On Jan 6, 2005, at 10:22 AM, A-NO-NE Music wrote:
Ha-ha, That's another one. I don't understand why -7(b5) is sometime called half-diminish since there is not diminish function with that chord structure.
This comes from classical music, where a chord built on the leading tone of the tonality often resolves directly to I. The viidim7 in minor and the viihalfdiminished7 in major are both examples of this. In fact, when I was a classical undergraduate, one of my theory teachers insisted that we call these chords "incV7b9" and "incV9" (incomplete dominants missing the root, with the third in the bass) so that we understood the function.
But in jazz, while the viidim7 often resolves up a half step to I, the half diminished chord usually shows up as a predominant, moving down a fifth to a dominant7, so we prefer to think of it as an altered m7 chord (from the predominant area), rather than as a diminished triad with a m7 (from the dominant area.)
Yet old habits die hard, and many people from jazz still call it a half-diminished chord, and everyone understands, even if it is not functioning that way.
Christopher
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