Guitar: C# Sus4 in the Changes

Where C# Sus4 sits once the key is named, and what this seat is responsible for while it sounds.

C# Sus4 chord diagram, starting at fret 4. Strings low to high: E muted, A 4th fret, D 6th fret, G 6th fret, B 7th fret, E 4th fret.

C# Sus4 is C# – F# – G#. Naming the notes is where a chord chart stops. A tune asks the next question instead, and that is the one this page answers.

C# Sus4 has no third of its own, so it names no degree until something around it does — which is why it turns up as a suspension over a chord that already has a job rather than as a chord with one.

The guitar seat carries the comp — the changes stated in three and four notes behind whoever is playing the melody, which in practice means dropping the root and playing the notes nobody else is covering — the third and the seventh first, everything else only if it fits under the hand.

Every shape is drawn for EADGBE across 6 strings, the open ones first and the movable ones up the neck after them, and each one plays back so you can hear the voicing before you commit it to a chorus.