Originally Posted By: Mike Head
Hi all

I always think of sus chords as altered thirds, in fact I believe they are not considered to be either Major or minor, just chords where the third has been substituted for a 2nd or 4th in the case of sus2 and sus4.
As far as add 9 goes it is like a sus 2 but the third is in the next octave one octave higher than the sus 2.

Just my simple understanding.
Mike

This is my understanding, too. It's also how it was explained in the article at the first link I shared in my OP. Here's a quote of the "Sus" section from that article:

"The sus in a chord name standards for “suspended”. This chord type creates extra tension by exchanging the 3rd (for a major chord) or a minor 3rd (for a minor chord) for another note.

Some will debate whether the suspended 4th is the only option for a sus chord. They will argue that a sus2 cannot be used. But, given that sus2 is commonly used by guitarists we will ignore the debate entirely and assume sus2 does exist.

For a sus2 chord, we would replace the 3 of the scale for the 2 of the scale. So Csus2 is just a C major chord with the 2 (D) replacing the major third (E).

Csus2 = C, D, G"

Following this logic, a Csus4 would have the notes C, F, G. In the case of the A chord, an Asus2 would have the notes A, B, E, and an Asus4 would have the notes A, D, E. While both the 3rd note in the C chord can easily be substituted with the 2nd note (for Csus2) or the 4th note (for Csus4) on the guitar when using the standard open chord version of C, this isn't possible to do with the standard open A chord version because the of where the notes occur on the strings. As a result, the notes in the Asus2 chord end up being A, E, A, B, E, and the notes in the Asus4 end up being A, E, A, D, E. I'm sure that similar scenarios would occur with other chords for the same reason.

But getting back to the original issue of BiaB's substutition of an Asus2 chord for the A2 chords in my song. This morning I decided to create a test file in BiaB in which I would alternate between the A2 and the Asus2 chord so that I could listen for any changes that might occur when these chords were played back after I had generated the arrangement. But every time I tried to enter an Asus2 chord, BiaB automatically changed it to an A2 chord. This baffled me because of my remembrance that BiaB had changed the A2 chords in my song to an Asus2 chord. So, I re-opened my XML file so that I could make sure that this is indeed what had happened. To my utter surprise, I discovered that BiaB didn't change my A2 chords to Asus2 chords but instead had changed them to Aadd2 chords. I must have been half asleep the first time I had gone through this process because I was sure that I saw Asus2 chords on my screen, but I know now that I was mistaken. (Sorry, guys, for giving all of you the wrong information!) Nevertheless, considering Matt's earlier post in which he said that BiaB also recognizes an Add2 chord as an A2 chord, I'm still dealing with an issue of improper chord substitution on BiaB's part except that I was reading an Aadd2 chord as an Asus2 chord.

The reason I say "improper chord substitution on BiaB's part" is because of what I heard when I re-created my test file in which I alternated between an A2 chord and an Add2 chord (not an Asus2 chord). This time, BiaB did not prevent me from entering the Aadd2 chord like it did when I had tried to enter the Asus2 chord. And when I played this test song (after I had generated the arrangement), I could definitely hear that the Aadd2 chord sounded very different from the A2 chord. What I can't figure out, though, is what the notes are in this chord and what this chord would look like on the guitar.

From a note standpoint (based on the info in the first article I shared above), an Add2 chord would consist of the notes A, C#, E, and B, but it isn't possible to create a standard open chord version of a chord with these notes on the guitar. So, perhaps someone could help me out with this because this Add2 chord sounds strange. I tried to attach a screen shot of the test song that I created in BiaB but wasn't able to for some reason, so you'll have to create your own test file. I'll also mention that the track I listened to had a 12 string acoustic strumming guitar (#856), but I would think that any strumming guitar could be used.

Tom Levan (pronounced La-VAN)
BiaB 2024 Win UltraPAK Build 1109, Xtra Style PAKs 1-11, RB 2024, Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, Intel Q9650 3 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 500 GB SSD & 2 TB HDD, Tracktion 6 & 7 (freebies), Cakewalk, Audacity, MuseScore 2.1 & 3.4, Synthesizer V