 Hi everyone this is Jason here from Nathaniel. In this lesson we are going to explore the use of suspended chords and look at a little bit of theory, a little bit of song writing and also how they impact or they get impacted by the bass register. That's pretty much what we have and it's quite a short lesson but you need to follow through so get a keyboard along, get a book or a paper or whatever. Before we get cracking it'll be great if you could hit that subscribe button, hit the bell icon for regular notifications. Consider following us on Patreon where all these lessons are explained with my handwritten notes, notations sometimes when the lesson demands it, backing tracks sometimes when the lesson demands it and it'll keep happening on Patreon. So it'll be great if you could support us on Patreon, hit subscribe, give us a thumbs up, a like, share whatever nice stuff you'd like to do with this video. Let's now start. So we are going to just use one chord for this entire lesson, F suspended 4. Let's first learn how to form this stuff. We have the root F then a suspended 4 uses the root, the perfect 4th and the perfect 5th. F Bb C. There's also an interesting case with respect to the suspended chords is when you invert them. Inverting basically means you just flip the notes around. So what was once F Bb C will now become Bb C F and then it could also become C F Bb. So F sus 4 F Bb C when inverted it becomes Bb sus 2. Sus 2 will have the root, the major second which is C and the pinky is currently playing the perfect 5th. So again F sus 4 when inverted becomes Bb sus 2 and there's another very interesting thing. Remember a triad or a three note chord always has three inversions. So I've done two already F sus 4 Bb sus 2 and when we invert it further we get C what we call as C quartal right or a C7 sus 4 without really the fifth without the fifth you could also say C quartal. Now a quartal chord is built using 4th. So if you look at this chord C is perfect 4th is F F's perfect 4th is Bb very different sound compared to Bb sus 2 and F sus 4 very different than the Bb sus 2 and the F sus 4. So it's very important to realize that a sus 4 chord when inverted becomes another sus 2 chord which when inverted becomes another quartal chord which is really nice for your arpeggios and stuff. Okay so the main thing I wanted to point out in this lesson is what you can do in the bass with all these three chords. So first off suspended chords have inversions a sus 4 when inverted becomes a sus 2 and a quartal chord in this case C quartal Bb sus 2 F sus 4 okay but what you can really do with these chords and what I have explored a lot in my music is the bass does not have to commit itself to the root of any of these chords. In fact well we could start with the roots of the chords Bb now it becomes Bb sus 2 C7 sus 4 or C quartal then F sus 4 but if I actually now take the C quartal chord which is C Fb flat you could do this with even Fb flat C or B flat C F. So let's try and put some bass going with this chord so that's the C quartal which I'm playing in my right hand in my left hand let's start off with C simple right so this creates like a C7 sus 4 kind of a vibe because it has the dominant seventh and the sus 4 C7 sus 4 but now when I go to the Db it's a very interesting vibe it creates a very major seventh along with a 13th let me try and explain so you have Db you have the F which is a major third you don't have the fifth instead you have the sixth so the sixth when added along with the seventh C is the major seventh in this case so major seventh major third and major sixth you could call this a very you could call this a 13 all I did was move C which was C7 sus 4 all the way to Db not all the way Db is right then I do D beautiful sound you could say that's a Bb sus 2 with a D bass nice passing chord if I do E flat a very interesting sound again like a 9 with a 6 because C is the 6 F is the 2 which we call 9 so we actually call this a E flat 6 9 chord now what's the next note you have E now this could become an acquired taste but it's not a very pleasing sound because you're hearing that tension between E and F so we'll ignore that or you can use it it's not too bad actually it's an acquired like E flat so let's just explore again C Db E passing chord E flat E slightly tense but usable F sus 4 very interesting chord let's try and study this this is a major seventh there's a major seventh there but then a normal major seventh would have a major third and a perfect fifth in this case I flattened the five so you could say this is a major seven flat five it goes they all go really well with each other very mysterious sound now if you take G creates a G minor seventh flavor with a four added it's a very beautiful sound that's an A flat again is a 6 9 a proper 6 9 you have your root A flat major third 6 and a 9 okay then you have F over A with a sus F sus 4 over A B flat sus 2 this is the only sound I don't like B now I don't know if any of you like that but at least I don't now there's a reason behind that B is a dissonance with respect to C and it forms a tritone which is another dissonant interval with respect to F and it forms another dissonance