Suspension Chords, Suspension Melodies, and Additions

Suspension chords can often be over looked and suspended melodies are almost never discussed. Here's how to suspend and why you should suspend you music.

What is a Suspension?

I'm sure you've seen the terms sus, sus2, and sus4 out on the internet while looking up songs to play. Let me start by clearing up some confusion. Sus means to suspend or lift, so when you use a sus chord you are lifting the third degree note to become the fourth degree note. This means that sus and sus4 are the same thing. Sus2 means that you are suspending or hanging the third degree down to the second degree.

The confusion comes in when written/typed music on the internet shows a sus chord, but they mean sus2. Because of this, I will use sus2 and sus4 as notation so that this post is clear about what degrees we are using in our chords. Just keep in mind that sus means sus4 and that written music on the internet can mix things up. If you don't know which type of suspension to use when reading such music, then try both. Only one chord will sound correct, and we'll get into why that is.

Why Should I Suspend?

When you suspend a chord, you are taking the third degree and suspending it to the second or fourth degree of your scale. These degrees are the real focus because they allow you to take a chord and add a mild amount of tension and color to your sound. You can also suspend your resolution by not giving your chord or melody the feeling of an end. Think of it like singing, "Happy birthday to…" and holding on to that "to" note. You would suspend the melody and resolve it with "you."

Using a major chord like C Major, then we use degrees 1, 3, and 5 with notes C, E, and G. E is our third degree. To suspend this chord, we can take E and lower it to our second degree note of D or raise it to our fourth degree note of F.

This allows you to resolve a sus2 or sus4 chord back to the major chord and resolve the tension. Another use is that you can keep the same root and fifth notes, in this case they are C and G, and move the third degree to give motion to the cord. Let's play Csus4, C, Csus2, C. I'll play a C arpeggio by playing C, E, and G so you can hear the degrees of 1, 3, and 5. Listen to it a few times and pay attention to the root and fifth staying the same in the left speaker. Then listen for the third degree note to move in the right speaker as we use the suspended notes F for Csus4 and D for Csus2.

Extended Suspensions

We can apply this to extended chords as well. An extended chord uses notes beyond one octave. By playing our C major chord as C, G, and E in the next octave we still have a C major chord. We have just extended one of the notes to the next octave. It should be noted that notes using degrees 1, b3, 3, b5, 5, b7, and 7 are always treated as those degrees no matter what octave you use. Degrees b2, 2, 4, #4, b6, and 6 only function as these degrees in the first octave. In any higher octave those degrees function as the b9, 9, 11, #11, b13, and 13.

This is because major and minor chords use degrees 1, b3 or 3, 5, and b7 or 7 to build their chords with alternating major third and minor third intervals. You can think of this as a sonic foundation that all chords are built around. By breaking the pattern of alternating-thirds we add tension to the chord.

Let's try adding some tension with our sus2 and sus4, but in the next octave. We can use the same chord progression as before, but this time the notes D and F will come from the second octave. While this D note would be the 9th degree and the F would be our 11th degree, we can still use sus2 and sus4 as the names for these chords. If you want to call them sus9 and sus11 then that's fine. There's so much information out there that support either method, so use what makes sense. For this post I'll use sus9 and sus11 so it is clear as to what we've done with our third degree note.

In the next audio clip, I’ll play C arpeggiated (one note at a time), Csus11, C, Csus9, C.

Did you hear how this brightened up our movement? There was even that slight bit of tension as we pulled away from the third degree note. Using suspensions in this way can add life to your stale chords. Try it out on anything that needs some melodic movement. A quick example would be | Am | Dm | G | C | turning into | Asus2  Am  | Dm | G7 | Csus4 C Csus2 C |. Try playing these measures with a variety of rhythms and I'm sure you'll find some interesting aspects of the suspensions. I'll play these four chords one at a time. Then I'll play them again with the suspensions and dominant 7 chord with two different rhythms. I’ll also add some melodic qualities in the third section and those notes will come from the chord that is currently being played.

Set 1: | Am            | Dm        | G         | C                            |
Set 2: | Asus2 Am | Dm       | G7       | Csus4 C Csus2 C | *with rhythm
Set 3: | Asus2 Am | Dm       | G7       | Csus4 C Csus2 C | *with rhythm and melody

Suspending a Melody

Since we can use the degrees 2 and 4 as suspensions that require a resolution, we can also use these degrees to end a melody so that it suspends until it is resolved. I'll play four different melodies that are all over a C5 chord. The C5 chord is just the root note and the fifth degree, which will let the third degree exist only in the melody. This is important because having the third degree note in more than one place can make the chord sound ambiguous, which is to say that it is hard to hear which octave the third is in.

The melodies will be the same but with the last two notes being different at the end. Listen for the suspension note to cause an unending effect for the melody and for the third or fifth degree to resolve the melody. Here's what the four melodies will do at the end of each part.

Part 1: Sus2 note of D to third degree E.
Part 2: Sus4 note of F to fifth degree G.
Part 3: Sus9 note of D to first degree C in the second octave.
Part 4: Sus11 note of F to fifth degree of G in the second octave.

