A7 sus

[Dave Greenspoon]

I've checked the Cafe's chord directory, a chord chart excerpted from Bud Orr's Anthology of Mandolin Music and James Major's Mandolin Chord Book cannot find a fingering for A7 sus. Can anyone suggest one that will not break my fingers, or is it simply not a chord played on the mandolin?

Thanks in advance!

Dave

[groveland]

GDAE

All open strings. D is the sus, E is the 5th, G is the 7.

Also:
2 2 5 3
7 5 7 5
9 7 10 10
7 5 0 0
0 7 5 0
0 0 7 5

[Eddie Sheehy]

What's A7 sus on the violin Dave?

[Bruce Clausen]

Most often A7sus is followed by A7. So it's useful to learn them as a pair:

2555 leads to 2545
2253 leads to 2243
7500 leads to 6500
9753 leads to 9743

(etc.)

BC

[Dave Greenspoon]

What's A7 sus on the violin Dave?

If I played violin, I might have known and if so, I wouldn't have asked.

[Dave Greenspoon]

Thanks to groveland and to Bruce for the helpful answers!

[Don Stiernberg]

Is the flatted seventh really necessary on a sus chord? I know you stipulated A7sus, but I also like
2255, and use it in similar situations, as a dominant chord. The aforementioned 2555 includes all the intervals, but is a little less handy to finger. Either way it seems to be a chord that wants to resolve to D. Please let me know what you think and while we're at it, isn't a sus chord also functional when the chart calls for an 11the chord? A11=2255??thanks everybody in advance, and for all the cool voicings listed above. We can never have enough "grips".

[Dave Greenspoon]

I wish I knew enough theory to respond to Don's question; I leave that to the better edumicated than I.

My question came up because I'm trying to work on a "talking 12 bar blues" piece that I first heard from Jimmy Buffett as a Lord Richard Buckley tune, God's Own Drunk (And A Fearless Man). Turns out the original seems to have been God's Own Drunk And A Welshman To Boot, at least according to bardsguild.com. There the progession is given as E, E7, A7, A7 sus, E, E7, A7, A7 sus, B7, a "C weirdness chord" that is produced (on guitar) "by sliding the B7 fingering up one fret on the neck." (doesn't that make it a B#7?) A7, and A7 sus with "Bring down the 12 bar talking blues riff to signal the end of the story." Atleast here the A7 sus resolves not to D but E.

I don't know if the progression fits a standard format for 12 bar blues or not, or even if this is the way Bubba recorded the song or not. All I know is that I've loved Buffett's version since I first heard it waaaaaaaaaaaaay back when, and I'd love to get it under my fingers.

Thanks again to all of you who have been willing to share your knowledge!

[Tom Gibson]

I'll be interested to hear what others say about the need or use of voicing the flat 7, but for the general A sus I like the 975x (or 9750, but for other sus chords I'm used to omitting the E string). I think it's the voicing in 4ths that adds an interesting sound to my mostly untrained ear.

[Shelby Eicher]

This parrothead tune does exhibit normal changes. There are several Clapton tunes that do this same thing. Your C weirdness chord is just a flat 6 chord or C7th chord. I always tell my students to find several voicings for every change. In this tune one of these will sound like it fits in the song more than the others. In a Jazz tune I use a variety of voicings for all changes. It keeps it from sounding sterile. A favorite Asus or Em7 voicings is - 757 (DGE or 4th,
7th, 5th) to an A7 - 657 (C#GE or 3rd, 7th, 5th). You can also think of an Asus7 chord as an E minor 7th chord (this is a direct substitution). You do have to watch the B or 9th. Sometimes it works and other times not as well. A study of inversions will help with these type of chords and voicings. Of course you have to have an understanding of your chord spelling as well. This will free you up to play instead of think as your performing.
Best,
Shelby

[mandolirius]

To address Don's question directly, I don't think the flat seven is necessary. It seems like an optional note to me. A matter of preference, although I'm sure someone can come up with an example where the flat seven IS absolutely necessary.

