Help! Songs ft diminished and augmented chords

Mattyukaholic

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Hi guys,

When I'm teaching students diminished and augmented chords I have trouble finding relatively simple songs that feature them. I guess by their very nature (being slightly more tricky) they feature in more complicated pieces (and of course - lots of jazz.)

I'm looking for songs that are mostly your standard open chords and feature just the odd diminished or augmented chord here and there.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Matt
 
Almost anytime you have a V7 chord leading to the tonic you could color it as a diminished or augmented 7th as long as the altered notes don't clash with the melody. So, for example, instead do ending a tune with a G7 to C, try G7 diminished or augmented instead of G7.
 
Hi guys,

When I'm teaching students diminished and augmented chords I have trouble finding relatively simple songs that feature them. I guess by their very nature (being slightly more tricky) they feature in more complicated pieces (and of course - lots of jazz.)

I'm looking for songs that are mostly your standard open chords and feature just the odd diminished or augmented chord here and there.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Matt

Ain't she sweet is probably a good one i feel like thats kidn of the run of the mill song you learn when you use uke but it uses basic open chords and throws in one diminished chord.
 
I also was going to suggest ain't she sweet for diminished 7 chord.
I put an augmented chord at the end of "Dream" as a turnaround to go back to the top of the song.
There's also an aug. chord in "she's 16" The one Ringo sang.
Just trying to think off top of my head. Get the Daily Uke book, I'm sure there are plenty of examples there.
 
"Satin Doll" in Bb is one of my favorite songs for teaching jazz.
There are a lot of chords but only a few shapes.
 
Diminished chords are passing chords. You don't stay on them long. They lead to something else. They each have four names, the names of the four notes within the chords. There's a typical chord run down the neck of the uke. You move the diminished chord three frets down and then if you want three frets again. Check it out.

Old doowoop songs use the I-iv-IV-V pattern a lot. C-Am-F-G. Jazz has its patterns also.

I highly recommend investing in Glen Rose's Advanced chords video. It taught me a lot and isn't expensive. He teaches many of the basic patterns of jazz and how to use diminished chords. Jazzy ukes.
 
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If you overlay a square on a Circle of 5ths the notes the four points land on stack up to form a diminished chord I-bIII-bV-bbVII (C-Eb-Gb-A). It proves that diminished chords are square and why they repeat every three frets.DIM1.jpg
 
I also was going to suggest ain't she sweet for diminished 7 chord.
I put an augmented chord at the end of "Dream" as a turnaround to go back to the top of the song.
There's also an aug. chord in "she's 16" The one Ringo sang.
Just trying to think off top of my head. Get the Daily Uke book, I'm sure there are plenty of examples there.


now that ive been playing jazz i started turning a lot of my favorite songs into instrumental jazzy versions for fun
by replacing chords with diminised , 9th and augmented chords its pretty fun.
 
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