Sevenths
F♯ diminished 7th chord
Symmetrical and very tense — every note is a minor 3rd apart.
F♯dim7 is the vii°7 chord in G minor.
- Notes
- F♯ACE♭
- Formula
- 1♭3♭5𝄫7
- Built from
- root · minor 3rd · diminished 5th · diminished 7th
How to play F♯dim7
About the F♯ diminished 7th chord
Playing it
On guitar, F♯dim7 has an open-position shape, 20121x, using four fingers alongside the open strings. Don’t strum the high E string.
On piano, F♯dim7 has two black keys (F♯ and E♭) and two white keys.
On ukulele the usual F♯dim7 shape is 2323, using four fingers.
Related chords
Take away the root and the other three notes form Adim (A C E♭) — so you can think of F♯dim7 as Adim with F♯ added underneath.
F♯dim7 is symmetrical — its notes are evenly spaced — so Cdim7, E♭dim7 and Adim7 contain exactly the same notes. There are only three different-sounding diminished 7th chords in all.
Move a single note and F♯dim7 becomes a different chord: drop the E♭ for F♯dim, raise C to C♯ for F♯m6 and raise E♭ to E for F♯m7♭5.
