Uke Minutes 43 - Suspended Chords

hahah we had two versions of this lesson.
One with the tree in the bg and one without.
I'm actually surprised that Aaron went with this one hahaha.

You're right though, the shot did look really good

i am surprised that no one else has said Thanks or commented this, so i will.


Thanks for yet another great lesson !!!!

Suspended chords

Hey Aldrine p that was a great lesson and wonderfully illustrated...

Please tell us, suggest to us ... when we should use a suspended chord. Thanks!

Groovy
Barbados

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Regular suspended chords can be used right alongside the major chord for that key - so playing C then Csus right after it sounds pretty good (like in Ale'a's version of "Baby Can I Hold You").

Suspended chords can also be used in place of the major chord (like in John Mayer's "Your Body Is a Wonderland", where you technically could use the C chord, but Csus sounds just a little bit closer to the original).

And because suspended chords are not considered major nor minor, they are also useful if you want to transition from a major key to a minor key or vice versa.

Just a quick question -- wouldn't be more common to see a sus2 chord written as an add9? That's how I typically see it and think of it when playing. I'm guessing it has to do with which way you'd want to resolve the note (up to the 3 or down to the 1). But if you got rid of the 1 for too long, then you lose the central tonality of the chord.

It's really late, and I'm overly tired. Maybe this has more to do with figuring out solos rather than chordal nomenclature?

Mahalo nui, for the lesson. I <3 UU

jddennis said:

Just a quick question -- wouldn't be more common to see a sus2 chord written as an add9? That's how I typically see it and think of it when playing. I'm guessing it has to do with which way you'd want to resolve the note (up to the 3 or down to the 1). But if you got rid of the 1 for too long, then you lose the central tonality of the chord.

It's really late, and I'm overly tired. Maybe this has more to do with figuring out solos rather than chordal nomenclature?

Click to expand...

To my knowledge they are different voicing.

A Sus2 suspends the second, so if you are playing a C chord then you would raise the D that is the second of the scale. (C, *D*, E, F, G, A, B, C) To do this on the uke you would make play the D note on your C string.

An Add9 would still add a D, but it will be considered the 9th of the chord. So instead of suspending the second D, you would suspend the ninth D. (C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, *D*) To do this on a uke you would play your D note on your A string.

There are a lot of limitations on the uke for these types of chords so in many ways we can use them the same way, but IIRC they are not the same chords.