Open Chords and Suspended Chords

Hi. This is Hub Guitar.

Suspended chords are often used to make a chord progression sound a little more interesting. Here's an example of a sus chord going to a major chord.

The best way to learn how suspended chords work is to start with a major chord, such as C major, and then compare it to other C chords such as C minor, C sus 2, and C sus 4. This way, you can learn how the chords are built and then turn any major chord into a sus4 chord.

Starting with a C major chord, we've got a 1, 3, 5. You can tell that the E is a third because it's the note 3 letters above C. C is one, D will be the second letter, so E must be the third of the chord.

Now we can make that C major in to a minor chord by flattening the third by one half-step. This is a bit difficult to play, so don't worry if you have a bit of trouble. Some of these chords are more for learning than for performing with. Notice that we don't play the top "E" anymore as that is also a major third and it would mess things up to have both the major chord's third and the minor chord's third. Does not sound very good no matter who plays it.

Now, back to the C major for comparison.

To make a sus2 chord, we'll replace the third with a second. So we can lift up here on the second finger coming off the E note. and then let's open that D note ring out. and again, back to the C major chord to compare, always want to compare to something.

Finally, to make a sus4 chord, we can replace the third with the perfect fourth a half-step above. This is F, C, F, G, C. very common for that sus4 chord. to resolve to major.

the goal here is to practice all of these chords in major, minor, sus2 and sus4 form--C, D, E, F, G, and A. Once you know all of those you'll be able to do alot more with basic open chords.