Guitar Triads Chart (Suspended 4)
Hi. This is Hub Guitar.
We're going to learn the sus 4 chords going all the way up, down and across the guitar neck. This will help build and clarify the picture of how the guitar fretboard works. It's a great idea to compare these shapes to their major versions as well. So we're gonna start with A sus4 and root position. This is a note: If some of these are little tricky, don't worry, you don't necessarily to play them as perfect chord, you just try to learn the patterns, that's what's most important right now. So the A sus4 is gonna be A, D, E. So we are gonna practise it going down the strings to the next inversion, which is D, E, A, and then E, A, D, and A, D, E, just back to the root position. Now we're gonna start again from this root position chord, and we're gonna go up the strings, so we've got A, D, E. Now we're gonna do D, E, A, and E, A, D.
Take note that every sus4 chord is also an inversion of another sus2 chord. So as you go through these you might get a sense of deja vu, especially if you've already learned the sus 2 chords.
For this example, we’ll use the Asus4 chord, containing the notes A, D, and E.
The sus4 chord is an ambiguous structure that almost sounds like it would rather float up to the clouds than come back down to Earth where chords belong.
Practice all of the sus4 chords, and note their similarity to sus2 triads.
Suspended 4th Triads – Strings 6, 5, 4
Root Position
First Inversion
Second Inversion
Suspended 4th Triads – Strings 5, 4, 3
Root Position
First Inversion
Second Inversion
Suspended 4th Triads – Strings 4, 3, 2
Root Position
First Inversion
Second Inversion
Suspended 4th Triads – Strings 3, 2, 1
Root Position
First Inversion
Second Inversion
Key Tasks
- Play through the chords and learn all of them.
- Practice the chords up and down one string set, as shown above (e.g., 654).
- Practice the chords across string sets, e.g., Root on 654, 1st inversion on 543, etc.
As the creator of Hub Guitar, Grey has compiled hundreds of guitar lessons, written several books, and filmed hundreds of video lessons. He teaches private lessons in his Boston studio, as well as via video chat through TakeLessons.