Diminished Shiminished

Diminished chords have always confused me. Just the fact that you can halfway diminish something is so weird and confusing. Like if I went into Starbucks and said “I’d like a half small,” and they said, “do you mean a grande?” And then I’d say, “I still don’t know what your sizes are here (can you use normal names?) just give me the one in the middle, okay? “

And this is how I feel about diminished chords

As part of my jazz-blues studies I’m working on diminished scales. How are these things related, you ask? I’m not actually all that sure. But I do intend on finding out!

One of the things I’m supposed to do this week is practice playing a diminished scale (half-whole) starting on a V Dom7b9 chord and then resolving down to the I

This kind of confused me at first but I think I get it now.

For example- I’ll start on C for a half-whole diminished scale, play a Dom7b9 C chord in my left hand, then resolve my left hand to an Fmaj7 chord after I get all the way up to a C again.

I found a blog article on LJS.com that was helpful, plus a “lick of the week,” which I plan to use more as an exercise until this all makes sense to me.

https://www.learnjazzstandards.com/blog/lick-of-the-week-3-diminished-lick-over-dominant-chord/

https://www.learnjazzstandards.com/wp-content/uploads/chord_charts/Lick_of_the_Week_3.pdf

https://www.learnjazzstandards.com/blog/learning-jazz/jazz-theory/24-diminished-scale/

https://www.learnjazzstandards.com/blog/learning-jazz/jazz-theory/right-way-use-diminished-scale/