About Eb7sus4 — drop 2 voicings
Eb7sus4 is Eb, Ab, Bb and Db — Eb7 with the third replaced by the fourth.
It sounds leaning rather than shoving. It keeps the flat seventh’s pull and loses the tritone, so it moves without making a hard cadence.
Eb7sus4 notes and formula
| Eb | Ab | Bb | Db |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | 5 | ♭7 |
Dominant — it points a fifth down, but softly.
Also written Eb7sus or Eb dominant 7 sus 4. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Eb7sus4
Take the four notes stacked as close together as they go, then drop the second voice from the top an octave. The gap it opens is what makes the chord sound like a chord rather than a cluster.
It lands on four adjacent strings, which is why it is the workhorse voicing on guitar.
Eb7sus4 has 13 of them, on the middle four strings, the top four strings and the bottom four strings, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Eb in the bass, Ab in the bass, Bb in the bass and Db in the bass. The one to learn first is the Bb shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the middle four strings, so you can run the inversions up one set without changing strings — which is the whole reason to learn them as a family rather than as separate grips.
Start with xx1324 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for Eb7sus4 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 3 of the 6 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xx1324 | 1st fret | Eb, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| x66644 | 4th fret | Eb, root position | Ab | barred |
| x68696 | 6th fret | Eb, root position | Bb | barred |
| xxx899 | 8th fret | Eb, root position | Db | all fretted |
| xx8899 | 8th fret | Bb, 2nd inversion | Db | all fretted |
| 11-13-11-13-11-11 | 11th fret | Eb, root position | Eb | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 6 shell and 8 drop 3 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Eb7sus4, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (F) and the 13 (C).
How to use Eb7sus4
Voice by voice, Eb7sus4 → Ab. One voice moves by a semitone, and 2 notes are common to both chords.
| In Eb7sus4 | Moves | In Ab |
|---|---|---|
| Eb, the root | stays where it is | Eb, the fifth |
| Ab, the fourth | stays where it is | Ab, the root |
| Bb, the fifth | falls a whole tone | Ab, the root |
| Db, the flat seventh | falls a semitone | C, the major third |
In which keys. Every note of Eb7sus4 belongs to C# major (the ii), Eb minor (the i), F minor (the ♭VII), F# major (the vi), Ab major (the V), Ab minor (the v), Bb minor (the iv) and B major (the iii).
What to play over Eb7sus4
Every note of Eb7sus4 is in Eb minor pentatonic, Eb blues, Eb mixolydian, Eb dorian and Eb natural minor.
Chords near Eb7sus4
Change one note of Eb7sus4 and you have Ebsus4 (drop the flat seventh), Ebsus2sus4 (the flat seventh becomes a ninth), Ebm7 (the fourth becomes a minor third), Eb7 (the fourth becomes a major third) or Eb11 (add the ninth).
Eb7sus4 is a suspended chord — root and fifth, with a second or fourth where the third would be — or nothing at all. Suspended and power chords on every root.
On Eb7sus4’s sound and use this page follows Mark Levine, The Jazz Theory Book (Sher Music, 1995). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.