11 chords versus sus 4 versus sus 2

AFAIK the suspended 4th is a deliberate construct - moving from the tonic chord to the dominant but leaving the tonic ringing whcih creates the sus4 which then requires resolution.

So, play a C chord in open position. Change to a G chord, again in open position leaving the 1st finger on the 1st fret of the 2nd string to create the suspension (C being the 4th of G). Remove the 1st finger so the 2nd string rings open (B) - which resolves the suspended 4th to a 3rd, and then play the C chord again to complete the V-I cadence.

I don't understand too much of the technical stuff, so over to Noteboat.

Best,

A :-)

Here's my view on the the two:

11th chords
In classical harmony, everything is tertian (built in thirds). Since 7th chords appear most often in the dominant function, it's become common to talk about them as 'sevenths' and specify everything else as 'major seventh', 'minor seventh', etc.

Building in thirds means each chord type contains (or can contain) all of the tones below it. Therefore a full 11th chord will be 1-3-5-b7-9-11.

Now it's true that such a chord gives you a cluster of tones 3-11-5 (E-F-G in a C11) that can be distracting. The 3rd and 11th create a b9 interval that's annoying in most contexts. So most of the time you'll see an 11th chord played without the third (and often without the fifth) - or you'll see it written as a minor 11th, which also removes the b9 interval.

If you play a C11 without the third and fifth, you have tones C-Bb-D-F - that's identical to a Bb/C chord. Niliov's contention was that this chord functions as a subdominant rather than a dominant - Bb/C leads to F in a IV-I; G11 leads to F in a V-I.

There's certainly something to that - but I don't like it. Here's why:

1) Common practice in writing slash chords is for the note after the slash to indicate the lowest note of the chord. If I see G11, I may play C-Bb-D-F, but I will put any of the four tones on the bottom - if I see Bb/C I'll only use C as the bass.

2) Other tones could be dropped besides the third and fifth. Third and ninth happens often too - if that's the composer's intent, it'll be written as G7/11... but if it's not the composer's intent, I am free to play a G7/11 when I see G11 on the page. That's not a substitution; it's a voicing.

3) Music theory is based on generic rules for naming things. These rules apply across the board, whether or not they're musically useful. I don't see the naming of 11th chords to be much different in that respect from the naming of the Locrian mode - neither is usually used as theorized. But the 'predictive theory' of what it should be doesn't change - even if most composers change it in use.

4) Music theory has a lot of 'except fors'. As you continue to study theory and harmony, you'll find that a lot of things you're taught early on (the top number in a time signature is the number of beats in a measure.... never use parallel fifths...etc) will have caveats attached to them. But we still teach the simple ways first, because it gives you a starting point. Knowing that chords can be extended to 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, or 13ths, and knowing that chords are built in thirds are starting points - knowing that 11ths will normally exclude certain tones if they're major, but not if they're minor is an 'except for' that can come later on.

5) The practical usage of labeling 11ths in charts dates back to at least the 1940s from the music I have here, and probably goes back further. As a result, there are tons of chord dictionaries (for every chordal instrument) that show 11th voicings. When you come across one, you can just look it up at first, and the voicing will have already dropped the 'bad' tone.

6) The whole purpose of labeling chords in the first place serves two major purposes: it allows us to analyze a harmony, and it allows chordal instruments to approximate that harmony. Two identical pieces of music may use the same chord in four voices (C-Bb-D-F) or five (C-G-Bb-D-F), and be identical in every other respect. I find G11 a much more flexible approach to either analysis or performance than labeling the first case Bb/C and the second Gm7/C - esepcially because using Gm7/C does not give you either an authentic or plagal cadence to the F chord that follows. And calling such a voicing Bb/G/C seems like overkill to me.

I'll deal with sus chords in a bit in another post :)

Ok, part 2:

sus chords
As I said in the last post, classical harmony is tertian - chords are built in thirds. You'll find that's true across the board... sixth chords are just minor sevenths played inverted (C-E-G-A=A-C-E-G), and we don't have any second, fourth, or eighth chords.

