Songs that use Sus4 and Sus2 chords

this video is sponsored by tom play there are two types of suspended chord the sus4 chord and the sus2 chord in both cases the sus chord is just like a regular major or minor triad however the third degree of the chord the middle note has been suspended either up to the fourth degree or down to the second degree this results in a sense of tension of suspension the chord now sounds like it wants to resolve back to having that nice third in the middle this sense of suspension of needing to resolve is particularly potent with the sus-4 chord of our two types of sus chord the sus4 is certainly the more common type in fact sometimes rather than saying sus4 the chord will be labeled simply as sas leaving you to assume that it's a sus 4. i think the sus4 is the more popular choice because of this satisfying sense of tension and release we get when a sus4 chord resolves back down to the major or minor triad lots of songs take advantage of this sound for example in for no one by the beatles at the end of the chorus we get this g sus4 moving down to a g major triad [Music] a similar example is in crazy by nars barkley once again we're moving from g sus4 down to a g major triad [Music] both of these examples have put the sus4 chord on the fifth chord of the key this is a common place to build a sus 4 chord the fifth chord of the key the dominant generally serves as a point of tension in a song in both for no one and crazy we want the g chord the fifth chord of the key to resolve back to the tonic chord giving us that satisfying five one perfect cadence motion and by placing this g sus4 chord before the g it sort of drags out the resolution drags out that perfect cadence motion [Music] but of course we don't have to use a sus 4 chord on the 5th degree of the key another common place to build a sus 4 chord is on the tonic for example pinball wizard's iconic acoustic guitar riff rocks back and forth between a b sus4 and a b major triad [Music] queen used the sus4 in a similar way on crazy little thing called love where they create this little guitar riff by swiftly jumping from d major to d sus4 and back again [Music] and the iconic piano intro from foreigners col de zeiss is simply just a shift from e flat sus4 to e flat minor [Music] so that's the sus4 chord but now let's look at the other type of suspended chord we can have the sus 2. the sus 2 chord does have the same sense of tension and release as it resolves back to the major or minor triad but compared to the sus4 chord the resolution is much weaker muted in the sus4 chord that suspended fourth is really itching to resolve back onto the third but the sus2 is sort of happier just to sit still without resolving we don't really get that tense urgency that pulls us back to the main triad like we've seen from the examples so far most songs that use a sus 4 chord will use it to resolve back to the regular major or minor triad built on that same degree it can actually be quite rare to see a sus 4 chord not next to a normal version of that same chord however this isn't true for the sus 2 chord sus 2 chords will often just be thrown into progressions without necessarily resolving back to a major or minor triad for example love song by sarah barialis features this b flat sash ii chord but in the progression it doesn't get resolved back to a b flat major or minor chord at any point it just sits here to serve as a nice open sounding chord in the progression scientist by coldplay sort of resolves its sus2 chord but not really here in the opening piano riff we get f moving down to f sus2 and then the next chord is this d minor 7. [Music] the reason i say it sort of gets a resolution is three notes of the d minor seven chord are actually an f major triad so in a way we're getting our resolution from f sus2 back to f major don't dream it's over by crowded house begins by pivoting between these two voicings of an e flat sus2 chord [Music] sus chords can have a open quality to them because they're not committing to being either major or minor chords neither this open ambiguous sound is extra effective with don't dream it's over because we're getting the sus2 chord right at the beginning of the song before we've heard any wider harmonic context so although it does soon become clear that this song is in the key of e flat major at this point during the intro we're hearing this e flat sus 2 chord but our ears still don't know whether the song's going to be in a major or minor key leading to this intriguing openness the chord progression from champagne supernova by oasis is built around an asus2 chord in fact every step in the progression is an asus2 chord but with a different bass note imposed below it [Music] tom play is an app that gives you access to over 40 000 pieces of sheet music however tom play is far more than just the sheet music library the tom play app can also create a custom backing track for you to play along with which means for example if you wanted to learn the piano part for bohemian rhapsody you could actually have tom plays sing along as you play to give you a better sense of where you are in the piece [Music] their library features a wide range of music including classic pop and rock hits classical music film music and jazz standards you can try tom play out for free for two weeks and also right now they're offering thirty percent of an annual subscription use the links down below to find out more some songs make use of both the sus4 and sus2 chord for example here in exit music for a film by radiohead the intro is largely just a vamp on b minor but at the end of every other bar we get a quick move through b sus 2 and b sus4 [Music] this gives the progression some extra character and melody and the sus4 serves as a nice turnaround to resolve us back to b minor for the next bar giving the progression an extra sense of structure some songs build entire riffs by rocking back and forth between sus2 sus4 and the regular major or minor triad for example the iconic riff from summer of 69 by brian adams is just an arpeggio moving from sas2 to major triad to sus4 and back again first on the tonic chord of d and then on the dominant chord of a [Music] a similar sus chord riff is found in other side of the world by katy tunstall and another classic guitar riff built from suspended chords is tom petty's free falling and this one is actually a really good example of how the bass note below a sus chord can change whether it's actually sus 2 or sus 4. the chord progression begins like this with f major moving to f sus4 then resolving back to f major and then moving to c [Music] but what's really interesting about this progression is once the bass line enters on the second verse it actually transforms this f sus4 chord into a b-flat sus-2 chord of course the obvious choice of a bass note under an f-sus-4 chord would be an f however by playing a b flat note here instead the bass is re-contextualizing the chord above [Music] the chord is still the same three notes but whereas before we heard the f as the root note the c as the fifth and the b flat as the sus4 the introduction of b-flat in the bass forces us now to hear b-flat as the tonic note meaning that f is now the fifth degree of the chord and the c is the suspended second the last topic we'll talk about today is quartal harmony most chords we use including major minor augmented diminished 7 9 11 etcetera fall under what we would call tertiary harmony because they're all built by just stacking up major and minor thirds but we could instead build chords by stacking up fourths and when we do this it's called quartal harmony tarkis by emerson lake and palmer for example builds its chords from fourths and due to the way that our chord labeling system works this results in a whole bunch of sus 4 chords [Music] a classic example of quartal harmony is herbie hancock's maiden voyage although the upper notes of these chords are stacked in thirds like typical tertiary harmony they are all underpinned by these fourths which results in this unusual open sounding suspended chord [Music] during my research for this video i couldn't actually find any examples of songs that are purely built from sus chords and that is probably for a good reason as we've discussed today sus chords are usually best used when placed alongside more typical major or minor chords however of course i thought it would be fun to write a song that only uses sus2 and sus4 chords and of course as this song is 100 built from sus chords it is also an example of quartal harmony [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 125,932

Keywords: sus4, sus2, chords, explained, music theory, notes, songs that use, examples, analysis, guitar, piano

Id: h3fj8fX9k04

Length: 12min 49sec (769 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 04 2022