JGuitar has some neat tools like the chord search and chord calculator which let you find different chord variations. Pretty cool, considering I’m often utterly clueless as to what I’m playing.

On the right is one of my favorites, the suspended 2nd (specifically, Asus2). I use suspended 2nd chords all over the place, usually when I want something more majestic-sounding than a wimpy major chord. The opening chords to Have We Learned? and Gravel Road Requiem have lots and lots of suspended 2nds.

What makes a chord a sus2 is a very good question that probably deserves a better answer than the one I’m about to provide, especially since I had to look it up on Google. Imagine a major scale: do re mi fa so la ti do. A typical major chord would be: do mi so, built from the first, third and fifth notes in the scale.

So a suspended 2nd chord substitutes the third note with the second note in the scale. So a suspended 2nd would be do re so. Or in the case of the diagram over there: do so do re so (strumming from left to right).

Although personally I just like to call it the chord that goes bwwwwommm!

Howard Wright has a cool quick reference chart that shows how chords are built.

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