The way we name chords springs originally from the analysis of classical music, and orchestras rarely play block chords - the chords are created as several melodies, typically four, interact with each other. When those four voices sit on their tones for a space of time, or when three of them do while the fourth plays a melody over them, we figure out how those tones can be arranged and name it a chord. That gives us a view of how the harmony is moving - the chord progression of a piece.

But four voices don't always arrive at the same chord at the same time. Sometimes one or more voices comes in 'late' - as when three voices form a chord, the fourth is on a non-chord tone... and it then moves to a chord tone. Or maybe one voice gets there early, and the others then catch up. That sort of complex motion gives great variety to classical music, and it makes finding the chords a little harder. So classical theory gave names to those sorts of motions as a way of categorizing them, analyzing their effect, and having a 'named tool' in the tool box for composers.

When one voice arrives early and the others catch up, it's called an anticipation. So if three voices go C-E-G...C-E-A...D-F-A, the middle 'chord' can be analyzed as an Am, or it can be viewed as an anticipation of the Dm chord that's coming up. Which approach is used depends on how long it lasts - did it really give the effect of a full chord? If so, it's Am; if not, it's a non-harmonic tone (even though you can make a chord out of it, the harmony is C->Dm, and the A note is a non-harmonic tone with the C chord).

Guitarists as a rule have trouble with understanding non-harmonic tones. If you're playing notes C-E-A at the same time, you're calling it an A minor chord, whether it's actually a chord (in the harmony sense) or an anticipation. We confuse fingerings with chords. More on that in a bit.

A second type of delayed harmony is when the chord arrives before one of the voices. If the change is C-E-G...D-F-G...D-F-A, then two voices have arrived at the next chord together, and the third catches up. Theory calls this a 'suspension' - the odd voice is suspended in the previous chord, then resolves to the new chord. There can even be a finer distinction drawn - voices that move up to their new location (as in my example) are technically called 'retardations', while voices that move down are 'suspensions'.

Now what if you have four voices, and two arrive late? F-A-E-G...Bb-E-A-C...Bb-Db-F-Bb. Here wer've got F9 (no fifth) moving to something... and then moving to Bbm. Calling the middle chord Am/b9 probably isn't appropriate, because we'd have V-vii-i in the key of Bbm. If the effect is a V-I cadence with a delay, the middle sound is called a 'suspended chord' - that's the classical defintion of a chord change: two or more notes held in suspension during a chord change. In this case they're E and A. (I'm not making this example up - its from a Brahms Intermezzo!)

Fast forward to popular music. Jazz and popular music has been using suspensions for a hundred years or so. Some pieces used it in the classical sense of delaying a note through a change (F-Csus-C, where F is held a bit longer); other songwriters liked the sound, and began using it when there wasn't a resolution. A good example of this is Herbie Hancock's Oliloqui Valley, which moves from F7sus to Eb7sus - the Bb suspended in the first chord becomes the fifth of the next chord (a classical retardation), but the suspended Ab tone in the second chord won't resolve at all when the next chord appears. This is also known as quartal harmony - building chords in fourths.

So now we have chords that are 'suspended', but not in the classical sense. They all have one thing in common: the fourth is used instead of the third. They've become common enough in music that the name 'suspended chord' is accepted by guitarists, pianists, and composers alike.

Publishers started using 'sus' chords in sheet music, and some started using 'sus4' - to indicate a suspended fourth, even though the sus chords always had a suspended fourth.

Now within the last ten years, 'sus2' and 'sus6' have come into use, particularly on the internet. The logic here is that the number after the 'sus' is whatever note replaces the third in a triad. There can only be two uses for these terms... either they give us some additional information about how the harmony moves, or they're just to remember the fingering.

So let's take a close look at these chords:

C-D-G (C 'sus2')

The tones are identical to a Gsus - G-C-D. So does using 'sus2' instead give us any harmonic information?

Look Incubus' "Are You In?": verse - Dsus2, F#m7; chorus Dsus2, A, F#m7; bridge Em, Asus2. Now let's plug in the inversions:
verse - Asus, F#m7 (F# is the relative minor of A); chorus - Asus, A, F#m7 (a true suspension resolving to A); bridge: E, Esus.

