Sus chords

A great way to make your basic major chords a little more interesting is to change them into a sus chord. Sus stands for suspended, of which there are 2 types, sus2 and sus4.

Lets have a look at an example from the key of C major.

C major scale

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

To play a C major chord, we take the 1st 3rd and 5th notes from the scale. e.g. C, E, G. Sus stands for suspended. If we play a Csus2 chord, it means we replace the 3rd note (E in this case) with the 2nd note (D). Our Csus2 ends up being C, D, G.

Sus4 chords are very similar. You've guessed it! Instead of replacing the E with a D, we now replace it with an F (the 4th note from the scale).

Here's a tab with some easy sus chords.

E|--0-----0-----0-----3-----
B|--0-----3-----3-----3-----
G|--2-----2-----2-----2-----
D|--2-----2-----0-----0-----
A|--0-----0-----------------
E|--------------------------

Asus2 Asus4 Dsus2 Dsus4

Try playing the following chord progression: Dsus2, Asus4, A, E!

Reel Big Fish - Why do all girls think they're fat

Here's a great little snippet of a solo I pulled from here

Lots of distortion always helps! :)

E|-------14-10-------9---------10----------------|
B|----------------10--------10-------15b17r15----|
G|----10--------9-------11--------12-------------|
D|-12--------------------------------------------|
A|-----------------------------------------------|
E|-----------------------------------------------|

E|--------------------|
B|-----10---8-7-------|
G|---7----------9-7---|
D|-7------7-----------|
A|--------------------|
E|--------------------|

Say Anything - Crush'd - acoustic version

I spotted this on youtube and thought it was worth a tab. Some really nice chords used:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q7mv2f48GE&feature=fvw

This song is tuned to DADGAD and then up a semitone. Nasty!

For those of you who have never experimented outside of standard tuning, tune your low E string to a D (down a tone), your high E string to a D to a D also (down a tone) and your B string to an A. Then tune the whole thing up a semitone!

Say Anything - Crush'd


Intro/Verse

D#|-------------------------------
A#|-------------------------------
G#|--------------8-8-------------
D#|-9--9---7-7--9-9--5-5-4-4----
A#|-12-12--5-5--9-9--2-2-2-2----
D#|-9--9---5-5--9-9--2-2-2-2----

Pre-chorus

D#|------------------------------------
A#|------------------------------------
G#|------------------------------------
D#|-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-5-5-5-5-4-4-7-7-
A#|-5-5-5-5-7-7-7-7-2-2-2-2-2-2-7-7-
D#|-5-5-5-5-7-7-7-7-2-2-2-2-2-2-7-7- x 3

D#|------------------0-0-0-0-
A#|------------------0-0-0-0-
G#|------------------0-0-0-0-
D#|-7-7-7-7-9-9-9-9-7-7-7-7-
A#|-5-5-5-5-9-9-9-9-7-7-7-7-
D#|-5-5-5-5-9-9-9-9-7-7-7-7-

Play nice and staccato in the pre-chorus; keep the notes sharp and short.

Chorus

D#|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
A#|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
G#|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-6-6-6-6-6-
D#|-5-5-5-4-4-4-4-4-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-
A#|-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-5-5-5-7-7-7-7-7-
D#|-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-5-5-5-7-7-7-7-7-


Second pre-chorus

D#|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--
A#|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--
G#|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0--
D#|-9-9-9-9-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-5-5-4-4--
A#|-9-9-9-9-5-5-5-5-7-7-7-7-2-2-2-2--
D#|-9-9-9-9-5-5-5-5-7-7-7-7-2-2-2-2-- x2

Bridge

D#|--------------------------------
A#|--------------------------------
G#|--------------------------------
D#|--------------------------------
A#|--------------------------------
D#|-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-4-4-4-4-7----

D#|-0-0-0-0-0--------
A#|-0-0-0-0-0--------
G#|-0-0-0-0-0-------- You can work out the rhythm here.
D#|-7-7-7-9-7--------- It's a bit difficult to tab but
A#|-5-7-5-9-7--------- pretty easy to hear.
D#|-5-7-5-9-7---------

D#|----------------------------------
A#|----------------------------------
G#|----------------------------------
D#|-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7
A#|-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-5-5-5-5-7-7-7-7
D#|-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-4-4-4-4-7-7-7-7

D#|-0-0-0-0-0--------
A#|-0-0-0-0-0--------
G#|-0-0-0-0-0--------
D#|-7-7-7-9-7--------
A#|-5-7-5-9-7--------
D#|-5-7-5-9-7--------

Instrumental

Chorus chords

Outro

Max uses muted strings to end the song (singing, "Did it hurt, did it hurt..." etc) Its quite an easy rhythm - just have a listen!

Enjoy!

Alternate picking exercise

Heres a great little exercise. Take the following chord patterns.

E|-------10--10----7---7---------------
B|-------9---8-----8---9---------------
G|-------8---9-----9---8---------------
D|-------7---7-----10--10--------------
A|----------------------------------------
E|----------------------------------------

As you can see, each chord change involves either swapping your index and pinkie fingers or your middle and ring fingers.

You can start by just practicing the chords but once you can change easily, try picking D U D U through the chords as you change. It's a great workout for your alternative picking technique! You can try other picking patterns such as sweeping all downstrokes, upstrokes, U D U D etc.