bigbike4

Long story short-For years I cheated with just learning things by tab. Never got into music theory. Now that I have started to play guitar, I find I am suddenly fascinated by it.

Some questions-
1) what does the terms suspended, augmented and diminished mean?

2)how can you have a chord "A13"? I thought that 8 notes made up a complete octive, so how could you have anything above that?

3)What does it mean when you have something like a sus2 written next to a chord? I know it means "suspend" but suspend WHAT exactly? Do you suspend the 2nd note that normally makes up the chord or the 2nd finger in that chord positioning? Along those same lines, when a chord is written Csus6add3 what does that mean?

Thanks in advance-my local library does not have any music theory books and the closest book store is 50 miles away.

 

MusicMan

Welcome to KMA!

A suspended chord, often denoted as "sus", "sus2", or "sus4", is a chord where the third is left out and often replaced by a major second or perfect fourth.

Here's some links with better explanations of augmented chords, diminished chords, and 13th chords.

I would highly suggest spending some time on the fundamentals of music theory, because if you're not very familiar with intervals, key signatures, and the circle of fifths, some of the above material may be a bit confusing, and those are concepts that apply to everything. Hope that helps.

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stiffcompetition19

As far as an "A13" goes, it basically represents the next ascending note in the next octave. So for example, an A13 would be an A major chord plus a F# (or 13 steps above the original A, hence the 13). As you yourself mentioned, there are 8 notes in an octave, so you add the next 5 notes of the scale to get 13.

And as Music Man mentioned, a suspended chord is basically telling you to play a different note rather than the third (most often it is a 2nd or 4th of a scale - i.e. in a Dsus2, you would play a D, E, and A, in a Dsus4, you'd play a D, G, & A).

I hope I didn't confuse you too much!

Dynamic Threads

You should start by learning about the different clefs and the location of middle C, then learn a little about rhytm and time signatures. After that you can move on to note values and meanings which should open up chords and scales nicely.

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