You get better harmonic information about the piece using the inversion name than you do using the 'right' one (could it be that they associated a 'chord' with a fingering, regradless of its meaning, as many guitarists do? And if so, aren't you better off learning 12 sus4 fingerings than 12 sus2 and 12 sus4, leaving you with 24 names - but just 12 fingerings?)

sus6 is even worse. Unlike the sus2 chord, there is a third here. Although C sus6 (C-G-A) can sound major or minor in context - because it's missing a third - A and C form a third. Whether it sounds major or minor, the missing note is E! It's just a selective voicing of Am7 (A-C-E-G) or C6 (C-E-G-A).

Finally, some people argue that sus2 or sus6 can be the 'right' names based on the way the chord resolves. Nimiov gave a typical example of this logic - I think it was G->Gsus2->G. But that's not giving any harmonic information at all: the tonality is G major all the way through, because the 'suspended' note is also in the key of A. Any classical analysis would put the entire phrase under just one chord name, G, and recoginize the motion of the B-A-B voice as a simple melody laid over the chord. If you want to call that Gsus2 to remember the fingering, that's fine... just remember you're now giving a second meaningless name to Dsus.

Well I have to say what Noteboat offers on sus2 and sus4 or sus for that matter has some merit, a lot of merit actually.

So here's the strange thing: just like he isn't making any of this stuff up I am not either. I spent many years studying harmony, with teachers by myself and finally at the conservatory and I have found a textbook on classical harmony (older then 10 years by the way) from a Dutch authority that decribes sus4 chords (yes chords) and sus2 chords and the differences between the two.

It seems on a lot of subjects opinions differ! I was taught that Napels for instance is IV, Noteboat was taught bII6. I think there are more reasons for it to be IV but that's not the point, in practice both analysises will work.

Here is my own view on sus2 -> sus4

sus6 according to my sources doen't exist, noteboats explanation will suffice so I will not talk about that.

In major and minor triads both the third and the fifth can be suspended (some claim the root as well, that might be I want to see an example first)

suspending the fifth? Of course, as Noteboat correctly noted the suspensions appeared when notes arrived late or the chord arrived early. But what if the same delayed notes were used when they are not present in a previous chord

let's say for example C: G7 C#5 C (Nelson Riddle on several Sinatra arrangements)
In this case the G# or actually Ab is not present in the previous chord so it is not "suspending" from anything.

Riemann would say: D T-6 T (Dominant, Tonic with the fifth delayed by the minor sixth, Tonic)
The suspension always needs to resolve to the note it needs to be. Not resolving of suspensions indeed finds its source in modern jazz (Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock)

Okay now the issue that sus2 is just an inversion of sus4 lets look at this song "Are You In?" which was brought up by Noteboat.
I do not know the song but there is one thing I want to examine:

original chords: Dsus2, A, F#m7
Noteboats inversions: Asus, A, F#m7

So Noteboat's inversions imply that the Dsus2 chord is in fact a Asus with the sus note in the bass??!!. If that is true this bass should move to the third of A making this an inversion as well A/C#. I assume this is not the case and if not this would be a strange way to look at this chord indeed!? I feel by the way that altered notes cannot be in the bass except for altered roots, this goes also for suspended notes but that is open to debate.

I just got an idea: I think the best way to judge if the sus4 and sus2 are different chords (or functions for that matter) is with our ears. This week week I will record in "Pro Tools" on piano in my own studio our beloved progression (A G D E) filled with different approaches (sus2 / sus4) maybe I'll through a couple of chord substitution in as well. LEts see if we can hear and feel a difference between the two, you never know maybe I'll come to the conclusion that Noteboat was "right" all along!

Niliov

P.S. about the Brahms thing:

I would like to see and hear that bit but in a larger context before I can say something about it and not make an ass of myself.

I love it how this site automatically changes some words and you dont know until you see youre message posted:

No question there's different approaches, Niliov - I've had a few teachers call the same thing by different names. And I completely agree on the Napels - IV works; you just see it as a different chord, and inversion of the bII.

There are certainly other ways to use delayed tones - suspensions/retardations only apply if the tone was in the previous chord. Echappees, cambiatas... even passing tones in a melody can create that effect. But they're not usually confusing to guitarists, because they're plainly heard as 'melody' separate from the chord.

