A sus?

This might be a silly question, but I don't know anything about music so maybe not..lol...Anyway, I don't understand what an "Asus" is. I have researched it a little, but the answers are all music jargon. Can someone dumb it down for me. I have a feeling it is too advanced for my level, but it's driving me crazy not knowing!

A sus is one of those hard plastic tips on the end of your shoelaces.

No, sry, that's an "aglet"

Cut and pasted:

A sustained chord, or "sus chord" (also suspended chord), is a chord where the second or most often the fourth is played with or replaces the third. For instance, Csus4 is C, F, and G. These chords are called "sustained" because you typically arrive at them when you perform a V7-I progression but don't resolve the seventh of the V7. This is similar to a suspension, where the harmony shifts from one chord to another, but one or more notes of the first chord are held over into the second. However in a sustained chord the note may never resolve as is required of a suspension. In jazz, sus chords are usually played as a major triad with the second in the bass, e.g. a major C with a D bass is a Dsus7.

Major scale in the key of A:


Assign numbers or "degrees" to each note in the scale:


Build an A major chord using 1, 3, and 5:

A C# E

Replace the 3 with a 4 to build a sus4 chord:

A D E

seeso said:

Major scale in the key of A:

Code:

A B C# D E F# G#

Assign numbers or "degrees" to each note in the scale:

Code:

A B C# D E F# G#
1 2 3  4 5 6  7

Build an A major chord using 1, 3, and 5:

A C# E

Replace the 3 with a 4 to build a sus4 chord:

A D E

Click to expand...

Thanks Seeso, that is nice and clear!!

Suspended chords add beauty to the major chords. Remembering all the suspended chords is a must. C - Csus - C, G - Gsus - G, etc.

hmmm. Ok, so an A sus could be a combination of different things. I guess it just depends on the song you play. Thanks guys. I still don't get the whole picture, but I am 75 % closer...

EstherNme said:

hmmm. Ok, so an A sus could be a combination of different things. I guess it just depends on the song you play. Thanks guys. I still don't get the whole picture, but I am 75 % closer...

Click to expand...

No an Asus can be two things only. It can be an Asus2 or an Asus4. An Asus4 I've outlined above. An Asus2 will substitute a 2 for the 3:

Major scale in the key of A:


Assign numbers or "degrees" to each note in the scale:


Build an A major chord using 1, 3, and 5:

A C# E

Replace the 3 with a 2 to build a sus2 chord:

A B E

Can I please ask a follow up question?

From the responses I have a great sense of how to find and play a sus chord - but musically what is it? Is it just another type of chord, or is it a chord known for a particular function or flavor?

I'll get into this more later (as it's 2:32 AM HERE!), but...

A "normal" chord is made of 3 notes: the root or tonic which is given the number 1, the 3rd which is the note that decides if a chord is major or minor (if the 3rd is flattened then the chord is minor), and the 5th that kind of completes the sound.

A suspended 2nd or, more commonly, 4th takes the place of the 3rd temporarily - usually then moving to the 3rd to achieve a kind of resolution effect.

Drat, this is simple but hard to explain. Sorry... I'll be back later. (Unless JJ steps in to sort it out in the meantime! LOLz)

GreyPoupon said:

Can I please ask a follow up question?

From the responses I have a great sense of how to find and play a sus chord - but musically what is it? Is it just another type of chord, or is it a chord known for a particular function or flavor?

Click to expand...

Its use is just what it sounds like. You use it to "suspend" the listener. Play a Csus4 - 0013. Do you hear how it wants to go to a C - 0003? You use sus4 chords to build tension.

Yep. That's it.

The western ear finds the sound of a major triad (three-note chord) pleasing. It sounds complete, fulfilled, comfortable.

The suspended chord sounds not-quite-right. Incomplete - kind of like a step on the way to something. That something is the major chord. The sus chord introduces tension. When it resolves to the major, by exchanging the slightly dissonant 4th (or less commonly the 2nd) for the major 3rd, there is a sense of relief or completion.

There's a story told to illustrate the effect:

There was a party one evening at a musical college. During the proceedings one of the students sat at the piano playing a tune. Before the end of the tune, his companion announced that she had to leave, so he stopped playing in order to escort her home. The last chord he played was a suspended 4th, then he just stopped. A few moments later they heard the sound of frantic footsteps descending the main stairs. A professor rushed into the room in his pyjamas, hurried over to the piano and hammered out the missing major chord. Then, with an expression of huge relief, he strolled casually out of the room and returned to bed.

The gag is that the old fella just couldn't tolerate the unresolved tension of that sus4. He was left hanging (suspended), and he couldn't sleep until he'd resolved the situation.

To hear the effect of a sus4 resolving to a major, try alternating between these two chords: 0232 - 0233 - 0232 - 233 and so on. Then play just the 0233... Hear how it's waiting to go to that 0232? That's G major and G sus4.

Here are a few tunes that use sus chords:

Crazy Little thing Called Love (intro)
Pinball wizard (fast part of the intro)
Brown Sugar (song is overflowing with sus4 chord resolutions!)

Get the idea?

thanks for explaining all this - it's made it a lot clearer for me

More about sus4 chords (probably too much more!):

From a jazz standpoint, a V7(sus4) chord often functions as a ii7-V7 progression, but rolled into one single chord, because it has notes from both chords. It's a two-for-one! In practical terms, let's say you have a song that goes like this:


One way to reharmonize that is to replace the Dm7 - G7 with a single G7(sus4) chord:



A cool way to play a sus4 chord is to use what I call a "Long and Winding Road Chord". It's a slash chord. You keep the normal root of the chord in the bass, but you shift the "top" of the chord to a major triad that's a whole step lower. This functions as a sus4 chord (and really drives home that ii7-V7 replacement thing too). It's really something like a V7(sus4, sus2, omit5), but who's counting?

So instead of a regular Dsus4 (2230), for example, try seeing if a C/D sounds good in the same context (0203).

Finally, although the ear tends to want to hear a sus chord "resolve" (either to the non-sus version of the chord, or to a chord a fifth lower), people have composed songs where that doesn't happen. Probably the most famous jazz example is Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage.

JJ

This has been "Long Winded Explanation Hour," with your hosts, Buddhuu, Ukulele JJ, and Seeso. Please tune in next week, when we swat a fly with an anvil.

seeso said:

[...] Please tune in next week, when we swat a fly with an anvil.

Click to expand...

Now you're talking complexity. That one might take a while to cover thoroughly...

some nice explanations here , i think it is not about suspending, it is about colouring the chord you are on to make a more interesting sound and enhance the rhythm

e.g play a G - 0232, strum it a bit, now put your pinkie on 0233 (keep the 2 there too) now take it off, now put it on, now take it off, get it ......colour.

now play d 2220 , now put your third or pinkie on ( depending how you play it) 2230 now take it off, now put it on, now take it off, get it ......colour.

Ukulele JJ said:

More about sus4 chords (probably too much more!)

Click to expand...

Nah, keep it coming. All good stuff. Still working my way through it though!

Amazing how just four strings can lead to such complexity.

HOLY CRIPES!

....and this is in the beginners section !!!???
I've got to back up and find the "complete and utter neophyte" section...

I used to have a pet Sus (Sus scrofa)

Suspended chords add a specific flavor to a song or a riff.

If you play rock and roll, suspended chords will help you sound like the Who.

I'm actually not kidding. Think of the main riff to Pinball Wizard: it's essentially an alternation between a major chord and its suspended form. Pete Townshend is well known for his liberal use of suspended chords.