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Suspended Chords – Both Effective & Easy To Form

PlayPiano Posted on by

Suspended Chords – What Are They?

Good Morning! This is Duane and we’re doing a series this week on good stuff you really ought to know about music, having to do with music theory. Today I’d like to take up a very small area called suspended chords – chordal suspensions. You know a chord has 3 or more notes, so that’s a C chord. That’s a C-7th chord. Quite often you can make a chord more interesting by, instead of playing the 3rd right away, you can play the 4th first so it’s suspended like that.

The 4th takes the place of the 3rd. Sometimes the 4th is resolved back to the 3rd, but not always. In much of jazz and fusion music now they don’t resolve the suspension - they just hold the suspension then go on to the next chord. But in a common song like this, the chord is C 7th. I’m replacing the E with the 4th. The E is the 3rd and F is the 4th, so it takes the place of the 3rd, and then it’s usually harmonized with the 2nd or the 9th, so you have that sound like this. It’s really a more mellow sound, okay?

So here’s G 7th. What would a suspension be? You just need to find the 3rd and replace it with the 4th. Then you can resolve it if you want to. If I was playing Misty, I might start off with (plays piano). In other words, start with a suspension and then resolve it before I go on, okay? And that’s all there is to a suspension. The 4th takes the place of the 3rd in the chord. Sometimes temporarily, but not always.

Okay, thanks for being with me and if you enjoy these little tips, come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for our free series of piano tips. So, I hope to see you there. Bye bye for now!

***For lots more good stuff on piano playing come on over to my website at https://www.playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips – “Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!”

Here’s a great little book on chords and chord progressions on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chords-Chord-Progressions-Exciting-ebook/dp/B0076OUGDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404158669&sr=1-1&keywords=piano+chords+duane+shinn

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03KUw2EUVDU&feature=youtu.be

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Posted in Chords & chord progressions Tagged , permalink

About Duane

Duane Shinn (that would be me) has good news for you if you want to play the piano. He (me) has little fat hands & stubby little fingers - not at all suited for playing the piano - more suited to making mud pies or some such. I am also fairly uncoordinated with just average musical ability - certainly not a great piano player. But I've learned a ton about music over the years and people tell me I'm pretty decent at explaining how music works & how to progress more rapidly on the piano. Over the years I have developed about 150 techniques for conquering the piano. Most professional pianists can do these techniques, but very few can explain them in a way people can understand. I specialize in making complex techniques simple. I invite you to watch a few of my free videos and see some of these for yourself before making any decision about taking any of my courses.

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