Suspending the Chordal Seventh

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]There are several tried and true ways of constructing proper suspensions.

[00:00:04]Firstly, let us consider any relationship where the root of a chord moves via a descending fifth, whereby the first chord is a seventh chord, which then moves to a triad. As a reminder, the falling fifth is merely a way of conceptualizing the relationship between these two chords, and does not by any means need to always be voiced as such with the falling fifth in the bass voice, as this relationship applies to ascending fourths as well, which is merely an inversion of the same relationship. So, in its simplest manifestation, we can take a dominant seventh moving to the tonic.

[00:00:39]>> [music] >> To create a suspension, we can take the chordal seventh of the seventh chord and suspend it over the next chord, where it briefly becomes an 11th, as an interval of the 11th is created and resolves down to a 10th or third over the bass.

[00:01:02]>> [music]