​My current journey is to get more fluent with diminished chords and the symmetrical diminished scale.  When I see a Diminished 7th chord on a chart, I rarely have anything more up my sleeve then finding the root and climbing an arpeggio.  The sound definitely works but it can get a bit trite, especially over multiple choruses.  The fact that the diminished sound was such a huge part of pioneer Charlie Christian and then the be-boppers, not to mention Barry Harris's Sixth-to-Diminished concept, I've felt the need to visualize the Diminished arpeggios and scales better, at least in one context.

I'm already aware that the diminished sound can be applied with any dominant. The 'half-whole' symmetrical diminished scale can be used from the root of a V to get altered tones, but what about Diminished chords in Bossas or even folk and classic show tunes?

The best I can gather, the Diminished is like connective tissue that links the meat of the Diatonic chords.  Altered sounds on a Five chord is really just a way to lead the ears back to the I chord, often chromatically instead of scale-wise.  When you see a Dim.7 for a whole bar, typcially the same idea is happening -- it is a chromatic walk to the next harmony.  My plan is to get a baseline visualization for any diminished around the Major scale and then adjust accordingly.  My approach -- outlined in the PDF below -- is inspired by the bars in 'Shadow of Your Smile' which moves from Cmaj7 to C#dim7.

My strategy starts on page 1 of the PDF with a set of 'anchors' over the course of the fretboard.  Specifically I am trying to learn a set of 3-note voicings on the middle strings where I tend to gravitate toward when comping.  The voicings are just repeats of two shapes.  Sometimes it is helpful to actually give a name to shapes to aid the memorization -- I'm calling these 'arrow' and 'cup' shapes (the arrow's 'point' is towards the bridge and the cup's 'base' is toward the nut).

The first goals is to learn how these shapes 'sit' against the 'mode boxes' of the fretboard.  I visualize the fretboard by segments where you can vertically play a mode with the mode's root on the sixth string.  I'm learning these 'anchors' by looping two bars of Cmaj7 followed by two bars of Diminished 7.  For each mode-box, I start slow and work up speed alternating between the Major scale and then the arpeggio.  From these anchors I am extending the diminished arpeggio shape out.  The ensuing pages 2-8 show arpeggio shapes for other strings.  As I practice, I'm starting just with the 'corny' arpeggios as a line back to the major scale harmony.  For each segment of the fretboard, I want to visualize the map of these arpeggios over the major scale. 

Page 9 of the PDF begins the rest of the half-whole 'Symmetrical Diminished'. The second 'half' of the scale is rendered for each shape on page 1-8.  The other half of the half-whole scale is the same arpeggio voicings, just one semi-tone up from the anchors.

The 'Symmetrical Diminished' is a synthetic scale comprised of two sets of diminished arpeggios.  Every other note has a semi-tone or whole-tone interval.  The pages 9-16 show what I am calling the 'consonant' half of the scale.  All the notes of the scale one semi-tone up are in the Major scale, save the #5.  Even though #5 is not classically consonant with the major scale, it is okay to resolve on a Maj7#5 chord.  The #5 is consonant in the Barry Harris world.

The arpeggios in pages 1-9 I will call the 'Dysonant' half of the scale.  Even though they have a Perfect Third and Perfect Fifth, you are never going to resolve a Major 7 chord with flat 9 or a flat 7.  These are the same arpeggios in the 'Sixth to Diminished' concept.  They are the diminished arps that alternate between Maj6/min7 voicings to complete the Barry Harris chord scale.

Interesting, the 'Consonant'arpeggios have the voicings you might use for a V7b9 chord.  The major #5 is the b9 of the Dominant chord in a Major key. 

Together, both the 'Consonant' and 'Dysonant' arpegios make up my Symmetrical diminished scale for navigating over a C#o7 from a Cmaj7.  The end goal is to be able to go into this scale at any point, from any point in any Major scale.

Of course this pdf leaves out a third set of diminished arpeggios, which contains the root, the b3, the sixth, and the #11 of the major. These arpeggios lead to other Symmetrical Diminished scales which I am not going into in order to keep things from getting too out of hand. If you think of the 'altered Five' application of the Symmetrical Diminished using the scale in the PDF (the 'anchors' combined plus a semi-tone up) gives you the b9, #9, #11, as well as the root, the third, sixth and the b7 of the Five chord.  The only alteration you are missing is the #5 of the Five.  In the end, in order to play the remaining Symmetrical Diminished scale, you would simply use the 'anchor' voicings in page 1-9 as 'avoid' notes -- avoiding the Major scale's 5, b9, b7 and P3.  In terms of the Five chord, that would mean avoiding the 5, 7, #11, and #3 of the Dominant.