Listen for the suspension note to resolve to the first, third, or fifth degree. You may notice that resolving to each degree gives its own flavor of resolution. Resolving to the first degree or tonic gives a sense of completion. Resolving to the fifth degree gives a sense of expecting something to come. Resolving to the third degree gives a sense of completion that could be followed by something else. Of course, these descriptions are subjective, so you may hear something entirely different.

Phrygian and Lydian Suspensions

When you are playing within the Phrygian or Lydian scales you will have degrees b2 or #4. There are scales/modes outside of the Major Scale that have the degrees b2 and #4, but we'll stick with Phrygian and Lydian for these examples.

A Phrygian suspension would be a minor triad suspending the third degree to the b2 or the b9 since they are the same note. You can use a sus4 or sus11 since the 4th degree is present in the Phrygian scale, but the other relative minor modes of Dorian and Aeolian also have the 4th degree. If you want your suspension to sound Phrygian, then use the b2 or b9. You may be tempted to use the susb9 chord because the degree b2 is only one half-step up from the root and causes a clash. If you resolve this clash with a melody or voice-lead harmony, then you can use the susb2 clash to your advantage. Just be aware that you have options and go with what works best for your song.

The Lydian suspension is either sus#4 or sus#11 on a major triad. The interval from the root to the #4 is the Tri-Tone, so there is a lot of tension. This can also be used to your advantage. Chord progressions tend to go from a Tonic chord to a Pre-Dominant chord and then to a Dominant Chord before starting over. C Ionian uses C, Em, and Am as Tonic chords, Dm and F as Pre-Dominant chords, and G and B˚ as Dominant chords. Both Dominant chords can contain the Tri-Tone naturally, which helps it move to a Tonic chord. A Lydian suspension chord like Fsus#11 can help you to resolve to a chord like C or Am and bypass your Dominant chords because the #11 makes it feel like a Dominant chord. In other words, the Tri-Tone in either a dominant 7 or a Lydian sus#11 chord is what help pull you back to a major or minor tonic.

Let's look at C, Am, Dm, G7, C. If we replace the Dominant chord of G7 with Fsus#11, then we have a very bright and tense way to resolve to our Tonic chord of C. I'll play C, Am, Dm, G7, C and then C, Am, Dm, Fsus#11, C. Listen for the Tri-Tone of B to F in G7 and F to B in the next octave in Fsus#11. Even though F should be a Pre-Dominant chord, the Tri-Tone helps guide us back to Tonic and makes the chord feel somewhat Dominant.

Set 1: | C | Am | Dm | G7          | C |
Set 2: | C | Am | Dm | Fsus#11 | C |

Sus9 vs Add9 vs Maj9

A suspension is when you replace the third degree note with either the second or fourth degree note. An add is when you add a note beyond the first octave to a triad. A chord like Maj9 is when you built a seventh chord with alternating thirds and continue building beyond the first octave. Here are some examples and their notes.

Csus2: C, D, G.
Cadd9: C, E, G, D.
CMaj9: C, E, G, B, D.

Each of these chords has the 1st, 2nd, and 5th degrees: C, D, and G. The Csus2 chord replaces the third degree of E and suspends it down to the second degree of D. The Cadd9 chord takes the C Major triad notes of C, E, and G and then adds the 9th degree note of D. The 9th degree is the same note as the 2nd degree, so there can be some confusion when playing these two chords. If you are using the third degree, then you are adding the second. Else the second degree has replaced the third degree and you are using a suspension.

Chords that use the 9th degree without suspending or adding are just building a larger chord structure. Starting with C, E, G, and B we have a CMaj7. By continuing the process of stacking thirds, we get C, E, G, B, and D for a CMaj9. We can do the same thing with a minor chord. Cm7 is C, Eb, G, and Bb. If we continue stacking thirds we get C, Eb, G, Bb, and D for a Cm9 chord.

Using the b2, b9, #4, or #11 lets us build chords in the same way for a Phrygian or Lydian sound. Phrygian chords would be:

Csusb2: C, Db, G.
Csusb9: C, G, Db.
Cm add9: C, Eb, G, Db.
Cm7 b9: C, Eb, G, Bb, Db.

The last chord is named Cm7 b9 because it starts with the Cm7 set of stacked thirds, but then breaks the pattern causing the b9 to be notated separately. This way there is no assumption as to what chord structure comes before the b9. Now let's check out some Lydian chords.

Csus#4: C, F#, G.
Csus#11: C, G, F#.
Cadd#11: C, E, G, F#.
CMaj7 #11: C, E, G, B, F#.
CMaj9 #11: C, E, G, B, D, F#.

The sound of CMaj9 #11 is super bright because the notes of CMaj7 are C, E, G, and B and the notes G, B, D, and F# create a GMaj7 chord. Building a Maj7 off a Maj7 creates a huge bright sound. Playing this on a piano can be easier than on a guitar. But all is not lost. By playing C, G, B, D, and F# you get a chord called GMaj7/C. This is saying that the GMaj7 chord is over an added root note of C. By looking at the intervals used relative to the new root of C, we can also call this chord a CMaj7sus2 #11.

Think of all the uses for suspensions and additions that we talked about and think of where you could take a Lydian chord like CMaj7sus2 #11. I have one more example where I'll use these lighter tensions from the sus2 (which is really a sus9) and #11 and try to highlight some examples on how to resolve them in the key of G.

Thanks for reading!

- Jay McNeill