Sus chords

Sus chords are particularly common in pop music. Sus is an abbreviation of ´suspension ´. In a theoretical aspect what’s happening with the chord when you add sus to it are that the third note in the scale (e.i. the second note in the chord) are flattened or raised one step. There are sus2 and sus4 chords. In the first case the note is flatten and in the second case it’s raised.


The C chord consists of the notes C, E and G. In a Csus2 chord the E note will change to D and in a Csus4 the E note will subsequently change to F. One more thing: sometimes the name of the chord will just be written as "Csus" without a 2 or 4. In this case you should treat it as a Csus4.

Some common sus chords

Csus4

  • Csus4 chord

Dsus4

  • Dsus4 chord

Dsus2

  • Dsus2 chord

Esus4

  • Esus4 chord

Gsus4

  • Gsus4 chord

Asus4

  • Asus4 chord

Asus2

  • Asus2 chord

More chords

Sus2 chords (Csus)
Sus4 chords (Csus4)
Barre sus chords

How to use the sus chords

As always in music there’s many ways to tackle things. But a very common procedure concerning this chords are to alternate between the original chord and the sus chord of the same root note. For example: D to Dsus and back to D.

A specific figure is: D – Dsus4 – D – Dsus2 – D.

(This one can be found in the intro of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”.)

Another figure is: A – Asus2 – A – Asus4 – A – Asus2 – A.

(This riff can be heard in the Tom Petty song “Feel a Whole Lot Better”.)

A chord progression you can try out to get the sense of how the sus chords can function in side with its original chord is: E – Esus4 – E – D – Dsus4 – D – A – Asus4 – A – E.

One important thing to think of then you playing these kind of chord progressions is to avoid lifting all your fingers when the chord changes. If you are using the correct fingerings you just have to lift one finger or add a finger depending on the chord (see easy chords for diagrams).