Sus chords are an indispensable feature of jazz. These chords essentially consist of major or minor chords wherein the third position has been switched with that of the fourth note, making an unexpected and interesting change from traditional chord progressions.
Sus chords can add movement and interest to a bar, adding dimension and visual interest. They can also be combined with major chords to increase its complexity.
F Major Scale
The F major scale is often one of the first scales we learn when beginning musical studies, since its one alteration makes it very practical across instruments. Through practice, you can use it to get started in music composition and improvisation as well as strengthening both theoretical and practical aspects of your instrument before moving on to more complex scales.
The F Major Scale is comprised of intervals that span one tone between each degree, excepting for degrees III and IV (where half-tone intervals apply) and VII and I where there’s a whole step gap. F is considered the tonic note in this scale, and we will often return back to it.
As you study the F Major scale on guitar, it is essential to keep in mind that all its notes are natural with the exception of Bb which is flat. To help remember each note of this scale quickly and efficiently, visualizing and listening out for them on your fingerboard can help immensely.
Use the Circle of Fifths to identify which notes are sharps and flats within each key center, helping you gain more insight into their relationships between notes in one key and other keys that share its tonal center.
The F major scale consists of seven notes, with its root note (F), supertonic note (G), and mediant note (A) acting as the basic intervals of this scale. Chords composed from these notes form the backbone for many musical pieces; these chords can be found in many songs as they can be added or subtracted during composition, improvisation and arrangement processes.
Fsus2
The Fsus2 is an extremely flexible variation of an F major chord with no 3rd or 4th note – its unique sound makes it particularly popular among musicians.
This chord is commonly known as the suspended 2nd due to its third note (G) being suspended and replaced with a major second instead. This variation of an F chord can add an unexpected layer of sound and character that stands out from more conventional options.
Suspended chords are frequently employed as part of chord progressions, including the famous Fsus4-F-Fsus2 cycle. Simply modified versions of an F chord make suspended chords easier to use with their underlying F chord counterparts.
This chord can be deduced from an F major or Fadd9 chord, although some modification on guitar may be needed to make it playable. This may involve moving up duplicate 3rds by three frets or eliminating duplicate 3rds, 5ths, or roots altogether.
Another frequent use for this chord is when placed between two major chords, like Cmaj7 or Dmaj7, to create movement from one major to the next, creating a different tone or atmosphere in a song.
It’s an extremely straightforward chord to learn on guitar, as well as one which can be played from many positions on the fretboard. Additionally, it makes an ideal addition to any collection of chords for adding more improvisation into their playing style.
There are several important considerations when playing this chord, including how you should hold your fingers. For the optimal playing experience, keep your finger tips as straight up as possible while still being able to bend them back down onto the string if necessary. In addition, keep the barre in place so as to prevent dead or buzzing sounds.
Fsus4
F sus4 chord is an accessible yet effective guitar chord used to add variety and interest to the F Major scale. Additionally, this chord works great as a replacement chord when creating musical progressions with speedy changes of direction and interest.
The Fsus4 is a three-note chord consisting of F, Bb and C that can be found anywhere on the fretboard with many fingering options available to choose from.
This chord type may not be as widespread in classical music as it is in jazz and pop, but it’s worth keeping one handy should you decide to incorporate it into your repertoire. Not only can it add tension into riffs but can be extremely helpful when creating cadences for songs.
One of the unique aspects of this chord is its inversion ability; simply bring down from a sus2 chord, place its fifth at its root of a sus4 chord and change to sus4. Once inverted this creates sus4 chord but you have some ways of switching it around!
Another key element of this chord is its inversion, creating a quintal chord (A-D-G, G-A-D) with two perfect fourths stacked atop. This creates an extra dimension of tension between its root note and major 3rd note that can add zest to a progression.
Suspended chords are a staple of jazz because they can help delay resolution of major and minor chords without falling under gravity like dominant or secondary dominant chords would.
This can be especially helpful when working on a ii-V progression. In such a progression, the sus4 chord acts as an ideal substitute for either the ii or V7 chord and creates a seamless transition between them – it would be worthwhile trying it on its own and practicing using it as a substitution in songs! So go ahead – give this chord a go for yourself today and see how useful it is in practice songs!
Fsus6
Fsus6 is an indispensable protein essential to the production of both cellulose and starch in Arabidopsis plants. It converts sucrose and nucleoside diphosphates (UDP or ADP) to nucleoside diphosphate-glucose (ADPG), an essential step on the pathway leading to starch synthesis. Furthermore, Fsus6 serves as part of the cellular uridine diphosphate glycosyltransferase complex essential for stevia biosynthesis in Arabidopsis (23-24).
Sucrose synthase catalyzes the reversible conversion of sucrose into uridine diphosphate-glucose for use by plants as a source of starch and cellulose synthesis, essential in plant organ development including roots, leaves, flowers and seeds. Furthermore, its activity is highly regulated both transcriptionally and posttranslationally and plays a crucial role in carbon entry into nonphotosynthetic cell metabolism (21-25).
As illustrated in Figure 4, infection of suppressor bacteria with mutant sus6(626) led to insufficient repression of promoter C2 but not of other viral promoters (Fig 4). Additionally, we observed that both su+ and su- bacteria exposed to this mutant had less p6 synthesis compared to wild-type infection (Fig 2)
To ascertain that promoter C2 repression was caused by an amino acid change resulting in the absence of full-function proteins, we isolated and purified protein p6 synthesized by suppressor bacteria after infection with mutant (Fig. 1). As expected, mutant-derived p6 did not interact with anti-p6 serum, yet still effectively repressed promoter C2.
Repression of promoter C2 was further investigated by measuring DNA present in suppressor bacteria following 60 min of infection with various MOIs of phage, leading to further evidence that protein p6’s role in this regard is dose-dependent and dependent upon its capacity for transcriptional repression.
Therefore, we infected suppressor bacteria with mutant sus6(626) at MOIs of 5 and 20, and measured how much p6 protein was produced early during infection. We observed that synthesis was lower compared to wild-type, even though its molecular weight was lower; thus showing how mutant-derived p6 repressed promoter C2 dose-dependently and restored suppressor DNA synthesis capability.