Edim7 chord — guitar, ukulele and piano shapes

What Edim7 is built from

Counting up in semitones from E:

Note	Interval	Semitones from root
E	root	0
G	minor third	3
B♭	diminished fifth	6
D♭	diminished seventh	9

Move all four of those the same distance and you get the same chord on another root — that is what the diminished seventh formula 0 – 3 – 6 – 9 means.

How to play Edim7

Guitar

Leave the top E string out. The low E and G strings ring open. Nothing is higher than fret 2, so it sits in first position.

Ukulele

All four strings are played. The G and E strings ring open. Nothing is higher than fret 1, so it sits in first position.

Piano

Play E, G, B♭ and D♭ together. That is two white keys and two black.

Numbers in the grids are frets. Where a number is printed beside a grid, that is the fret the top row stands for; otherwise the thick bar at the top is the nut. A circle above a string means play it open, a cross means leave it out.

Guitar, string by string

Guitar string	Stopped at	Sounds
low E	open	E
A	fret 1	B♭
D	fret 2	E
G	open	G
B	fret 2	D♭
top E	not played	—

Ukulele, string by string

Ukulele string	Stopped at	Sounds
G	open	G
C	fret 1	D♭
E	open	E
A	fret 1	B♭

Edim7 on the stave

The same four notes written on a treble stave, spelled the way a diminished seventh is spelled — one letter for every other step, with whichever accidental reaches the pitch. That is why it reads E, G, B♭ and D♭, and not the same sounds written some other way.

Which keys Edim7 belongs to

No major scale contains all four of these notes. It does sit inside the harmonic minor scale, which is where it is usually met:

F harmonic minor, on degree vii°7

Other chords on E

Same root, different notes above it.

E Em E7 Emaj7 Em7 EmM7 Edim Edim7

Chords straight off a recording

Upload a track and the studio marks its chords, key and tempo against the beat, with these same shapes and the stave underneath.

Open the studio

Ten uploads a month, free, no card. New accounts get seven days of everything in Pro.