Cdim — C diminished chord
Root, minor third and diminished fifth: two stacked minor thirds. The chord built on the seventh degree of a major scale.
- 1 = C
- b3 = Eb
- b5 = Gb
- Symbol
- Cdim
- Root
- C
- Quality
- Diminished
- Family
- triad
- Notes
- C Eb Gb
- Degree formula
1 b3 b5- Semitones from the root
0 3 6- Distinct pitch classes
- 3
- Interval structure
- Stacked from the root: 3 semitones, 3 semitones
- Notation
- Written dim or with a degree sign, for example Cdim or Co.
- Key
- C · C major / A minor key signature
Formula
The chord tones in order from the root, with the interval each one forms above it.
| Degree | Note | Semitones | Interval from the root |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | C | 0 | Perfect unison |
| b3 | Eb | 3 | Minor third |
| b5 | Gb | 6 | Tritone |
Inversions
An inversion is the same set of notes with a different one in the bass. The last column gives the distance of each note above the bass note, in semitones.
| Inversion | Bass note | Degree in the bass | Notes above the bass | Semitones above the bass |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| root position | C | 1 | C – Eb – Gb | 0 3 6 |
| first inversion | Eb | b3 | Eb – Gb – C | 0 3 9 |
| second inversion | Gb | b5 | Gb – C – Eb | 0 6 9 |
Playable voicings
These shapes were found by searching the fretboard of a standard-tuned guitar (E A D G B E) rather than copied from a chord book. The search allows every string to sound or to be muted, rejects any shape with a muted string between two sounding strings, rejects any shape whose fretted notes span more than four frets (a five-fret window), requires every chord tone to be present, and then sorts what remains with root-position shapes first and the most compact, lowest shapes next. The shapes shown are the first six of that ordering; other orderings are possible at the same frets.
| # | Shape (low string first) | Notes | Degrees | Bass | Span (frets) | Sounding strings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8-9-10-8-7-8 | C F# C D# F# C | 1 b5 1 b3 b5 1 | C | 3 | 6 |
| 2 | 8-6-4-5-4-8 | C D# F# C D# C | 1 b3 b5 1 b3 1 | C | 4 | 6 |
| 3 | 8-6-4-5-7-8 | C D# F# C F# C | 1 b3 b5 1 b5 1 | C | 4 | 6 |
| 4 | 8-6-4-8-4-8 | C D# F# D# D# C | 1 b3 b5 b3 b3 1 | C | 4 | 6 |
| 5 | 8-6-4-8-7-8 | C D# F# D# F# C | 1 b3 b5 b3 b5 1 | C | 4 | 6 |
| 6 | 8-6-10-8-7-8 | C D# C D# F# C | 1 b3 1 b3 b5 1 | C | 4 | 6 |
Shape numbers run from the lowest string to the highest, so the left-hand number is the sixth string (low E) in standard tuning. Multiple shapes are listed because a chord can be voiced several ways, and because a lower position is not always the better sounding one.
Related chords and scales
Related
- KeyKey of C
- ScaleC diminished (whole-half)
- ChordCaug — Augmented
- ChordC — Major
- ChordCm — Minor
- DegreesC — degree map
- Neck mapC — note map
- ScaleC aeolian