Diminished Triads, Closed Position: Guitar Chords Chart #3

Use this guitar chords chart to easily learn how to fingerDiminished Triads on the guitar fretboard.
Diminished Triads are the third type of triad, and the last in diatonic order of appearance on the major scale. The word "triad" is just a fancy name for a 3-part chord.

Previous: go to chord chart 2 (Minor Triads)

Next: go to chord chart 4 (Augmented Triads)

All the Diminished Triads shown in the guitar chords chart above fit within a single octave. This means they are all in closed position: you can't fit a chord-tone between any pair of 2 other chord tones.

There are too many ways of playing Diminished Triads in open positions to list them. It is best to simply understand the chord structure of the Diminished Triad using the diagrams above. Once you have, go and explore all the other possibilities, all over the playground. I mean, guitar fretboard.

B Diminished Example:

B D F, (or 1 3 5), which is a Diminished Triad in closed position, and with the Root in the lowest voice.
As you can see in the chart shown, this same Diminished Triad can be played in 3 different chord inversions.

The numbers at left of the 1st column of the Diminished Triad chord-fingering boxes tell you the order of the note functions in each inversion. You will notice that the first number is as follows, for each of the rows:

What this means is simply that each inversion of the Diminished Triad uses the same three tones, over and over. The only difference here, from one diagram the next is that the lowest note-function changes from, 1 to 3 to 5. The remaining voices above shift too, accordingly. These three inversions of the Diminished Triad are used for diversity and dramatic effect. The reason they are important so that you can make your voice-leading as smooth or contrasting as you need it.

Each row in the Diminished Triad chord chart shows you how to finger a specific inversion of the Diminished Triad, on one of the four sets of three adjacent strings.

The four columns, conversely, show you the 3 inversions of the Diminished Triad, in the order that they appear in.

In the Diminished Triad guitar chords chart above, the strings are shown as follows:

You will find that different musical editions designate Diminished Triads with slightly different symbols. Here are just a few of them:

Previous: go to chord chart 2 (Minor Triads)

Next: go to chord chart 4 (Augmented Triads)

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