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Beginners Guitar Lessons: Suspended Chords And How To Use Them

By Mike Hayes | January 27, 2009

Suspended chords are cool chords for songwriters, they create
intrigue, mystery and interesting sonic textures.

Why should songwriters have all the fun? Guitar players can also find
many applications for these marvelous chords.

The reason why suspended chords are so popular with successful
songwriters and musicians is because of the ambiguous nature of
the suspended chord.

You see, when you are writing or playing a song you are
storytelling. That’s the key … music is about storytelling!

Everything else that you learn about music, scales, arpeggios,
chords etc., is preparing you to “tell the story”.

Before you go any further I’d like to use an analogy to help put
everything in it’s proper perspective, ultimately it will save you a
lot of time and effort.

Here’s my analogy … when a boxer is skipping a rope, that is
part of his preparation for a boxing event, it is not boxing …
it is preparation for boxing. In just the same way that a
musician practices scales, that is not music, it is part of the
preparation for playing music.

As we said earlier, music is about storytelling … all the
accumulated musical knowledge (theory) and motor skills you have
developed though dedicated practice (muscle memory) should
ultimately help you communicate your musical “story” to the
listener.

As you know, a good movie, book or play captivates the audience
immediately, you simply can’t put a good book down of change
TV channels if a good movie is on!

The writers galvanize your attention by creating intrigue,
mystery and interest.

Enter the suspension chord …

Suspension chords create interest by “filling in”, they do not
necessarily replace the basic chords, they are usually played
when there isn’t any lyrics or when there is a number of bars of
the same chord. Suspension chords are often used for introductions
and endings of songs.

There are two types of suspension chords (also referred to as
sustained chords), there’s the suspended 4th and the suspended
2nd chord.

The musical shorthand notation for the suspended 4th is either
sus 4 or simply the number 4.

For example, “G” suspended 4th could be written as either “G sus
4″ or “G4″

The musical shorthand notation for the suspended 2nd is either
sus 2 or simply the number 2.

For example, “G” suspended 2nd could be written as either “G sus
2″ or “G2″

Important: the suspended 4th chord can be abbreviated to simply
“sus” however the suspended 2nd chord must be notated as either
“sus 2″ or “2″.

It would be assumed that the Gsus chord in the following example
was a suspended 4th.

G /// | Gsus /// | G /// | Gsus /// ||

If I want to have the suspension chord played as a suspended 2nd
I would have had to notate the chord progression in the following
way.

G /// | Gsus2 /// | G /// | Gsus2 /// ||

or

G /// | G2 /// | G /// | G2 /// ||

What is a suspended chord?

A suspended chord is a chord where the third note of the chord is replaced by either the fourth or second note of the scale. Hence the name suspended second where the second note replaces the third or alternatively suspended fourth where the third note is replaced by the fourth.

Here is an example in the key of “D” major.

D major scale = D,E,F#,G,A,B,C#,D

D major is spelt D, F# & A

D sus 2 is spelt D, E & A

D sus 4 is spelt D, G & A

How do you use them?

The suspended 2nd chords are passive, so they can be used in just
about any situation where you want to create interest, they can
even be used to replace the original major or minor chord.

The suspended 4th chord however is quite a strong chord and works
best as a musical “filler” in between breaks in the melody. It
also works well for introductions.

The suspended 4th chord is not recommended under the vocals as it
takes the listeners attention away from the musical “story”.

What gives them their magical power?

As we mentioned earlier the suspended chord replaces the existing
third note with either a second (sus 2) or fourth (sus 4). The
third note of the chord is the deciding note as to whether the
chord is major or minor.

Here is an example in the key of “D” major

D major chord is spelt = D, F# & A

D minor chord is spelt = D, F & A

Notice how the note “D” (the first note of the chord) and the
note “A’ (the fifth note of the chord) remain the same.

The ambiguous effect created by replacing the third note with
either the second or fourth note creates music with suspense and
the all important musical ingredient “tension”.

From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar System

http://www.GuitarCoaching.com
http://AdvancingGuitaristProgram.com

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