Today, I’m gonna give you some fun chord science. We’re going to talk about suspended chords. Yeah, baby! (in Austin Powers voice)

So I’m assuming you know your basic major chords, right? If not, please review, then come back soon!

So when you see a chord like this: Esus, all that means is E suspended. This is when you raise one of the notes a half-step. If you were to play it on the piano you’d raise the third in the triad, making the notes, E,A,B. Oh I’m getting ahead of myself here. I know you play the guitar, so piano-talk means nothing Anyway, back to guitar…

(If you’re just starting, check out the old entry on Dsus.) So for now, we’ll talk about E. Play your standard E major chord. Now put your pinky over the G# (third string from the top) to get an A note in. Wala, Esus!

A suspended note wants to come down. Strum the Esus for a while. Can you hear the note wanting to come down? Imagine trying to end a song with a sus chord!

Now play the standard E major chord again. Better? Play the two chords back and forth. You now have a 90s acoustic worship song intro.

So now make sure you know all the main chords in their sus forms. Play them back and forth with their major brothers, C, G, D, A, E, and F.

You might see a few “x”s in weird places in Csus and Gsus (and Texas). Just lightly touch the string to mute it. If you don’t understand the mute, that’s okay, just try to learn the chord.

So that’s it for your lesson in suspended chords. Have fun with your suses!