Sus Triad Symposium Part I:
Nuts and Bolts
by Chris Buono
Triads of all types are an essential part of any proficient guitar player's arsenal. They serve a valuable purpose in many facets of playing like rhythm, fills, or lead work and once mastered they can open new doors through substitution and superimposing. Much attention is given to triad qualities like Major and Minor while some other sounds like Diminished and Augmented receive less fanfare. So much so that one of my mentors and co-workers at Berklee College of Music, Mick Goodrick, wrote an article entitled "Triadic Equal Rights" which stated the case that all triads are equal in importance and that they should all be given equal attention so as not to limit your musicality.
I for one agree whole-heartedly and I've taken upon myself to garner a little press and propaganda for yet another class of triads that are under the radar-the Sus triads. These chords sound outstanding and I hear them in a myriad of styles, but I find many of my students at both intermediate and professional levels don't have a clue as to how to use them, let alone have any kind of tangible foundation to draw from in their application.
Alas, you are saved! In this three-part series I will cover various aspects of Sus triads including the theory behind their construction, all possible fingerings in both closed and spread voicings, suggested methods for practice, and their application in both rhythm and lead playing and composition. This first installment will cover the nuts and bolts of the basic sus4 and sus2 triad chords while the second one will get into the uncharted world of altered Sus chords. The third and final installment will focus on advanced approaches to practicing and composing with Sus triads of all types through licks and riffs using the chords outlined in the first two lessons. So grab your guitar, fire up that amp, and let's get down to the business of Sus chords.
As I'll be presenting an immense number of chords, it's important to point out a few things that will help you get the most out of these three lessons and your practice time with chords in general. First, I often see students put the minimum amount of time into practicing triads and worse still, they only play the chords found on the bottom string sets. Unfortunately this establishes a fragile foundation for the chords in question and you end up with a vision that is limited and incomplete.
With that said, be sure to practice hard and put an equal if not greater amount of time into playing all the chords that fall on the highest string sets-G-B-E or 3-2-1 for the closed triads and D-B-E or 4-2-1 for the spread triads-as these chords will prove to be the most useful. It's also essential to understand how Sus chords are organized.
The chords in this first installment and the next will be displayed in the same manner. Three systems will be dedicated to each Sus chord type grouped as follows: Vertical Shapes, Horizontal Movements, and Vertical Areas. Below is an explanation for each of the three groups.
Vertical Shapes - This section shows each Sus triad in all three forms- Root Position, 1st Inversion, and 2nd Inversion-across the neck on all the string sets to show all the possible fingerings. This is the most important section in terms of visual association and just getting off on the right foot. The better you familiarize yourself with this material at this stage, the more you'll get out of the next two sections. Be sure to play all chords ascending and descending and pay close attention to the chords that involve the B string as they vary in their fingering because of the interval structure inherent to standard tuning.
Horizontal Movements - Here you will see the Sus chords ascending up the neck starting with the Root Position chords and ending on the 2nd Inversion chords. This layout will help you acquire the skills to move around the neck and change positions more fluidly, which will in turn expand your perspective of the neck. To get a complete overview it's a good idea to play the three ascending chords and then continue up the neck to the Root Position chord an octave (twelve frets) higher. As with the Vertical Shapes, play all of the Horizontal Movements in both ascending and descending motion.
Vertical Areas - At first glance the Sus chords seem as if they were simply put back into a vertical layout, but on close examination you'll see that they are all the same chord. Whatever Sus chord type you start off with will move across the neck with each bass note being flipped up an octave becoming the next chord's top note. Thus, you will play all the chord inversions from each of the three starting points-Root Position, 1st Inversion, and 2nd Inversion respectively-and end up with the same inversion you started with.
Before we get into theoretical explanations of the Sus chord, let's go through a quick review of basic terms to best understand the logic that lies ahead. A triad is a chord made up of three notes taken from a scale; these notes are designated as chord tones. Although there are other chords that can be played in three-note configurations, a triad can only be created from the first five notes of a heptatonic (seven-tone) scale (the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th degrees-or another scale formula that possesses those degrees.
Apart from the 1st degree, herein referred to as the root, any note in a triad can be altered by raising or lowering it a half step (one fret). Most commonly, triads are made up of roots, 3rds, and 5ths in the form of Major (1-3-5), Minor (1-b3-5), Diminished (1-b3-b5), and Augmented (1-3-#5) chords. All the chord tones in any type of chord are arranged in a certain order known as a voicing with the two most common voicings for triads being closed and spread or open. Closed or close-voiced triads have the chord tones arranged in consecutive numerical sequences in their closet proximity.
For instance- based on a major scale- a root position Major triad arranged as a closed voicing would be spelled 1-3-5. The first note after the root is the 3rd and when the voicing is shifted, putting that 3rd degree at the bottom or in the bass, it's known as the 1st inversion and is spelled 3-5-1. A similar approach is taken with 2nd inversion chords. This time the 5th, the second chord tone above the root, is shifted to be the bottom note resulting in a 5-1-3 spelling.
Now then, spread or open voicings do just that-they open up closed voicings by raising the middle note up an octave giving rise to a whole new set of chords that possess a more throaty-sounding quality. The spellings would be as follows: 1-5-3 (root position), 3-1-5 (1st inversion), and 5-1-3 (2nd inversion) respectively.
Now that we have that covered, let's get into the concept of Sus triads. The word "Sus" is short for "suspended". A suspended chord is a triad that has had the 3rd omitted from the aforementioned 1-3-5 formulas, replacing it with either a 2nd or 4th of any type. While it's true that more extensive chord formulas-tetrads (four-note formulas) and extended chords (9ths, 11th, and 13ths)-could fall under this concept, we're going to focus only on triads in this three-part series.
Let's start with the most common Sus chord, the sus4. This triad is made up of a root, a perfect 4th, and a perfect 5th and usually precedes major chords making very smooth and very musical chord progressions like the ones heard in Van Halen's "Panama" from 1984 or "Unchained" from Fair Warning. A sus4 chord can also be played on it's own creating a bed of very powerful, robust sounding textures like the ones heard in many classic Rush tunes played by Alex Lifeson or by Incubus guitarist Mike Eizinger to name a few. As a side note, when you see a chord referred to as say, Csus, and there is no number next to the word "sus", it's safe to assume the chord is meant to be a sus4. Now, without further ado, here are the sus4 closed triads.
For those of you new to spread-voiced triads you will soon see that they take up a little more neck and string real estate than their closed-voiced counterparts; that's because their chord tone arrangement is not contained within one octave. With such a large range, we're forced to fret these chords on four adjacent strings, leaving one string within that group unfretted. This enables the chords to be fretted in one of two ways and they both can be seen below labeled "Sus4 Spread Triads, Set A and "Sus4 Spread Triads, Set B". In both versions the highest and lowest notes stay in place while the middle note can be shifted by diagonally moving it up or down the neck in unison (same-note) intervals.
Set A sets up the chords so that one note is fretted on the bottom end, the next higher adjacent string is skipped and not fretted at all, and the other two notes are fretted on adjacent strings on the top end. Set B reverses this pattern by fretting two notes on adjacent strings at the bottom, skipping the next higher adjacent string, and then fretting the remaining note on the highest string.
One word of caution: Not all of us are gifted with a set of large digits like Steve Vai's. Some of the spread voicings shown here, like the ones found in Set A of the sus4 chords and later in Set B of the sus2 chords, require very large stretches. If at any time a chord seems out of your reach or feels a little uncomfortable, simply raise it up one octave horizontally and save yourself the strain, pain, and risk of damaging your most important piece of gear-your hands.
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