By learning the 'anchors' in page 1 for each mode-box, then learning the other voicings connected to them, then adding the notes a semi-tone up, I hope to get a go-to framework for coming up with diminished sounds relating to the major scale.

This post is inspired by this You Tube video by Jens Larsen: 8 Awesome Types of 3 note Voicings and How To Use Them.

​The zip file below contains a slew of three-note voicings progressing up the neck.

Three note voicing are the Jazz guitar player's go-to for comping.  With three notes against the bass-player's contribution, you can paint harmony that is solid and direct -- using the 3rd, 7th and 5th of a chord -- or more vague -- using 4ths, 9ths, 13ths -- or completely 'out there' -- using altered tones.

Three note voicings also often allow you to have a free finger to decorate or voice-lead the chord with an added line.

By learning the progressions in these pdfs, you will not only have a cool chord run in your pocket, but you will increase your vocabulary of shapes for comping or chord-melody.  While you probably have begun building up your 3-note shapes just by subtracting a note from 4-voice chords, there are other shapes which can be found that don't build up to a four-note voicing.

The voicings on the middle strings (4-3-2) are the most useful, so you may want to start there with each pdf.

Below is an example of Dominant 9 three-note voicings.  The zip download contains several other types, including min-Maj, quartal and cluster triads.

While the CAGED method is a great way to learn all the scale positions on the neck, I was introduced to the fretboard layout from a blues player who taught me about a house with a backyard and a front yard.  I've tried to reproduce the concept here with a story.  Forgive me to those that take offense at traditional cisgender love stories, but it is just a story and not an ideal of how thing are 'supposed' to be.

Below is a kind of map of the Major scale as broken down by 'Mode box.'  The major scale has 7 notes and each note has it's own 'mode.'  The 'mode box' is a vertical layout of the mode's scale when the mode's root falls on the 6th string.  So the 'Ionian box' is the major scale starting on the 6th string.

For this concept, each mode has a landmark on the map.  The Ionian box is some guy's house.  Out front he can see his front yard, the Dorian box.  From the back door, he can see his back yard, which is the Aeolian box.  The Aeolian actually serves as both the front of the girl's house and back of the guy's house.   The girl's house is the Mixolydian box.  The girl also has a backyard, which has a swimming pool.  That's the Phrygian box.  The water's always cold, so it's really a frigid Phrygian box.

Now I'll tell a story.  The protagonist wakes up in his house, the Ionian box.  He goes out back and gets his dog from the backyard.  The dog lives in the Aeolian mode.  From there he goes round to the front yard and gets in his car.  The car is parked in the Dorian box.  Then he drives to his girl's house, which is the Mixolydian mode.  They go out back and go for a swim in her frigid Phrygian box.  The guy says it's too damn cold and decides he's gonna split.  So he goes around front to the Aeloian box and gets in his car sitting in the gal's front yard.  He drives back to his driveway, the Dorian box, then he remembers he forgot his dog.  It's back to the Mixolydian box at the girl's house.  Finally he drives back back to his pad.

What's the point of the story?  Well if you go by the numbers of each mode, the story is a I-VI-II-V-III-VI-II-V-I progression.

Now when I learn the concept of back yard and front yard from the blues player, I'm pretty sure he was telling be the Dorian is the house and the Ionian is the backyard.  In reality, every mode box has a front and back yard.  The back yard has the mode's arpeggio going back to the root on the third string, whereas the front has the arpeggio with roots on the 4th and 2nd strings.  You should know how to navigate the front and back yard of any mode which is why I think this guitarist brought it to my attention.  He saw I was never really going out the back door.

I don't know how much this visualization will help anyone, but I've always thought about these landmarks.  What about the Lydian and Locrian modes?  Well -- aside from the fact they are kind of visually squished in with other demarcations, I see the IV as kind of moving to an adjacent key on the Circle of Fourths -- maybe the Lydian is the next town over.  As for the VII -- that is usually just the 'ii' of the VI.  If you are two-fiving to the VI, that is like a secondary dominant, again -- another key.  I would say the VI is the bar en route to the lady's front yard, or the dog-house out back.