[John McGann]

When you see "A7sus" as a chord symbol, the sus means raising the 3rd to a 4th (1/2 step).
AC#EG becomes ADEG (we don't play them in that order, but the tab in Groveland's post above yields those notes in an order we can play them on the mando).

Technically a "sus4". There is also a "sus2" where you lower the 3rd to a 2nd (whole step).
AC#EG becomes ABEG.

If a chord symbols says "sus" it's usually a sus 4 triad ( 145 ). You wouldn't add the 7th unless it was called for in the chord symbol. James Taylor, who uses the sus4 and sus2 like we use water, would use it on the I chord a lot, and the dom7 would sound out of place there.

If you like mid-period Who (Tommy, Who's Next, Quadrophenia) the 7sus4 chord appears a lot in Pete Townshend's writing (and is some of the coolest chordal music in rock and roll IMHO).

Donny- sorry about the Cubs, but they'll re-tool some for '09 and (to mix metaphors) take it to the hoop!

[WindinBoy]

[QUOTE=John McGann;586889]

If you like mid-period Who (Tommy, Who's Next, Quadrophenia) the 7sus4 chord appears a lot in Pete Townshend's writing (and is some of the coolest chordal music in rock and roll IMHO).
QUOTE]

That's the sound that I hear for a suspended chord-Think "Pinball Wizard" one of the best from the Who, and you will never forget the Suspended chord transition.

[John McGann]

Pinball Wizard is sus4 Triad (Bsus4 to B) on guitar 7x9977 to 7x9877
On mando maybe 447x to 446x.

[Eddie Sheehy]

Oh sorry Dave. I misread your title. OK, what's D7 sus on a viola?

[Ted Eschliman]

Oh boy!
Keeping in Suspense...

[Pete Martin]

I also just use two note sus voicings. Asus 72xx. Works well on violin

Tom, I find that 4ths voicing works very well on sus chords, very Bill Evans like.

Don, I often use sus without the 7th on modal jazz. More open sounding.

[Don Stiernberg]

Dave,
The progression you describe seems to pertain to guitar playing and brings up another good use for sus chordson any instrument. First of all all of the chords in the tune are expressed as 7th chords. This happens regularly in blues, the flatted 7th being an essential "blue note" and appropriate color tone in that context. The A7 to A7sus is an example of voice movement in an accompaniment part, which is always fair and good to do--why stay on just a plain old A7,just hammering away, when moving from the C#(third) to the D(fourth) sounds cool?And yes indeed, this sort of moving voice activity can be done on the I, the IV, or V chords, in this case E, A or B. Also in grass-check out Sam Bush's records and we'll probably here him rocking around this same territory, say, on Sailin' Shoes or Revival or One Love...

John, Tom, Mandolirius, Groveland, Shelby,Pete and all you cats: Thank you also for adding detail and very cool observations. Any of you think or finger differently when the chart says A11 instead of Asus? It is the same group of tones, but...

Isn't it funny how there's more time for posting now that the baseball season is over? At least it's over here in Chicago....John, the Cubs might be there next year, but I may not. Too many years of
(as Steve Goodman said) having your dreams stomped on like so many paper beer cups in the bleachers. Meanwhile, Go Red Sox Nation, and of course:

Go Mando Nation! More Grips!

[John McGann]

Any of you think or finger differently when the chart says A11 instead of Asus? It is the same group of tones, but...

Buck Owens advised: "Please, don't play, A-11..."

I would maybe interpret that one as missing the 3rd like a sus4 but voicing the 4th in the higher octave (so it 'looks like 11 rather than 4')...but due to our tuning we'd maybe put the sus4 up there anyway, like AEDx (225x) might be more "A11" than ADAE (2000) where the 4th is next to the lower root.

Chord symbols lose their "accuracy" after awhile; sometimes, you want a specific sonority that could be interpreted with several different chord symbols- and any one of those on their own might not give you what you have in mind...I might want CDAE (5000) and that could get some mighty odd chord symbols (D79 no 3rd, Am11 over C, etc.). All those hip Bill Evans type voicings have lots of 2nds and 4ths in them, and chord symbols just don't do the thing of getting them across, you have to have a specific combination of notes that lie outside of our 3rds based chord symbol system.

