SUBSTITUTE

The Persistent Suspension

Last issue, we took an alternative approach to pedal-point, by stripping our chord progression down to the bass line, then sustaining or repeating the first chord over all four bass notes. The sustaining chord ‘glues’ it together. Here’s a variation that came from a chance encounter with a YouTube piano lesson!

JUST

to recap: a pedal note (or tone) repeats or sustains throughout a chord progression. It’s most commonly found in the bass, but can also be a higher note, or even a whole chord, as we discovered last issue. Start off by familiarising yourself with the sound of the basic progression, and then we’ll try something new. Instead of just repeating or sustaining that first A Major chord, this time, we’re going to convert it to Asus2 first. In a Suspended 2nd chord, the Major or Minor 3rd is replaced by the 2nd. So in A Major, we replace the C# with a B…

SO,

there’s our Asus2 chord, with that characteristically open, ambiguous sound. Get used to holding those top three or four notes, because they’re going to act as our pedal notes for the rest of the progression.

TAKING

just the bass note from the G chord, we still have the Asus2 notes over the top. On its own, this might be quite a confusing sound, but it makes musical sense in the context of the previous chord.

AGAIN,

here, we’re holding that Asus2 on the top, and taking the bass note from the original F#m. You could also interpret this chord as F#m11. You can hear ideas like this in the music of the great Stevie Wonder.

FINALLY,

the bass note of the D chord. If anything, this sus2 method works better than last issue’s approach, possibly because of the open ambiguity of the sus2 chord. Try it with any progression and see what happens!