You’ve probably been in this situation yourself: you are playing through one of your favourite pieces and getting along quite all right with the chord symbols until you come across a symbol includes the “sus”. For example: Csus4. What does this “sus” mean? Does it have anything to do with a sustain pedal?

Well no, it has nothing to do with a sustain pedal, but is simply short for “suspended”. So what has been suspended?

The 3rd of the chord (in the case of a C major chord the note E). Let me explain.

Take a bog standard C major chord:

Take away, or “suspend” the 3rd:

Now you add in a 4th instead, and you get a Csus4:

So the 3rd of the chord has been suspended and been replaced by the 4th note of the scale, in this case the F.

You could also suspend the 3rd and use the 2nd instead, so a Csus2:

Also quite common is using both a 2nd and a 4th in a chord at the same time:

You will also find that a minor 7th has been added, creating a C7sus4:

You could also add the 2nd instead of the 4th:

Or indeed both the 2nd and the 4th, which makes for a slightly messy looking chord:

The important thing to remember is that if you come across a chord symbol that symbol reads Csus that a Csus4 is implied as Csus is short for Csus4. By the same token, if you come across C7sus, indeed this is short for C7sus4. So:

Csus = Csus4
C7sus = C7sus4

Addendum:
Sus chords are very common in popular music and jazz due to their softer sound compared to straight major or minor chords, and the fact that you can make up a nice chord progression simply by creating a random progression of sus chords if you omit the 5th of the chord (more on that in the next posting). In classical music sus chords are often used in front of a dominant chord before a perfect cadence, i.e. Gsus G C.

Lincoln Jaeger

Yes indeed. You may ask yourself what this crazy headline is all about.

Well, haven written about how daunting it can be to get into the music of jazz, I thought I might use this blog to talk a little about the strange lingo, the colloquialisms, the vernaculars, call it what you want, basically the inside language that exists in the world of jazz.

Let’s start by de-mystifying the header shall we?

Cats = musicians (though most of you probably already knew this)
Horn = instrument (even if it’s now a horn!)
To Woodshed = to go and practice. This comes from the fact that some musicians have been known to go and practice in the shed in the garden. Most likely because practising can be quite a horrible cacophony for anyone to be subjected to.

So one could imagine a conversation between two jazz cats going something like this:

Cat A (Steve McQueen): “How’s your chops”
Cat B (Miles Davis): “My chops is beat”
Cat A: “Two bad – too much time in the shed?”
Cat B: “Naah, too much blowin on these gigs lately”
Cat A: “Oh yeah, been tryin’ out your new licks?”
Cat B: “Uh-huh, got some bad new hot licks!”
Cat A: “Good gig, was it?
Cat B: “The whole band was in the pocket”
Cat A: “Sweet, the whole bad was in the crease”

{…}

In plain English:

Cat A: “How is your playing” (chops could also refer to the lips of a brass player – they tend to get fatigued easily)
Cat B: “I’m worn out / I can’t play well / My lips/fingers etc are hurting”
Cat A: “Too bad – have you been practising too much?”
Cat B: “No, too much soloing/playing on these gigs lately”
Cat A: “Oh yeah, have you been trying out your snazzy new preconceived musical phrases (=licks)?”
Cat B: “Uh-huh, I’ve got some really good, fantastic new phrases” (bad=good)
Cat A: “Good gig, was it?”
Cat B: “The whole band was really playing like a unit, really grooving”
Cat A: “Sweet, the band was playing really well)”

Luckily our two jazz musicians decided to call it a day there, or we could have gone much longer…

As you can see, a bit of jazz language has actually found its way into main-stream language such as “cats” (musicians) and “bad” (good). Phrases like “The Big Apple” (New York), to “dig” (to like), “cans” (headphones) are said to have come from the world of jazz, though this is of course impossible to prove.

Regardless, there are of course many more expressions, so if you are interested in the meaning of such terms as:

• Comping
• Turnarounds/Turnbacks
• Head
• Trading Twos

… then please go to our Jazz Terms Glossary, where you can find even more jazz terms, including more technical expressions (with all the explanations) and all-round jazz madness!

Dig it.

Lincoln Jaeger

Jazz can be a daunting style of music to get into. I myself have made the mistake of trying to introduce a friend to jazz by picking what I thought was just the right gig, only to find that that particular artist had decided it was time to go “far out” for this one concert and therefore ensuring that said friend would never, ever, ever go to a jazz gig again.

The image doesn’t always help either: middle aged (nothing wrong with that!) guys in berets smoking their Gitanes cigarettes whilst knowingly nodding to the strange exhortations of the band, while you feel like the only person in the venue who does not have a clue what is going on.

It can be intimidating. But then so can guitar shops !

But have you been to a jazz gig recently? Certainly here in London town smoking in any indoor venues has been out for quite a while, so you can now at least breath! Berets don’t seem to be “en vogue” anymore either – so things are clearly looking up.

That just leaves the music. If you want to get into jazz, picking out a random gig is probably not the best way to go about it: you might have selected the latest avant garde cutting edge Bass Clarinet Cross Over Project, or Craig’s Octogenarian Dixieland Swingers – but you won’t really know until you’ve turned up.

So here are three albums that I would recommend as a great starting point for getting into the music called jazz. None of these are going to hurt your eardrums, nor your pocket (the itunes links go to the uk store, amazon links to the .co.uk site):

Kind of Blue – Miles Davis (often referred to as being one of the best music albums ever, not just for jazz). Stand-out tracks:
All Blues
We also have the Miles Davis Tumpet Solo on All Blues
So What
You can get the sound recording at: / Amazon

Getz/Gilberto – Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, Stan Getz. This is the album that introduced Bossa Nova to the world and launched the evergreen “Girl from Ipanema”. Stand-out tracks:
The Girl from Ipanema
Desafinado
Corcovado
One Note Samba
You can get the sound recording at: / Amazon

Time Out – Dave Brubeck. Columbia records had to be convinced to release this, yet it had the jazz hit Take Five on it. Stand-out tracks:
Take Five
Blue Rondo A La Turk
You can get the sound recording at: / Amazon

I could extend this list further, but I can say without doubt that these three albums, after much consideration, and having introduced them to many a non-jazz lover, are the three most sure-fire ways to introduce the most sceptical person to jazz.

Now go out and buy, and dig them !

Lincoln Jaeger

We’ve not posted for a while – very remiss of us! However, we have been very busy over the last few months, adding two new languages to our site: Dutch and Swedish as well as adding Swedish Kroner as a currency.

So a big welcome to our new users in Sweden and Holland, even if this blog is in English .

Soon we will also add Danish and Norwegian (as well as the local currencies to go with these new territories), which means we will have added a total of 7 new languages in the space of 13 months.

What else has been happening? Well we have been preparing the new videos that we have promised you in previous blogs, so get ready for more regular videos, blog postings and fascinating downloads that will open up the world of Jazz to you in the new year.

And finally we’ve also been celebrating our 4th birthday in October. The site went live in October 2005 in English and German with just a 1,000 arrangements. Since then we have grown to over 30,000 arrangements and have welcomed users from another 5 new languages to our site.

So to finish, who better to play us a little Happy Birthday tune than Wynton Marsalis and his Septet: