So you’ve discovered the mysterious “sus” chord and have no idea how to put that puppy on your electric guitar.  Fear not.  They’re very simple and a quick explanation should clear things up.

In a sus chord we replace the 3rd (the middle note of the triad) with either, or both, the 2nd (sus2) or the 4th (sus4).

If you take the notes in a C major chord – C  E  G and replace that E with either a D or an F, you’ll have a sus2 and sus 4 respectively.  You can also use both of them at the same time.  That would be a chord spelled C  D  F  G, and would simply be called Csus.

Here’s an example of a nice sus chord voicing that uses both the 2nd and 4th:

Gsus
—-5—-
—-3—-
—-5—-
—-3—-
—-5—-
—-3—-

This is a movable barre chord pattern, so place it on any 6th string root you need.  Asus would start with your first finger barring at the 5th fret instead of the 3rd and applying the rest of the pattern from there.

Here’s a couple rooted from the 5th string.

Csus4
—-X—-
—-6—-
—-5—-
—-5—-
—-3—-
—-X—-

Csus2
—-3—-
—-3—-
—-5—-
—-5—-
—-3—-
—-X—-

Again, those are movable barre chord forms, so put them on whatever 5th string root you need.

And here’s one more interesting voicing that places the root on your 1st string and uses both the 2nd and 4th.

Csus
—-8—-
—-6—-
—-7—-
—-5—-
—-X—-
—-X—-

This last voicing resolves very nicely to a G7 chord by lowering the top note one fret, to a B.
Interesting note: If we take the notes of the this Csus in the order we play them above: G  D  F  C, it can also be called a G7sus4.  What will define the root (G or C) is which note your bass player plays.  Sometimes there’s more than one way to name a chord.  But the bass note will always define it.

Traditionally, the sus chord resolves to it’s major.  Ie. G sus to G major.  Listen to “Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty for an example.  Check out the D – Dsus – D movement on that one.

But there are plenty of examples in modern music, jazz in particular, where the sus chord just hangs out on its own and even moves to other sus chords.  Check out Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage” for an example of this. Rock artists like The Police have been known to use non-resolving sus chords as well.

How to interpret a sus chord symbol: If it just says “sus” as in Gsus, then you can add either the 2nd or 4th or use both of them.  It’s whichever you’d like.  If it specifies sus2 or sus4 then you want to make sure to use only the 2nd or 4th.

Sus chords on electric or acoustic guitar can make for a cool spacey sound whether or not you let them resolve.  Play around with taking some of your regular major chords and switch them to a sus and see how you like them.

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