As far as the root of a sus chord being in the bass - I didn't say that (and sure didn't mean to imply it!). Just as we don't call C-E-A a C6 without a fifth, or G-C-E a G6sus without a fifth - we just call it Am in either case - a chord name applies to all inversions.

Last one for today:

"...As far as the root of a sus chord being in the bass - I didn't say that (and sure didn't mean to imply it!). Just as we don't call C-E-A a C6 without a fifth, or G-C-E a G6sus without a fifth - we just call it Am in either case - a chord name applies to all inversions..."

I'm not sure what you mean by this but I think you missed what I was saying as well!

I said:
If you look at the following chord progression:

Dsus2 -> A as being Asus4 -> A

This means that actually according to you the progression should like: Asus4/D -> A
which brings me back to my claim that if the note D (from Asus4) is not going to the C# (of A) to me this inversion makes no sense and to the claim that I thought it to be strange that the suspended note would actually be in the bass (Asus4/D) which Dsus2 according to your analysis implies.

Niliov

Niliov,

I'm afraid I simply don't follow what you're saying here.

Neither Dsus2 nor Asus4 says anything about the voicing of the chord.

I do agree that a "slash" chord such as G/B does say something about what's expected in the base. That's the whole reason that notation arose, a modern means to figured base lines!

But simply writting Asus2->A or Dsus4->A as your chord progression doesn't imply ANYTHING about the base line.

The most understandable explaination of suspensions I've come across is from White's The Harmonic Dimension while neither as scholarly nor as highly regarded as some other's (cough, Piston, cough) I've never heard much bad about it.

He says that:

"A suspension is a non-harmonic tone that includes a prepared dissonance and a resolution down one scale step."

This definition in my mind allows that suspended 2nds are possible. However, a Dsus2 then would require that the resolution be to D.

But there is no D to resolve to in an A chord. So writting that as Dsus2->A fails two different definitions . .. both White's and Piston's, while writting Asus4->A meets both. The 4 resolves to the 3 of the A as White requires and the suspension is a fourth as Piston requires.

So, for classical harmonic analysis, I don't see how you could call that chord a "sus2."

I'm not prepared to say that I agree with Piston and that sus2's don't exist. But in this example, it seems to me the resolution is what's important.

As for the slightly larger question -- what's going on with Herbie and the like .. I think we have to agree that the terminology has been adopted in a way that classical harmony simply doesn't allow.

But, since we're more or less stuck with what we have to work with, it becomes an interesting question if many of these progressions aren't more properly viewed as inversions of altered chords rather than as sus4 chords. It's no big thing, from a classical analysis point of view, to have an 11th not resolve to anything, is it?

Okay now the issue that sus2 is just an inversion of sus4 lets look at this song "Are You In?" which was brought up by Noteboat.
I do not know the song but there is one thing I want to examine:

original chords: Dsus2, A, F#m7
Noteboats inversions: Asus, A, F#m7

So Noteboat's inversions imply that the Dsus2 chord is in fact a Asus with the sus note in the bass??!!. If that is true this bass should move to the third of A making this an inversion as well A/C#. I assume this is not the case and if not this would be a strange way to look at this chord indeed!? I feel by the way that altered notes cannot be in the bass except for altered roots, this goes also for suspended notes but that is open to debate.

I get what you're saying. But it just reinforces my view. Here's why:

If the chord name is used in the harmonic sense, to indicate the motion of the suspended voice, where does it move? The E in the Dsus2 chord becomes... E in the A chord. On the other hand, if you call it Asus, the D can move down to C sharp, making it a suspension in the classical sense, and A is added as a new bass note. (The bass player is just banging out D-A-F# over this change). While it would be unusual to find a suspended note in the bass voice of a classical chart because of the lack of harmonic support, these guys aren't writing four-part harmony.

And if you're just trying to convey a guitar fingering, either name works - so why create a new one? If the whole purpose is to convey the bass note of the voicing, Asus/D works just as well... and sus chords with the formula 1-4-5 have been accepted in pop for a long time. So if there's no harmonic reason, and no formulaic reason for building the chord, why bother?

Hehe, never ending discussion it ssems...

first King wrote:
"...But simply writting Asus2->A or Dsus4->A as your chord progression doesn't imply ANYTHING about the base line..."

