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Sus2 and sus4 chords are very often used in music to embellish chords and chord progressions.

It’s an easy way of adding some extra flavor to a chord and give you a little space to mess around with that chord.

Especially when you have to play a chord for several consecutive measures in a song and you don’t want to get bored out of your mind, it’s nice to implement a sus4 or sus2 here and there to spice things up a bit.

Chord Analysis

To understand what a sus chord really is and how it operates you have to know a little bit of music theory. A normal major chord consists of the root, 3rd and 5th notes of the major scale (1-3-5). If we take the C major scale for example: C D E F G A B C and you take the root (1st), 3rd and 5th note of that scale you get C-E-G. The minor chord consists of the root, flat 3rd and 5th notes of the major scale (1-b3-5) and becomes C-Eb-G. Here’s where the sus chords comes in…

The sus4 chord consists of the root, 4th and 5th notes of the major scale (1-4-5) = C F G. You can see that the sus4 chord (“sus” stands for “suspended”.) replaces the third with the fourth note.

The sus2 chord consists of the root, 2nd and 5th notes of the major scale (1-2-5) = C D G. The sus2 chord replaces the third with the second note.

By removing the 3rd in a chord, the chord becomes neither major nor minor, as the 3rd determines the happy major or sad minor sound. Therefor sus chords can be applied to both major and minor chords.

Chords in practice

Suspended chords have the tendency to resolve. The four and fifth in a sus4 chord creates tension and so does the second and root in a sus2 chord. That’s why sus chords are often played in combination with their parent chord.

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