How to Play the Asus2 Guitar Chord

String Systems / Chords & Rhythm Guitar

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What's an Asus2 chord?

    Whenever you see the designation "sus" in a guitar chord symbol (ex. Asus2, Asus4), this means that one of the main chord tones is replaced by a note next to it. In classical music, these "wrong" notes were called suspensions. They usually moved to a regular chord tone soon after.


    An Asus2 chord for example would move to a more standard A or Am chord (which still sounds great). But in modern music, we sometimes like to have a bit of dissonance. So we can use suspensions without resolving them to regular chord tones 💪😎🎸.


    Regular major and minor chords (also called triads) are made of 3 notes that correspond to degrees 1, 3, and 5:

A and Am Chord Degrees

    In an Asus2 chord we replace the 3rd degree with the 2nd degree (which is normally not a chord tone, but a scale tone):

Asus2 Chord Degrees

    Note: Chord tones in music theory are supposed to be spelled using odd numbers (that's why A2 is actually a wrong spelling for Aadd9). But the sus2 is an exception because historically the 2nd degree was not a chord tone but a temporary scale tone.


How to play a Asus2 on the Guitar

    You can play the Asus2 guitar chord in a few different ways. But the clear favorite (because it's very easy and sounds great) is this voicing here:

Asus2 Guitar Chord - Open Position

Sus2 moveable chord form

    The Asus2 chord voicing in the above diagram uses open strings. In order to transpose it to other keys we need to turn it into a barre chord that can be moved everywhere. Here's an example for Dsus2. This one is easy too (at least compared to other barre chords 😀).

Dsus2 Guitar Chord - Moveable Barre

    To move chords effectively around the fretboard, you need to learn the notes really well. I highly recommend that you get Fretboard Memorization Toolbox. This free mini-course includes fun drills and musical challenges that will help you master the fretboard very quickly 👍.


Tip 1 - Mix with Major or Minor

    A cool way to use the Asus2 chord is to mix it with the regular A or Am chords (similar to how the sus2 is used in classical music). Moving between the 2nd and the 3rd degree creates an interesting musical effect.


    In most cases the 2nd degree doesn't interfere with anything, so you can use the Asus2 to embellish an A or an Am in a song. Here are a couple of examples:

Tip 2 - Easy Substitute for 9th chords

    When playing rhythm guitar, you don't always have to play all the notes of a chord. You can play partial chords and let the musical context take care of the harmony. In fact, when you play in a band that includes a 2nd guitar, or a keyboard, it's actually better to play fewer notes and make space for the other instruments.


    This means that our Asus2 guitar chord can be used as a substitution for 9th chords such as A9, Am9, Amaj9, Aadd9 (sometimes spelled A2), Amadd9. Try it next time you come across one of these chords, and you'll see that it sounds great!


    In this example, you can hear the Asus2 compared to an Am9. Notice how the two sounds are completely compatible, even though the Asus2 is missing a couple of notes:

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