What are sus chords?

There are pretty chords, ugly chords, and some chords that are just plain sus. 

Okay, that’s the first and last sus joke – promise! 

So, why did you land on this blog post? 

• Perhaps you’ve been learning a new song and the chord chart switched out a regular D major chord for a ‘Dsus’ chord. 
• Maybe you’re looking for a chord with a distinct flavor to spice up your next song?
• It could be that you already know a few sus chords shapes, but want to know exactly what they are. 

Whatever it was that piqued your interest – we’ve got you covered. 

In the next few minutes, you’ll learn how to play sus chords on guitar and how to build them yourself.

What are suspended chords?

In short, ‘sus’ stands for suspended.

Sus chords are most often used to suspend the character of a chord by briefly removing the 3rd. 

• In music theory terms, the 3rd is hugely important to the overall mood and sound of the chord. 
• Major 3rds create a lighter, and happier sounding chord – minor 3rds create the opposite. 
• For this reason, the 3rd interval defines the character of a chord.

Don’t worry if this doesn’t make sense right now, our chordal tech support will be with you shortly!

When to use a sus chord?

The sus chord sound makes its way into almost all styles of music from pop and rock to jazz and classical. Their use is universal and always creates more interest when included in a guitar part. 

Once you know how to create them, you can use them in a variety of places for many different purposes.

• In renaissance and baroque music, composers would use suspended chords as a way of creating dissonance and instability in a progression. 
• While modern listeners won’t necessarily identify the sound of a sus chord as a dissonance anymore, they can still be used to create subtle instability within a harmonic progression.

Here are some other useful applications of suspended chords:

• Delay the resolution of a chord progression. 
• Add ‘mini melodies’ on the top voice of regular chords.
• Take chord progressions to the next level by adding interest.

Bonus tip!

A great way to use suspended chords on guitar is as embellishments.  

The hammer on and pull off technique is perfect for adding some suspended notes into into regular chord progressions. This can transform tired chord progressions into guitar parts that have a melody and bass-like accompaniment.

How to build sus chords

Let’s take a look at how sus chords shape up on guitar – we’ll break it down into three levels to help lock in the theory.

Level 1

You need to know how to form a triad to understand sus chords. Whenever you build a chord on the guitar fretboard, you need three ingredients:

• Root - The grounding note that identifies the key.
• 3rd - The ‘character’ note defining a happy or sad quality.
• 5th - The cornflour note that thickens the texture of the chord.

These three notes form a triad which is our foundation for understanding and building sus chords.

Level 2

Now that you’ve got the triad theory under your fingers, we’ll introduce you to the two types of sus chords and how to find them. 

• Remember, the key to creating a sus chord is by suspending the 3rd of the chord. 
• This means removing it entirely from the chord and replacing it with the 2nd or 4th note of the major scale. 

Both the 2nd and 4th notes create an unresolved feeling – like they’re pulling us toward the 3rd. Here is the structure of the two types of sus chord.

• Sus2 - Root, 2nd, 5th.
• Sus4 - Root, 4th, 5th.

Sus2 and sus4 chords are actually 2 sides of the same coin!

• Dsus4 and Gsus2 share the same notes – both chords consist of the notes D, G, and A.
• This shows that depending on the context, three identical notes can have different qualities.

Acoustic guitarists often throw sus chords into open-string chord progressions to immediately create more harmonic or melodic depth. 

If you’re interested in fingerstyle or folk guitar, knowing suspended chords on guitar can be a game-changer!

Check out our article on hammer ons and pull offs for some fun tips, tricks, and licks for using sus chords. 

Level 3

Although there are only two kinds of sus notes, you’ll see four options for sus chords below. 

This is where the dominant 7th gets involved. If you want to add extra tension to your sus chords, adding a dominant 7th to the chord can increase that unresolved feeling. 

• Sus4
• Sus2
• 7Sus2
• 7Sus4

Suspended chords that include a dominant 7th are essentially stacked 4th intervals. This is super easy on guitar because all you need to do is bar three or four strings to create the 7sus4 shape. 

As an example, we can make a C7sus4 by stacking C, F, Bb, and G on top of each other. 

Just as before in level 2, sus chords with a dominant 7th often resemble other sus chords. 

• In the case of C7sus4, this chord has all of the elements to create Fsus4. 
• The dominant 7th (Bb) of C7 becomes the sus4 note of F. 

Jazz guitar players will often use sus chords in tandem with altered dominant chords to maximize the sound of tension.

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