There are 2 types of suspended chords I know. There may actually be more but I only know 2 types. Anyway, you won’t want to learn too many chords playing the cheat way. 🙂
These 2 types of suspension I know are Sus2 and Sus4. I will come to Sus2 another day, and only explain Sus4 in this post.
When we play a C chord, for example, up till now, we’ve been playing it the “doe-me-so” way. That is, our C chord is made up of the notes C, E and G. They are the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes in the C major scale.
This is how we play a G chord too, just to use another example. Our G chord is made up of G (the “doe” note), B (the “me” note), and D (the “so” note), i.e., the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the G major scale. No matter what inversion we may be playing, be it the root position (i.e., 1-3-5), the 1st inversion (i.e., 3-5-1), or the 2nd inversion (i.e., 5-1-3), these three notes (1, 3 and 5) are always there.
Simply put, a C4 (read “C suspended”, or “C sus-four”, or simply “C-four”) is when you play the 4th note instead of the 3rd note in your chord (together with the other 2 notes: 1st and 5th). That means, a C4 chord would have these notes, 1 (“doe”), 4 (“fa”), and 5 (“so). That is, C4 is when you play C, F and G notes together (compare this with a C chord, when you play C, E and G).
Figure 1: C4
Similarly, a G4 chord is made up of these 3 notes: G (i.e., the “doe” note), C (ie., the “fa” note), and D (i.e., the “so” note). These are the 1st, 4th and 5th notes of the G major scale.
Figure 2: G4
In any key, I know of 2 chords when Sus4 is usually applied. These are the 1st major chord (i.e., Chord I) and the 5th major chord (i.e., Chord V). That means, in the key of C, the only Sus4 chords you need to know are C4 and G4. If you were playing in the key of A, then the only Sus4 chords you would need to know would be A4 and E4 (“A” being the Chord I, and “E” being the Chord V in the A key).
More importantly, when are Sus4 chords used in a song? A suspended chord lives up to its name, i.e., it ‘suspends’ or ‘hangs’ sort-of up there somewhere before coming down to where the song should lead. Take the song “Amazing Grace”, for example. If we were to play this song in the C key, then at the end of the line “… that saves a wretch like me”. The chord on the word “me” may be a G chord (Chord V) straightaway. Another way to play this is to first play G4 (Chord V4), and then play G (Chord V). That means, instead of playing only one G chord at that place, you may choose to play a G4 first, then a G (i.e., 2 chords instead of 1), as a way to enhance the sound.
Another place in the song is “…was blind but now I see”. In the C key, you may just play one chord, i.e., C (Chord I) on the word “see”, or play C4 (Chord I4) first then C (Chord I). You would notice that the music kind-of ‘hangs in the air’ when you are playing C4, and then ‘settles down’ when you ‘resolve’ it with C.
I hope the above is clear. But didn’t we say that most songs can be played with just 3 chords on the right hand? Please check out “Improvising Sus4” under the “Cheat Tricks” category for the answer.
Piano Cheats 