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By David Hodge
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Add excitement to your strumming with sus chords
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Practice Plan
Level:
The chords in this lesson are more important than the strum patterns. Once you get the hang of switching between major and sus chords, try using them in songs you already know to break up long passages of G, A, B, D, or E chords.
Play It: “Peaceful Easy Feeling” (page 44, Winter 2006)
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Tune Up
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Introduction
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Get Started: 5 minutes
Major and minor chords are made up of three notes: the root, third (the note that makes a chord major or minor), and fifth. Sus chords replace (or suspend) the third with a different note, usually the fourth, which in a major chord, is a half step higher than the third. Sometimes the second serves as the replacement note.
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Let’s see what both kinds of sus chords sound like. Start with a regular D chord for the first beat of FREE FALL, then use your pinky to fret the G note at the third fret of the first (high E) string. Since you replaced the third (F#) with the fourth (G), you created a Dsus4, also called Dsus. Whenever you see sus (no number) in a chord name, play the sus4 chord.
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Free Fall
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Return to the D chord on the third beat, then remove your ring finger from the first string, playing it open. This open E note is the second of D, so you’re now playing Dsus2. That’s the basic chord progression for Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’.”
Now let’s try the same thing with an A chord, as shown in FALL FREELY. Again, use your pinky to fret the third fret of the B string for the Asus4 chord and simply play the open B string to create Asus2.
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Fall Freely
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Printable Version
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