Sus 5

[Tony Wilcox]

What does a Sus 5 chord look like?

[Billy Wilson]

I never heard of a sus5. Sus4 is where the 3rd is raised up a half step. Hir the B pedal on E6th and you got it.

[Ken Pippus]

Sus is usually applied to an added fourth, and occasionally to a second when there's no seventh to make the chord a ninth. There's no such thing as a suspended fifth. Diminished or augmented, OK, not suspended.

KP

[John Gould]

‘Sus’ is an abbreviation for ‘suspended’.
Why?
Because one or more notes of a chord and be ‘suspended’ across from the previous chord.
Huh?
Here’s how they work
When you change from one chord to another, some / all notes will change.
This of course depends upon the two chords in question.
Imagine changing from one chord to another, but leaving one of the notes from the original chord at the
same note value.
This note is just hanging there, dissonant [meaning that it’s not a note belonging to the next chord].
So this note is hanging over from the previous chord – being ‘suspended’.
Finally this ‘suspended’ note resolves onto a note that is ‘consonant’ to the target chord.
This means that the suspended note moves to a note that belongs to the next chord.
Not only does the suspended note move to a consonant note, but it moves “step-wise” too.
This means that the note moves by one degree.
This suspended note will therefore create a new and momentary chord in the transition between the first chord
and the chord that you’re heading for.
This momentary chord is known as a ‘suspended’ chord.
So as you can see, the ‘suspended chord’ is the 2nd [middle] chord that is created during a ‘chord progression’
that contains three chords. Each of these chords can be described in terms of an ‘event’.
There are three events in all during a suspension - one for each chord
These events are called ‘preparation’, ‘suspension’ and ‘resolution’.
Preparation - this is the initial chord where the note that is to be suspended resides [as a consonant].
Think of it as the starting point setting up or ‘preparing’ the note for the suspension event.
Suspension - this is where the chord changes but the suspended note does not change, so it hangs over from the
previous chord and therefore becomes ‘dissonant’.
Resolution - the suspended note moves by one degree to become ‘consonant’ with the target chord.

[Chris Walke]

Hey John G - I knew what a suspended chord was, but I never knew why it was called "suspended." Thanks for that info. I've actually had people ask me why they were named that way and I've never had an answer.

[John Gould]

Hey Chris,
I get asked questions like that all the time from guitar students. I try to teach theory with playing to my students. I have volumes and volumes of information on theory that I refer to for reference.

[Joey Ace]

John,
Either there's a typo in your explanation, or I'm not seeing the chord names and degrees as you are.
If the latter is the case, please explain more.

As I see it, your example:

V >> I sus4 >> I
D major >> G sus4 >> G major
F# [3rd] >> G [tonic] >> G [tonic]
D [tonic] >> D [5th] >> D [5th]
A [5th] >> A [sus4] >> B [3rd]

should be

V >> V sus4 >> I
D major >> D sus4 >> G major
F# [3rd] >> G [sus4] >> G [tonic]
D [tonic] >> D [tonic] >> D [5th]
A [5th] >> A [5th] >> B [3rd]

The sus4 of a G chord is C, not A.

[John Gould]

Oh well I guess I need to practice my typing. And not ramble on so much about theory. I'm not a expert by any stretch. I get confused all the time and sometimes don't slow down enough to check myself. Thanks for the correction.

[Joey Ace]

No problem John. I make plenty of typos myself.
Your posts are much appreciated.

Back to the topic, I've never seen a Sus5, and was watching this post to see if such a thing exists.
I agree that there is no such thing.

[John Gould]

I guess what I was trying to get across is that a Dus4 and a Gsus2 can be voiced with the same notes but depending on what you hold over as the sus and what you call the root is what you call the chord.
D/A/D/G= Dsus4
G/D/G/A= Gsus2

If you go from a
D To a Gsus2 to a G
D/F#/A G/D/A G/B/D

If your letting the A from the D chord ring the entire time through to the Gsus2 change you are suspending the 5 of the D. You wouldn't call the chord a SUS 5 but in one way of thinking, it's happening.
One of the crazy things about changes, you can call inversions all kinds of things.

You can make it as simple or as crazy as it gets.

[Joey Ace]

I'll bet the original question was about a "Five Sus", but got turned around somewhere in the chain.

The other night I heard someone say "a Sus Five chord goes there." That's when I remembered this post.

A sus chord is built by using scale tones 1, 3, 4.
It's really a "sus4", but commonly just called "sus".

So in the key of G, the five chord is D.
A "sus five in G" is a D sus.

Common slang. I'm surprised no one, including me, thought of this explanation sooner.

[Bo Legg]

The Eagles fly in all those directions.

[Steven McCauley]

just for humor the sus cord is the satin of cords. the are green and long. the are vey ugly to the eyes. but make a very nice sound. and they have a way of make the steeler lots of money.
I have also be wondering the same thing so thanks for the post.