The Sus-4 chord

Music Lesson: Understanding the C Major 7 and G7 SUS4 Chords

As well as this C major 7 chord played like this:

• Bill Evans plays a G7 chord, but he doesn't play it in the ordinary way, like this root position.
• In fact, the shape he uses is like that, but with the middle two notes moved down one.

Understanding the SUS4 Chord

This is called a SUS4 chord. The reason it's SUS4 is because it has the fourth in, which takes the place of the third. We no longer have a B.

• Normally, a chord with a fourth in like that would resolve, and the fourth would move down to the third.
• But when it doesn't do that, like this one, you call it a suspended fourth.

In fact, because it's also got an A in, which is the second or the ninth, you could call it G9SUS4.

Chords for Left Hand

The two chords that you're going to be playing in the left hand are:

• C major like this
• G7 like this

Additional Notes

Now, Bill Evans actually plays bass notes as well. This is his left hand, which I don't think he invented, by the way. There's a precedent for this.

• You may have heard it in other pieces of music.
• So I'm using pedal there so that we get the bass note ringing with the chord.

However, on the backing track, you've already got the bass line or the C and the G. They're already present.

Chord Progression

So all you have to do is play those chords.

• This is really just a perfect cadence: G7 to C major or C to G (1 to 5).
• Another two chord vamp.

Improvisation Over Chords

And Bill Evans plays over those two chords without changing the left hand at all for almost seven minutes. The right hand gets more and more atonal as the track progresses.

So do check it out. It's one of the tracks listed in the listening section at the end of this chapter.