As defined in the post on Chord-building: in suspended Chords, the 3rd note of the scale is replaced with the 4th (sus4) or 2nd (sus2) notes.

Let’s try out some of these chords:

Asus4

Asus2

Esus4

Esus2

Dsus4

Dsus2

The 4th note really pulls towards the 3rd note of the home chord, creating a kind of tension that wants to resolve. You can hear this clearly: play Asus4 and then Amaj. Satisfying, right? Still, musicians often choose not to resolve a sus4 onto the home chord (in jazz, for example), which can be quite effective depending on the feel you’re trying to create within a song.

The 2nd note doesn’t create such a strong pull towards the home chord, but does make the chord sound quite wistful. In practice, the sus2 chord is often substituted for the home chord to create a more interesting sound, or a sus4-sus2-home chord progression is used.

Both sus4 and sus2 chords produce a more dreamy quality than the home chord, and – when used repeatedly – make a song kind of hypnotic and immersive.

Suspended chords actually appear often in well-known pop/rock/folk songs, and the characteristic sound of certain musical artists – Oasis, for example – can even be partly explained by the use of suspended chords.

Take Wonderwall: the verses feature Esus4 and B7sus4, and the chorus features Dadd9. All these chords (including many of the non-suspended chords in the song) share ‘anchor’ notes: the finger positions for A (on the B string) and E (on the high E string) remain the same throughout the chord changes, creating a sense of stability. However, since Esus4 and B7sus4 never properly resolve onto their home chords, Wonderwall also feels taut and restless. This kind of suspension is characteristic of many iconic Oasis songs, including Supersonic (Asus2), Champage Supernova (Asus2, Asus2/G, Asus2/F#, Asus2/E), and Some Might Say (Bsus2, Cadd9).

It’s not unusual to be able to pick out trends like this across songs from a particular band or guitarist, given the development of their own style and preferences. Other artists who often use interesting and characteristic chord forms and progressions are Dashboard Confessional and John Mayer (feel free to look up some tabs for their songs to see what I mean).

If you want to practice some sus chords (but Wonderwall contains a few too many unfamiliar chords), you could try instead: Tracy Chapman’s Baby Can I Hold You (Asus7), KT Tunstall’s Other Side of the World (Dsus4 and Dsus2), or Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Dsus4).

In the next chords post, we’ll cover how to achieve epic chord progressions in song-writing.

Until then, happy playing!

P.S. Song of the day: I Don’t Wanna Be by Gavin DeGraw

If you like I Don’t Wanna Be, please consider helping to support Acoustic Notes by checking out DeGraw’s album here.

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