What's the difference between Cdim and Ebdim ?

I bought the book " The Daily Ukulele" by Liz and Jim Beloff. There are chord boards at the top of the pages for each song. One song has Cdim and Ebdim and they are the exact same chord. Please explain what the difference is if you can. The song is "When You Wish Upon a Star"

addicted2myuke said:

I bought the book " The Daily Ukulele" by Liz and Jim Beloff. There are chord boards at the top of the pages for each song. One song has Cdim and Ebdim and they are the exact same chord. Please explain what the difference is if you can. The song is "When You Wish Upon a Star"

Click to expand...

Hi Addict
All the "diminished" chords (actually - usually a diminished 7th) can be named after ANY of the notes in the chord - so it could also be called C, F# or A diminished they also repeat every 3 frets so if you move it up three frets and keep the same shape it is the same chord name.....

Those chords contain exactly the same notes, as Tack says, but those notes can sound different in different contexts.

Just played through the arrangement. (Thanks again to my wife for my copy of The Daily Ukulele.) I'm guessing the arranger is trying to get the player to hear Cdim climbing the scale to resolve at the C chord, and to think of Ebdim as descending toward the Dm chord.

Context. The only difference is context. What is the chord before and after? What notes are in the melody? What kind of music is being played? (Different sounds give different feels)? What key is the song in? The choice of chord fingering, voicing, substitution - it's all context.