About Eb7sus4 — drop 3 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
The same operation one voice further down: the third voice from the top falls an octave and becomes the bass.
That leaves a bigger hole under the top three notes, so a string gets skipped: the muted string in the middle is the shape, not a mistake.
Eb7sus4 has 8 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 11th — 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 Ab shape at the nut.
4 of them sit on strings 6-4-3-2, 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 13 drop 2 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.