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🎶 Enroll to Practical Music Theory and join Justin in his Live Class on Chord Manipulation!—starting soon.
In this lesson, we'll learn how to play A Shape Barre Chords: Sus4! Before we get started, let's recap on the last lesson, where we learned Sus2 Chords. To play a Sus2 on guitar, we remove the third of the chord (the note that makes it Major or Minor) and replace it with the second. Because Sus2 Chords aren't Major or Minor, we get a floaty sound that could replace either Major or Minor Chords.
Sus4 chords follow the same idea - we are replacing the third with the fourth. However, for some reason, Sus4 Chords work better as an embellishment or something you might build a riff from rather than as a chord that you would stay on for a long time. Let's take a better look at this!
We'll start from a regular C Major Chord. Our little finger will go down on the second string three frets above the barre in front of Finger 3. Take a look at the diagram below:
⚠️ Remember: we won't play the thinner string. That would be a C7!
Let me tell you something interesting that happens when we try this idea with the Minor Chord. The fingering is a bit awkward to jump to, but we can replace the Major or Minor Chord with Sus4. If we move our little finger up three frets above the barre on the second string, it becomes a 7 Sus4 Chord. :)
🧪 In Theory, this is what we call a Dominant 7th Chord, and we've added a flat seven to get the seven sound. So we end up with a sus4 Minor 7 Sus4. Don't worry too much about the technical stuff - just use it when you can with a Minor Chord. :)
I would play a 7 Sus4 Chords as a replacement for a Minor 7 anytime. Again, don't let the name of the theory get in the way. Just think of it like you're playing a Minor Chord! The more you learn to use your ears to make decisions about music, the better!
🚨 There is plenty of Music Theory that you should learn and apply. Music Theory is really useful and can definitely be a helpful shortcut if you understand it, but more important than Theory is what things sound like! If it sounds good, it is good. :)
A lot of great songs use Sus4 as embellishments, and I'd recommend you explore them as a practice for these grips. An awesome example is My Sharona by The Knack!
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