Suspended Chords
Main article: Suspended chordA suspended chord, or "sus chord" (sometimes wrongly thought to mean sustained chord), is a chord in which the third is replaced by either the "second" or the "fourth." This results in two main chord types: the suspended second (sus2) and the suspended fourth (sus4). The chords, Csus2 and Csus4, for example, consist of the notes C D G and C F G, respectively. There is also a third type of suspended chord, in which both the second and fourth are present, for example the chord with the notes C D F G."
The name suspended derives from an early polyphonic technique developed during the common practice period, in which a stepwise melodic progress to a harmonically stable note in any particular part was often momentarily delayed or suspended by extending the duration of the previous note. The resulting unexpected dissonance could then be all the more satisfyingly resolved by the eventual appearance of the displaced note. In traditional music theory the inclusion of the third in either chord would negate the suspension, so such chords would be called added ninth and added eleventh chords instead.
In modern layman usage the term is restricted to the displacement of the third only and the dissonant second or fourth no longer needs to be held over ("prepared") from the previous chord. Neither is it now obligatory for the displaced note to make an appearance at all though in the majority of cases the conventional stepwise resolution to the third is still observed. In post-bop and modal jazz compositions and improvisations suspended seventh chords are often used in nontraditional ways: these often do not function as V chords, and do not resolve from the fourth to the third. The lack of resolution gives the chord an ambiguous, static quality. Indeed, the third is often played on top of a sus4 chord. A good example is the jazz standard, "Maiden Voyage".
Extended versions are also possible, such as the seventh suspended fourth, which, with root C, contains the notes C F G B♭ and is notated as C7sus4 play. Csus4 is sometimes written Csus since the sus4 is more common than the sus2.
| Component notes (chord and interval) | Chord symbol | Audio | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sus2 | Open fifth | major second | - | Csus2 | Play |
| Sus4 | Open fifth | perfect fourth | - | Csus4 | Play |
| Jazz sus | Open fifth | m7, P4, M9 | - | C9sus4 | Play |
Read more about this topic: Chord (music)
Famous quotes containing the words suspended and/or chords:
“The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds me of those monkeys which cling by their tails—aye, whose tails contract about the limbs, even the dead limbs, of the forest, and they hang suspended beyond the hunter’s reach long after they are dead. It is of no use to argue with such men. They have not an apprehensive intellect, but merely, as it were a prehensile tail.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern, that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely-ordered variety on the chords of emotion—a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge. One may have that condition by fits only.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)