suspended fourth chord · A root
A7sus4 chord
- A1
- D4
- E5
- G♭7
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The A7 suspended 4th chord is built from the notes A, D, E, G. It turns up 4 times in the 80 songs on this site, including Wonderwall.
By Chiye · Updated
What is the A7sus4 chord?
The A7sus4 chord (A7 suspended 4th) is a suspended fourth chord built from four notes: A, D, E, G — the 1–4–5–♭7 of the A scale, 5 semitones and 7 semitones and 10 semitones above the root. On guitar it is most often played in open position (x-0-2-2-3-3) with 4 fingers while 1 string rings open and the low E string stays silent. It is rated beginner — most players learn it in their first weeks. A dominant seventh with the third held back, so it keeps the pull toward the tonic but loses the bright major colour. It is one of the most-used chords in this site's library: across the 80 song sheets charted here, A7sus4 appears 4 times in 1 song, most often in the key of Em. Below you will find step-by-step fingering, audio of every shape, and the real progressions this chord lives inside.
How do you play the A7sus4 chord on guitar?
Open position — the easiest version of A7sus4 on the guitar.
- Press the D string at fret 2 with your index finger.
- Press the G string at fret 2 with your index finger.
- Press the B string at fret 3 with your middle finger.
- Press the high E string at fret 3 with your ring finger.
- Start your strum on the A string and do not play the low E string at all.
The x mark is part of the shape, not an accident: the chord only sounds right when low E stays silent. Instead of aiming your pick around that string, let the string next to it rest on it and damp it. x-0-2-2-3-3
How do you make A7sus4 sound clean?
Two fingers on the same fret of adjacent strings (D and B) crowd and mute. Angle them so each fingertip owns its string.
The Wonderwall loop: A7sus4 with fingers 3 and 4 parked on the top two strings, always. The whole song lives in that anchor.
In real songs
What songs use the A7sus4 chord?
- chord changes
- 4
- songs
- 1
- common keys
- Em
Across the 80 chord sheets on this site, A7sus4 appears 4 times in 1 song — most often in the key of Em.
Chord flow
What chord comes after A7sus4?
Every number here is a count from the progressions in our song sheets, not a generalisation: 1560 chord changes are behind these figures.
A7sus4 arrives from
- Dsus44×
The theory behind A7sus4
A7sus4 is spelled A – D – E – G — the 1 – 4 – 5 – ♭7 of the A scale, which is the root plus 5 semitones, 7 semitones, 10 semitones. A dominant seventh with the third held back, so it keeps the pull toward the tonic but loses the bright major colour.
The fourth stands where the third would be, so A7sus4 keeps the dominant's pull toward the key a fifth below but loses the bright major colour. On guitar that means the shape is the same as the plain dominant with one finger moved; the fourth usually falls a semitone back onto the third, and that fall is the resolution.
What key is the A7sus4 chord in?
A7sus4 is a dominant seventh with the third held back to the fourth, so it does the plain dominant's job: it is the V7 in D, in both D major and D minor, and it lands there as soon as the fourth falls back to the third.
the dominant — the flat seventh is what pulls it home
the same dominant job in the minor key
A7sus4 on other instruments
A – D – E – G — all white keys, so you can find the shape by counting up from C.
Take it to the practice room