But overall, chord symbols are a great shorthand to get you, umm, in the ballpark Sorry Cubs fans- I do believe they will get over the hump soon, and as a Sox fan I can tell you it will be worth the wait!

[bobby bill]

An A11 and Asus might be fingered differently simply because an A11 could include notes absent from an Asus. An Asus is simply A D E. An A11 could include any of the stacked thirds up to the
11th. If we were in the key of A major and the chord was built on the tonic,the notes would include: A Csharp E Gsharp B D. Obviously you have to toss a few of these notes on the mandolin. I might toss the 5th first and then maybe the root since the bass will surely cover that.

The term "sus4" seems to have taken on a new meaning in the last couple of decades and I'm probably being crotchety about that. Today it seems to mean (as in the Who examples which I love by the way) any chord with a 1 4 5 regardless of context.

In the previous several centuries, it referred to the context and required (1) a set up chord which contained the note which would become the suspended fourth (2) the famous sus4, and (3) the resolution chord.

In the most common example (think churchy organ music), in the key of C you might have:

1. the set up chord: dominant 7th - G B D F

2. sus4 based on the tonic - G C F (the B and D from the prior chord resolve to C but the F is suspended from the prior chord)

3. resolution chord - tonic with the suspend 4th resolving to the the third - G C E.

If nothing else, this will explain where the term "suspended" came from and what it means.

[John McGann]

It goes to show how ambiguous a chord symbol "A11" is- I've seen it used as shorthand for stacked 4ths...it doesn't tell you to assume a b7 OR a natural 7...if you have a 3rd below it, it makes a potentially ugly b9 interval...

Less ambiguous might be the ol' triad over bass note sound, "G/A" played ADBG (2023). It has the 4,9 and b7 over A and might be seen as A7 (9,11,no3rd)... AHHHRGH there it is, another clunky chord symbol (don't yell it out at a jam, or the tune will be over before you finish saying it!) "G over A" is a bit more succinct..and still may not be what someone wants when they write "A11"...it could function as an A7sus too...Tony Rice uses this chord in "Devlin'" and some other tunes, very common in the 70's Steely Dan/Crusaders/Larry Carlton/Lee Ritenour zone (goes well with an avocado green refrigerator!)

[Doug Hoople]

Funny how A11 is so ambiguous, but Am11 is not.

The A11 never has the 3rd in it, at least not to my knowledge. It's the only "standard, unmodified" chord that specifically forbids the 3rd. I mean, the A, A6, A7, A9 and A13 all call for the major 3rd, but A11 does not.

But the Am11 requires the 3rd. An Am11 with no 3rd in it would actually be an A11. Anyone who knows the deluxe, luscious sound of a minor11 chord played on a Brazilian guitar would have to concede that the 3rd is essential in that chord.

BTW, I've been searching for satisfying mimor11 voicings on the mandolin, and so far, satisfaction eludes me. Anyone with a good one?

[Bruce Clausen]

One could avoid the ambiguity by using the expresson A9sus4 instead on A11.

As far as good m11 voicings on the mandolin, the main problem of course is the normal limit of four notes. I'm sure we all work around that in various ways, finding voicings that work with the notes we know we'll be hearing from other instruments in the group. But for a six-note voicing on solo mandolin, we need to split two courses at once, and this naturally creates some limits. I propose this voicing for Bm11:

4-(04)-4-(05)

i.e. B-D-F#-C#-E-A

Not all that grabbable, but could be ending chord, I guess.

BC

[Doug Hoople]

One could avoid the ambiguity by using the expresson A9sus4 instead on A11.

Yes. exactly. My vote is for either A9sus4 (aka A9sus) or G/A, since they're both more specific and prescriptive. I'd be happy to abandon A11 in favor of the others anytime. A11 quite often leads to questions about what's in it, the quality of the 3rd, the quality of the 7th, etc. A9sus4 and G/A both provide nearly complete descriptions.

[Bruce Clausen]

Agreed, Doug. But we're after a five-note chord not four, no? So wouldn't Em7/A be better?

BC