half-diminished seventh
noun
variants:
or half-diminished seventh chord
Definition of half-diminished seventh
: a seventh chord consisting of a diminished triad with a minor seventh above the root
Schoenberg exploited precisely such intervallic relationships in his twelve-tone works such as the Piano Piece, Op. 33a (1929), the opening chords of which feature a similar transformation of a dominant seventh to a half-diminished seventh. — Joseph H. Auner, in Schoenberg and His World, 1999 The half-diminished seventh chord became a widely-employed source in nineteenth-century harmony because of its flexible communication between relative major and minor modes …— Mark DeVoto, Debussy and the Veil of Tonality, 2004 … the half-diminished seventh chord is in many respects the star of the seventh chord harmonic cast.— Allen Forte, Listening to Classic American Popular Songs, 2001
— see seventh chord
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