My Guitar Notes

Ebdim — Eb diminished chord

Root, minor third and diminished fifth: two stacked minor thirds. The chord built on the seventh degree of a major scale.

Symbol
Ebdim
Root
Eb
Quality
Diminished
Family
triad
Notes
Eb Gb Bbb
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
Eb · Eb major / C minor key signature

Formula

The chord tones in order from the root, with the interval each one forms above it.

DegreeNoteSemitonesInterval from the root
1Eb0Perfect unison
b3Gb3Minor third
b5Bbb6Tritone

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.

InversionBass noteDegree in the bassNotes above the bassSemitones above the bass
root positionEb1Eb – Gb – Bbb0 3 6
first inversionGbb3Gb – Bbb – Eb0 3 9
second inversionBbbb5Bbb – Eb – Gb0 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)NotesDegreesBassSpan (frets)Sounding strings
111-12-13-11-10-11Eb A Eb Gb A Eb1 b5 1 b3 b5 1Eb36
211-9-7-8-7-11Eb Gb A Eb Gb Eb1 b3 b5 1 b3 1Eb46
311-9-7-8-10-11Eb Gb A Eb A Eb1 b3 b5 1 b5 1Eb46
411-9-7-11-7-11Eb Gb A Gb Gb Eb1 b3 b5 b3 b3 1Eb46
511-9-7-11-10-11Eb Gb A Gb A Eb1 b3 b5 b3 b5 1Eb46
611-9-13-11-10-11Eb Gb Eb Gb A Eb1 b3 1 b3 b5 1Eb46

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

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