Well, that must be an agreement amongst musicians your are playing with. In my circles the notename of the chord should be in the bass (i.e.: A7 -> A in the bass) otherwise you specify with a slash. Just like numerals: if you write (key of C) IV the "F" needs to be in the bass otherwise you specify with numbers (.i.e. IV4/3 -> the fifth in the bass "C"). If I were to follow your appraoch we'd have to talk about every chord and if an inversion is implied, seems a bit odd. Maybe you are talking about jazz and the freedom the bassplayer has, that might be true and it might be nice to occasionaly play the third on the first beat of the bar, but there is no doubt in my mind that the harmony will sound at its best if the bass player were to actually play the root or maybe the fifth (like Ray Brown) on the first beat. If you listen to orchestrated jazz (Gordon Jenkins) you will find that inspecially in ballads the bass plays the same bass note for the duration of the chord!

ok the sus thing again
Noteboat wrote:

"...If the chord name is used in the harmonic sense, to indicate the motion of the suspended voice, where does it move? The E in the Dsus2 chord becomes... E in the A chord. On the other hand, if you call it Asus, the D can move down to C sharp, making it a suspension in the classical sense, and A is added as a new bass note. (The bass player is just banging out D-A-F# over this change). While it would be unusual to find a suspended note in the bass voice of a classical chart because of the lack of harmonic support, these guys aren't writing four-part harmony..."

You make a nice case but it does'nt convince me, in fact I feel now you've proven me right, here's why:

Lets assume the Dsus2 or Asus4/D is voiced (bottom to top) D A D E (more of a piano voicing), you claim the bottom D will move to A and the middle D will move to C# right? To me this sounds like the movement of a normal IV -> I chord where the bass will move from one root to another and the second D becmoes the third of the
I. Compare:
D A D E -> A A C# E
D A D F# -> A A C# E

So the only difference is the E staying, but this is of course because the Dsus2 chord is not resolving to the "normal" D major triad (a thing very common in pop/jazz we already agreed). But the bottom line of course is: does this chord feel more like a IV or more like a I . If it's more a IV I am right, if it is more of a I you are right. That's why I suggested actually recording a piece with some of these changes and see what our ears tell us! Or is that a stupid idea?

Niliov

Well, that must be an agreement amongst musicians your are playing with. In my circles the notename of the chord should be in the bass (i.e.: A7 -> A in the bass) otherwise you specify with a slash. Just like numerals: if you write (key of C) IV the "F" needs to be in the bass otherwise you specify with numbers (.i.e. IV4/3 -> the fifth in the bass "C"). If I were to follow your appraoch we'd have to talk about every chord and if an inversion is implied, seems a bit odd. Maybe you are talking about jazz and the freedom the bassplayer has, that might be true and it might be nice to occasionaly play the third on the first beat of the bar, but there is no doubt in my mind that the harmony will sound at its best if the bass player were to actually play the root or maybe the fifth (like Ray Brown) on the first beat. If you listen to orchestrated jazz (Gordon Jenkins) you will find that inspecially in ballads the bass plays the same bass note for the duration of the chord!

Perhaps the majority of your experience is in playing charted music?

It's decidedly not just "the musicians I play with." It's every musician I've met.

It's also common in Jazz theory and practice texts to encourage working out voice leading by using inversions and substitutions wherever possible.

Mark Levine, for example, notes that all things being equal triads in second inversion sound strongest. Ike Issacs in his text "Jazz Guitar School" suggests that using whatever voicings allow you to use a pivot finger are favorable to help ensure smooth voice leading.

Johnny Smith, a fellow who knows a thing or two about playing jazz guitar, suggests that chord voicing should be choosen in part for the smoothness of the base line they produce, and in part to give either contrary or parrallel motion to the melody line. He then gives specific examples of choosing chord voicings to provide for chromatic motion in the base!

My current teacher and mentor has studied with Smith and played everywhere. Broadway pits, solo tours of the states and europe, even sharing the stage with guys like Dorado Schmidt. He has no idea what you're talking about in that paragraph.

Part of the fun of jazz is letting unexpected things happen. Sure, sometimes your voicing and the bass players choices all combine to sound horrible. But sometimes they combine to sound magical too. Which is far better than being dull and predictable by starting every measure with a 1 or a 5 and only playing chords in root position. Classical music doesn't do that. Rock doesn't do that. Bluegrass doesn't do that. Why should jazz players?

