Chords for Pink Floyd Suspended Chords in "Us and Them" on Guitar | Reverb Learn to Play

[D] _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
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Hey [Dm] friends Joe here at Reverb.
Today we are learning David Gilmour's guitar part in the [F] verses of Us and Them.
[D] This is a very [G] cool guitar part and not only is it cool shapes and
arpeggio technique with your right hand, but it also [E] uses sus chords very well, suspended chords.
[Am] So real quick what a suspended chord is, [D] is a chord that replaces the third with either a second or a fourth.
So what this does is it removes the minor or major tonality.
The third of a chord
determines its major or minor tonality.
A major third
on _ a D chord is F sharp.
_ _ Major sounding right?
[Dm] Minor third?
_ _ _ Minor sounding of course.
Now if we
_ eliminate either of those thirds, major third or minor third, and replace it with either a [G] fourth _ _ _
[D] _ or a second. _ _ _ _
When we don't hear the major third or minor third our ears don't
react in a
_ _ happy or sad way.
I'm playing a Fender Strat going through a Fender Vibrolux [C] and
we're having fun with some pedals here.
I've got Alexander Oblivion for some vintage delay, Cattle and Bread Raw pedal for a high watt type [D] sound.
So the sus 2 shape that Gilmour uses in
this tune is
so _ we've got open D _
we have another [E] D, E the 2 [A]
and
A the 5th.
The arpeggio with our right hand is going to be like [D] this.
_ [G] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ So string wise we're [D] doing D G
_ [A]
B [Dm] G
_ E [A] B _ [Dm] G _ [Em] B _
[D] Same _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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shape _ up a full step.
So now we're at E sus 2
_ Still open D [D] string for a pedal. _
_ [Bm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ [E] Then we go to this shape, very cool chord.
[Bb] Shape is going to be on the G and B
strings 10th fret and 9th fret on the E string.
It's going to give us a D minor major 7.
_ Means minor chord with a minor third and a major 7 on top.
_ [D] So we've got 1 [Fm]
minor 3 [A] _ 5
_ major 7.
[Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ _ And [E] then arguably the only stable chord in the progression
G major.
[D] _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ _ And then it lands back on the first shape we did, [D] D sus 2.
_ [G] _
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_ [D] _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ _
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_ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ _ So that's the structure for the verses.
You'll hear in the song on some of these chords
he varies the rhythm a little bit, you know, especially on this one here.
Sometimes he does a
[Dm] _ _
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[G] _ So sometimes, [E] you know in very Gilmour fashion
_ ringing something out and leaving even more space than is already there before resolving to the next chord.
So experiment with that for sure.
A major takeaway from this lesson is
_ not only learning the tune but
_ exploring suspended chords _ as
[Bm] a songwriting tool and as a technique.
Explore those suspended chords.
We've got other David Gilmour lessons up on the site as well.
[Dm] Check them out and we'll see you next time. _ _ _
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