What does ø mean in music?
Joseph Russell
Updated on June 05, 2026
The answer is: "Ø = half diminished, aka m7b5" This particular chord is played on piano as.
What is Ø in music?
Instead, it means a diminished triad plus a diminished seventh. To make this distinction clear, the term "half-diminished" and the ø symbol (ø) were invented. Since the term dim7 (as in Bdim7) meant something else, the accurate but unwieldy term "minor seventh flat five" (as in Bø7) came to be used.What does circle with slash mean in music?
Half-Diminished chord symbolsHalf-diminished chords usually take two forms, either a circle with a slash (cutting it in "half") or spelled out as a minor-7-flat-5 chord.