with respect to B flat so it's like three of the tensions in music the tritone the major seventh and the minor second are created when you play B with that C C quarter chord so apart from that B pretty much everything works well you could say E is also a bit debatable I kind of like it so all the way if you see C D flat D E flat E works F F sharp G A flat A B flat B ouch B just doesn't work and so on so if if we are trying to address the question which is that one chord which when used doesn't really ever need to change with respect to move moving bass elements it's this chord it's the suspended chord either you could play it as a sus 2 a quartal or a sus 4 all of them are inversions of each other so this is a very useful way to use suspended chords usually what people do is they'll play a sus chord resolve it to major which is very common or resolve it to minor but you don't have to necessarily resolve it when you focus on the bass element so you could just keep the sus lingering in your treble area or treble register and just explore the bass and try to build a bass progression you don't have to necessarily call it a chord progression you can say bass progression so maybe check that out so I'm doing F D flat C D flat E flat F B flat you can always kind of sneak in a few extra notes like sometimes what I do is if I want I can just make my thumb a little bit bigger or wider if that's the right word I think and you gain access to both notes with your thumb creating a very fatter sound you could say so it's the fatter option so this is a B flat major add 2 add 9 you could also use it for very line cliche movements like the bass drops for the most part it's pretty much that chord right could be a starting point from where you can start exploring even the right hand like for example start with this chord and then just add in a higher C which is actually the same chord but I'm just adding the same C a bit higher and I get a line there maybe repeat it going to E flat so basically one note in this chord could vary it could either move you know maybe you move your thumb or you move your ring finger or whichever finger right guys so let's just recap what we've been doing so far we took pretty much one chord a sus chord which I told you in the beginning you're visualizing it as F sus 4 it could also be D flat sus 2 it could also be C quartal and the idea is to hold that in your treble area or in the right hand and in the bass area or the left hand try to explore different bass routes and as you change the bass the chord will change the chord will will will will absolutely turn over is its head like the great sting says it ain't C major unless I play C or until I play the the C in in my bass sting is a bass player and a singer songwriter should definitely check out this artist he's an incredible musician composer singer guitar player bass player everything right so until the bass note is committed to see if I just do it's a very ambient sound but if I do well even that's ambient but it has a definition it's all these notes seem to have purpose because of the bass so that's the importance of committing to the bass changing the bass for the purpose of harmony for harmony to move you need the bass to keep driving forward okay so we took the sus chord in the right hand and we just floated our left hand and tried to create a progression you could do like a descending drop like thing you could climb or you could do something poppish right you could also change stuff in the right area in the right hand keep two constant and move one so that's pretty much the gist of this lesson I just want to talk about this important fact a lot of people have asked me about suspended chords the different kinds of suspended chords there are a lot of videos which we have done on suspensions addressing other ways of creatively using these chords you'll find all of the videos most of the videos at least in the description because there are quite a few just on suspended chords so I'd encourage you to go through the other lessons on the subject you could also go to our website where all the lessons are catalogued well under our free tutorial section that would be a good resource for you and yeah just keep sticking on to the channel we'll have a lot more videos on various topics you could also suggest a topic of interest and I will consider it try to practice and do a lesson do a youtube lesson on that particular topic right keep watching keep supporting us give the video a share a like comment subscribe if you haven't already that really helps the channel you can download some of our notes on patreon for this lesson the previous lessons and whatever we are going to do in the future right guys thanks a ton for watching the lesson again this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel do keep in touch with us via our website you can fill up a form if you'd like to reach us join any of our workshops courses or anything like that and do stay in touch we are also on instagram you can follow me or the school on instagram as well you can just search us there and yeah we'll look forward to the next video and it's going to hit you very soon so stay tuned cheers