35.10Level 3 — half-diminished ambiguity

You already know:

Em7♭5 → A7 → Dm

= iiø–V–i in D minor.

But a half-diminished chord does not always have to be iiø.

For example:

Em7♭5 might appear as:

• a passing sonority
• an upper structure
• a chord with shared tones between two regions
• part of a sequence

So do not automatically yell:

“Minor ii–V!”

Look at what follows.