Diminished Chords

Let’s look at how to play an A flat diminished chord on the piano. We’ll also learn the pattern for building any other diminished chord.

What Are Diminished Chords?

Diminished chords are minor chords with the upper-note lowered 1/2 step.

So to build a diminished chord, we’ll start by building a minor chord. We can build a minor chord by taking a major chord and lowering the middle note 1/2 step.

Then to convert the minor chord into a diminished chord, we’ll lower the upper-note 1/2 step.

Chord Types Printable

Learn to play 17 types of piano chords using 12 different root notes with this 35-page PDF! Chords are sorted both by their root note and type.

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How to Play an A Flat Diminished Chord

So to build an A flat diminished chord, we’ll start by building an A flat minor chord. To build an A flat minor chord, we’ll take an A flat major chord, A♭ – C – E♭, and lower the middle note 1/2 step: A♭ – C♭ – E♭

Then we’ll take the A flat minor chord and lower the upper-note 1/2 step, turning the minor chord into a diminished chord: A♭ – C♭ – E♭♭

You may be wondering why we would call the E♭♭ an E-double-flat instead of a D. The reason is because diminished chords are built using a “1 – 3 – 5” pattern on the piano: a root, minor third, and a diminished fifth. These labels refer to intervals, which you can learn more about here. Since the root of this chord is A♭, a fifth up from A alphabetically is E, so we need to label this note as a type of E. This is why it’s called “E♭♭”.

This is the same reason we label the C♭ as C♭ instead of B. Since the root of the chord is A♭, a third up from A alphabetically is C. So we need to label the middle note as a type of C.

So to play an A flat diminished chord, we’ll play:

A♭ – C♭ – E♭♭

We can use this pattern to build any other diminished chord, by taking the matching minor chord and lowering the upper note 1/2 step.

When using chord symbols to label diminished chords, we can label them with either the “dim” abbreviation, or with the “º” symbol. So we could write an A flat diminished chord as either A♭dim or A♭º.

Other Chord Types

Some of the other chord types you can learn are:

Major
Minor
Augmented
Second
Minor Second
Suspended
Fifth
Sixth
Minor Sixth
Seventh
Minor Seventh
Major Seventh
Ninth
Minor Ninth
Major Ninth

Conclusion

Now you know how to build an A flat diminished chord on the piano, and you can use this knowledge to build any other diminished chord!

Using chords to learn the piano is a wonderful way to enjoy music and to be creative!