Aha, now I see our little misunderstanding:

You were talking about (rootless) voicings and I was just talking about complete chords (roots). This is the confusion when you talk about "inversions", in the strict sense this means that the bottom note is the bass note, but of course you could also talk about inverting triads without changing the root but those are actually not inversions but different voicings. But again if you write on a jazz chart D7/9/13 you (the guitar player) could be playing:

F# C E B but you need the D in the bass (so: the bass player) to get the complete sound.

And your assumption that my main experience is with charted music:

Haha, actually no as you might have guessed by the two recordings I put online (the "Fly Me to the Moon" in this forum and the "Caravan" in the "Hear Here" forum). My main experience isn't in jazz either (although I play a lot of it) it isn't in classical music either (although I play a lot of it) it is in....TANGO .I am mostly known as a classical violin player and a tango bandoneon player besides a composer/arranger and (theory)teacher! So now you know. I will put a tango recording online soon so you can hear what I am talking about, but if you want to hear something now check:
http://www.tangodorado.com

Niliov

No, I think it's a fine idea. (EDIT: a couple of posts while I wrote this - it's a fine idea to record the sus2 progression and see what it's like)

King is right about charts in the US - we use very few slash chords. It's left to the instrumentalists to figure out what to do. As a practical matter, when I'm playing I'll worry far more about the top note - that's almost always going to be the soprano; the bassist is going to worry about the bottom end of things, and whether I double it or not doesn't make a great deal of difference.

Like you, I was raised with notes instead of tab... and if there are notes on the page, that's the inversion you play. But in a typical 'head chart', the players are allowed great latitude in how to realize the harmony.

Part of the problem comes from the sources of the music itself. The guitar parts are labeled with fingerings in mind, rather than harmonic motion... and most of these charts are written by people with little to no formal training in music. Beginning guitarists are indeed taught (although not usually explicitly) that the root goes on the bottom - all the basic open chord fingerings on the guitar conform to this, and the most common barre chord fingerings used in rock do as well. This leads to those guitarist/composers naming all chords from the bass note, no matter what the harmony would imply.

There's also a tendency to name chords based only on the notes contained in the particular voicing - which leads to things like 'Csus6' instead of C6 or Am7, and a tendency to include all notes in the fingering. If you google the guitar chords for the Allman Brothers' tune "Melissa" you'll see what I mean - it's a progression of E-F#m-G#m-A, but with the high E and B strings used as a drone (in classical terms, an inverted pedal). A pretty straightforward progression - but you'll find the guitar chords often spelled out as awkward 11ths, or roots mislabeled to make them 'fit' the fingerings. You'll also sometimes see 'garbage' keys, as guitarists are more comfortable finding sharps than flats for some reason - I've seen charts on the web in the key of A#.

And a lot of these guitarists take their limited knowledge of music, and figure that's all there is. A week or so ago I got a call from Dennis (Corbind on GN) - I'd done a couple of arrangements for one of his bands. He told me their other guitarist thought I'd screwed one up... because "there's no such key as Gb"!

Aha, now I see our little misunderstanding:

You were talking about (rootless) voicings and I was just talking about complete chords (roots). This is the confusion when you talk about "inversions", in the strict sense this means that the bottom note is the bass note, but of course you could also talk about inverting triads without changing the root but those are actually not inversions but different voicings. But again if you write on a jazz chart D7/9/13 you (the guitar player) could be playing:

F# C E B but you need the D in the bass (so: the bass player) to get the complete sound.

First, cool tune!

Second, no, I mean inversions and complete chords. You can play baseless chords as well, but Levine and Smith certainly know the difference between an upper partial structure and an inversion.

"Slash" notation is something I've only seen signficantly in fusion charts. Most jazz lead sheets simply give the melody and the chord. The expectation is that the band knows what they're doing :)

Like Noteboat, I'll focus on the melody. Thanks to a little indoctrination into Johnny Smith's world, i'll also try and make my base line interesting by using whatever inversion or voicing gives me the most interesting motion. I'll trust the base player to do something interesting as well.