The second chord in the verse progression of D’Angelo’s “Feel like Makin’ Love” is a rich Vsus13. That jazz influence carries over to modern R&B where the smooth sound of a sus7 with added extensions is common. You can hear them in action on Herbie Hancock’s modal classic “Maiden Voyage.” The “rootless” quality of these sus7 chords played a big part in the modal movement in jazz. In jazz music, the 9th or 13th chord extensions are often added to make the chord sound more rich. You can build a four note seventh chord on the basic structure of a sus4 by adding a minor 7th above the tonic. Sus chords don’t have to stop at just three notes.
The fourth scale degree replaces the third scale degree of the triad The most common form of suspended chord is the sus4.Ī sus4 contains the root, fourth, and fifth degrees of the scale.
TAB SUSPENDER HOW TO
I’ll go through the three most common types of sus chords and how to build them: 1. How to play sus chordsīasic suspended chords are simple to play. That makes them great for a few key purposes in your chord progressions. The presence of scale degrees two and four associates them with dominant harmony, but sus chords can play several different roles. Since they don’t contain scale degree three to classify them as major or minor, sus chords sound open and neutral. The feeling of holding the chord up before it ultimately descends to its resting place is where the name “suspension” comes from. The term suspension comes from a practice in counterpoint where the bass note would change while the interval above remained constant before resolving downward to create a major or minor chord. Instead they substitute the second or fourth degree of the scale. Suspended chords (or sus chords) are chords that do not contain a major or minor third scale degree. In this article you’ll learn what they are, how to build them and the best ways to use them in your songwriting. Today I’m talking about a chord type we haven’t covered yet on the LANDR Blog-suspended chords. That’s the beauty of learning music theory. The more kinds of chords you know, the more options you’ll have to create. Chords are the essential building blocks of any song.Īrranging different types of chords together is how you make the satisfying progressions that give your songs their feel and flow.