a Dom 7th chord, has that sound that Herbie loved to play on all those great charts in the late ’60s.