Yes, "sus4" is the same as "sus". And that's the root of the confusion.
When people started using suspensions as a 'chord' rather than a harmonic event, publishers listed them as 'sus'. But then some publishers started using 'sus4' to make it clear that it was the fourth included in the chord.
That led to some people (specifically, some guitarists) explaining 'sus' as "replace the third with whatever comes after sus".
I'm not arguing that the label is in use - but I strongly dislike 'sus2' because it a) invents a rule of harmony that doesn't exist - which will confuse any musicians studying classical harmony later on, b) it duplicates existing labels (Csus2 = CDG; Gsus = GCD), and c) it creates a nomenclature that is used ONLY by guitarists - which adds to the reputation we have with other musicians as being ignorant about theory (and more broadly, about music in general).
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
Standardized terminology is all very well- otherwise we won't all know what we're talking about! But criticising a perfectly useful term as "wrong" because it isn't in some dictionary seems silly. Especially when it's a term that communicates so well with so many guitar players.
I'm being rather sloppy in my question due to the context of an internet forum. I just don't tend to parse my posts as clearly and carefully as I likely should.
My question is not if the term is wrong. As you note, it is clearly in use. But as you also note, it is clearly in use pretty much only among guitarists. Which begs an important question -- are we guitarists or are we musicians who play guitar?
As Noteboat rightly points out, a fairly large number of musicians who happen to play other instruments look down on guitarists precisely because we continually insist on trying to re-invent 400 years worth of western musical theory without any really comprehensive understanding of how music works in general, and often only limited understanding of how it works within our own genre.
I absolutely agree that dictionaries catalog usage rather than constraining it. "Ain't" is a word regardless of if it appears in a dictionary or not. Yet it is still the case that should one choose to use the word "ain't" in a piece of formal writing that will detract from the appearance of professionalism and accuracy of the work as a whole. Using colloquialisms is perfectly proper in some contexts, but in others it is completely inappropriate, often misleading, and occasionally down-right wrong. Musical theory is a formal analysis, and as such is constrained by a universally ascribed to jargon set. Until a term becomes part of that jargon set, it is an improper formulation with respect to the formal activity of engaging in the analysis of music precisely because it is not a formally defined and universally understood term.
It would be wrong-headed of me to try to tell a tab author transcribing his own music that the sus6 chord he uses is wrongly named. He's free to call it whatever he wants. But if he then attempts to engage in an analysis of the harmonic structure of his song using that terminology, he will simply be demonstrating ignorance of harmonic theory and analysis and will be in need of correction if he wishes to communicate in a literate and intelligent way with other musicians.
So my search for some formal reference is not an attempt to tell guitarists how to talk about music to other guitarists, but to see to what extent my own understanding of harmonic theory is correct and to what degree I have a leg to stand on taking someone to task over the use of such naming conventions in the discussion of theory. Am I behind the times, or is the person I'm conversing with just more or less engaged in making up explanations that do not belong within that context?
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
My question is not if the term is wrong. As you note, it is clearly in use. But as you also note, it is clearly in use pretty much only among guitarists. Which begs an important question -- are we guitarists or are we musicians who play guitar?
That is the real question here. I feel that guitar teachers owe it to their students to turn them into musicians who play guitar. Part of being a musician is knowing more than one musical dialect. As guitar patois, Dsus2 is useful to understand, but it's healthy to know where the abbreviation "sus" came from and what "suspension" means in classical theory.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
There's only a problem with the sus label if you try to explain it in terms of the classical suspension. It has as little connection with a classical suspension as the Neapolitan 6th has with the town of Naples. (Despite the similar lack of logic, a couple of centuries of usage has earned the Neapolitan 6th a permanent place in all music dictionaries.)
When a label was first required for the combination of notes that in popular music we now call suspended chords, someone probably noticed that its dissonant note usually needs a stepwise resolution, similar to a classical suspension, or appoggiatura or retardation - so they chose "sus" (rolls off the tongue better). That's all. It's not meant to be thought of as anything other than the combination of notes that we associate with it.
As for sus2, given that, like sus4, it's not trying to describe a classical suspension, but is just a label specifying particular notes, the name is no less valid than sus4. But it's not a duplicate of sus4. C sus2 and G sus4, despite having the same notes, are as different as C major and G Mixolydian. If we hear a C sus2 and the D is begging to resolve by step up to E, (and does so), then calling it G sus 4 would be misleading. If, on the other hand, the C is heard as the dissonant note and is resolved down to the B, then it's G sus4. Context should always be considered when deciding the best name for this chord (or any chord for that matter.)
As for sus6, I don't believe that's a valid label. The de facto meaning of the chord label "sus", 'standardised' by decades of usage, is that the 3rd is replaced by its dissonant neighbour, allowing for stepwise resolution if required. That's obviously not possible with 6. It'll never catch on (hopefully).
I'll agree that a chord name can give you information as to how it will resolve, or how it fits into a progression. After all, we call CEGA C6 in some contexts, and Am7 in others.
But I also have to consider the source on stuff like this... and the source is often guitar players (not 'musicians who play guitar'). And they often can't distinguish between a root and a bass note, or tell when something actually needs a chord name or is just an appoggiatura.
Just in the last week I've seen all of the following statements on websites, and they have two things in common: they were all written by guitarists, and they're all completely wrong.
- "sus" means "suspended" when a chord resolves, but it means "sustained" when it doesn't
- a chord is called "add 9" when the added note is more than an octave over the root; when it's less than an octave, it's "add 2"
- If the highest note in a sus chord is the third, it's a sus add3
- the proper name for the "Hendrix chord" is E7b10
It's no wonder guitarists have such a bad rep as far as theory goes. We keep inventing our own terms, and the rest of the world keeps using the standard ones. Guitarists keep speaking the Esperanto of the music world - and that ain't the lingua franca of musicians.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
It's interesting that relatively few of the guitarists I know have any formal training at all. (I have a little formal music training, but none on guitar.)
This seems to result in guitarists developing their own terminology, which only works with other guitarists. (If then. Sometimes, absolutely nobody knows what a guitarist is talking about.)
"sus" is a good example. I've learned a lot about suspension from this thread- The idea of tension created by carrying over a note from a previous chord is interesting to play with.
When I was "taught" about "sus chords" suspension and tension weren't mentioned- I was just told that it was a not substitution thing. (The tension created is obvious, of course. But I have lots of sheet music where a "sus" chord isn't carrying anything over from a previous chord- it's just a chord with one note changed, and that note equally might or might not have occured in the previous chord.)
Best,
Ande
