Understanding sus chords: what they are and how to play them
If you’re already familiar with how chords are constructed, you’ll know that the basic principle is they’re made from the first, third, and fifth notes from the major scale. To make a minor chord, we simply flatten the third.
Today, we’re going to look at an exception to this rule: the sus chord.
What is a sus chord?
“Sus” refers to “suspended” and it means that instead of playing a third, we replace it with either a two or four. By omitting the third, these chords are a powerful way to build tension and create movement in a song.
Let’s try this with D. We start by looking at the D Major scale:
D, E, F#, G, A, B, and C#
To create a D major chord, we select notes 1, 3, and 5: D F# A (All chord images are from scales-chords.com and they helpfully show which scale intervals are being used, on the right side).
To turn this into a D minor chord, we simply play the first fret on the top string instead of the second fret, so now the scale intervals are 1 5 1 m3 (minor 3):
To play a D sus2 chord, you remove your finger from the top string entirely, playing it open. Now the scale intervals are 1 5 1 2:
And finally, to play a D sus4 chord, you place your pinky finger in the third fret of the top string, with the scale degrees being 1 5 1 4:
How to play sus chords
Let’s look at another example, an A chord.
I’ll assume you already know how to play an A major chord - fretting the second fret of strings DGB. To make it minor, you play the first fret on the B string. Therefore, you know the 3 is on the B string, so that’s where the 2 and 4 also are.
To play A sus2, you play the open B string. To play A sus4, you play the third fret.
Here’s a video showing exactly how all four chords look:
As you can see, if you already know how to play the major and minor version of a chord, you can very quickly turn it into a sus2 or sus4 chord. And as an extra bonus, if you’re still learning intervals and the fretboard, sus chords can be a helpful aid because they help you to identify where the third sits in each chord or triad that you’re playing.