How Suspended Chords Work, And Some Cool Things You Can Do With Them

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Suspended chords are odd little chords that don't follow the normal "rule of thirds" chord logic. But if you know how they work you can do some pretty cool things, like setting up tension into neighboring chords or hiding what key you're in.

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Gsus, this guy knows what he's talking about.

Dibiot

As a physicist who is also in love with music I like the analogy, that major, minor, augmented chords and so on - with their 3rds construction are "gravitational centres" and the sus class is " zero gravity space" wherein you wait for a directing force, which pushes you back into a direction of gravitation :D

Marcel_Feldbaum

This guy just exposed the secret of every theatrical soundtrack

Dhiraj-evxg

I spent over 100 quid on a music course at a local college but learned more from this. I'm subscribing!

petervautier

You should have more views, you're actually a really very good teacher.

okaymckay

I love to play sus2 chords on a distorted guitar, it just feels so cozy and atmospheric, really soothing.

SladeBallard

This guy is awesome! I'm in my 50's and have been studying music since I was a teenager. Watching these videos is finally clicking on the light bulb.
Thank you!

aaronrivers

Hi Michael - I am a mature student studying for a music degree in England. My music theory is full of holes and I am finding your videos really useful - you explain things very well. I recommend you to my fellow students if they are not sure of anything - at degree level here we don't get 'taught' but but have find out for ourselves. I am so grateful to have found you on youtube.

marytolhurst

Suspended chords, at least in the traditional sense, are really not chords on their own. Though today you also see them used as actual chords. One of the most common way is a dominant 9 sus 4 chord. If we are in the key of C, we would most commonly use a G9sus4 (that is basically the same chord as F/G) and it would have a dominant function in the key. But we are still talking about clear functional harmony and technically I don't think that's really a "suspended chord", but I guess the name has just stayed and today it just refers to a chord with the third replaced by a 4th or a 2nd.

Some modal jazz tunes are based on sus chords/stacks of fourths instead of normal stacks of thirds. I guess it's because of the "ambiguous" sound of the chord that you talked about in the video.

I know the explanation of the traditional use of suspended chords was simplified but I just wanted to point out that there were a couple of mistakes. Don't get me wrong, it was a good simple explanation. But I had a problem with a couple of things.

First, during the renaissance period the concept of a "chord" or a "chord progression" didn't really exist yet. That doesn't mean that if you today analyzed a renaissance piece, you couldn't find any chords in it. But my point is, back then they didn't think in chords. They thought in intervals created by many melodies played/sung at the same time. It was based on polyphony and counterpoint. They didn't think about chords the same way we do today.

Suspensions come from two voice counterpoint. The idea of a suspension was keeping "voice #1" still while moving "voice #2" up or down by a step. This created a dissonance (2nd, 4th, tritone or 7th) between the voices that needed to be resolved. And you resolved it by moving down by a step with the "voice #1". There were originally actually three different kinds of suspensions: 4-3 (same as what we today know as a sus4), 9-8 (or 2-1) and 7-6. This is how it worked with two voice counterpoint, and if you wanted to write for more voices, you always started with two voice counterpoint. The basis of modern voice leading is also in modal counterpoint of the renaissance period.

But yeah, the mistake you made was that you used parallel fifths that were avoided in renaissance counterpoint (and not just renaissance counterpoint - they were avoided in music for a pretty long time). So basically the chord change you showed would not have been typical to renaissance or not even to music that came after that. Only during the late 19th century people started experimenting with parallel fifths more. But if you look at music from renaissance to early romantic period, you will notice that parallel fifths were not part of those styles.

A lot more common suspension would be something like C-Gsus4-G-C. Or replace the first C major with F major. Here is what that would look like with three voices:

C -> C -> B -> C
E -> D -> D -> E
G -> G -> G -> G

Or if the first chord was F major:

F -> D -> D -> E
A -> G -> G -> G
C -> C -> B -> C

But whatever, as I said, it was a good simple explanation for how to use suspended chords traditionally and I just wanted to nitpick a bit. And probably nobody will read this but I decided to post it anyway. :)

MaggaraMarine

I know some theory but the way you teach and show the usefulness and/or possibilities of the various components of theory is incredible. I wish I could sub multiple times. This is gold.

bit

The sus4 does so many cool things such as when playing C to Csus4 in the Pink Floyd song pigs on the wing it sounds very good. Also you'll notice that the chord progression F to C sounds very cool and dramatic. It happens to be that F is the sus4 note of C. AND G7 sounds really good before C and it ALSO happened to be that the seventh of G, which is F, is the sus 4 of C.

Edit: I made these observation from playing the guitar

ryanhenderson

This guy has hugely improved my guitar feeling. Makes me look at the neck in completely different ways

cleer

as some one coming from the guitar, piano is SOOOO much easier. Memorizing the guitar neck and finding all the scales and roots is alot of work. But for piano, its no sweat. Its like music was made for the piano.

ciao_abhi