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Visualizing Pentatonics - Sus Chord Construction

Tom Quayle 164 lessons

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The first thing we have to be able to do in order to use the visualization technique described in this tutorial is understand the concept of a sus4 chord.

A sus4 chord is a chord containing a Root, 4th and 5th (R, 4, 5)

An example of this would be a Csus4 chord. If we take this chord as constructed from a C major scale (C D E F G A B), the root would be C, the 4th would be F, and the 5th would be G.

The next step is to construct all of the inversions of this chord on the neck of the guitar. A root position sus4 chord has the root as its lowest note. In the case of out Csus4 chord that means C, F, G.

A 1st inversion Csus4 chord would have the 4th as the lowest note meaning F, G, then C.

A 2nd inversion Csus4 chord would have the 5th as the lowest note meaning G, C then F.

In the TAB underneath I have outlined all the inversions on all 6 strings for a Csus4 chord going across the neck. Your task is to be able to do this for all sus4 chords so that you can apply them to a pentatonic scale as outlined in the next video.

Good luck!

NOTE: The TAB underneath is for my 4ths tuning - go to the end of the tutorial for standard tuning versions. I recommend that you print them out for reference.

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