Suspensions and Anticipations

The passing and neighbor tones of the previous lesson were decorations that completed themselves inside one chord, returning to a chord tone before the harmony moved.

The two in this lesson do not. Both straddle the boundary between chords. Either a note from one chord spills into the next chord’s time, or a note from the next chord spills backward into the current one. They displace time in opposite directions.

Suspension — refusing to let go

A note that is a member of the previous chord, held across the change, and resolved down by step is a suspension.

A suspension has three stages, and having all three is what defines it.

Stage	What happens
Preparation	the note sounds as a chord tone in the previous chord
Suspension	the harmony changes and the note stays put (this is where it becomes dissonant)
Resolution	it falls by step onto a member of the new chord

Look at the middle chord. The bass has moved to C while the soprano is still on F. C up to F is a perfect 4th, and that is an interval treated as dissonant here — the principle from Unit 1 that a perfect 4th above the bass behaves as a dissonance in functional harmony is doing the work.

When the F then falls to E, the interval above C becomes a major 3rd and settles into consonance. Because the interval measured from the bass moves from a fourth to a third, the figure is a 4-3 suspension.

With and without the suspension

▶No suspension▶4-3 suspension

Check: Both move from IV to I. The first sounds I outright, so it is already settled the moment the harmony changes. In the second, only the soprano lags behind, leaning on the second beat before resolving. That lean is the suspension. The chord names are unchanged.

IV → I, settling at once

The figures measure from the bass

The 4 and the 3 in “4-3” are the interval from the bass to the suspended note and the interval from the bass to its resolution. It is the same thinking as figured bass: everything is measured from the bass.

Three shapes account for most cases.

Name	Suspension	Resolution	Example (bass on C)
4-3	a fourth above the bass	a third above	F to E
9-8	a ninth above	an octave above	D to C
7-6	a seventh above	a sixth above	B to A

The 9 in “9-8” shares a letter name with a second, but it is written as a ninth because it is used an octave apart in practice. Left adjacent as an actual second, the clash is too harsh.

Check

Why does a suspension require preparation?

Without it the note would not soundPreparation tells the ear that the note was a legitimate chord tone in the previous chordWithout it the note cannot resolveIt cannot be notated otherwise

Check answer

Anticipation — arriving before the chord does

A note that is a member of the coming chord, sounded before the harmony changes, and carried into it is an anticipation.

Where a suspension refuses to release the previous note, an anticipation puts the next note out early. It also straddles two chords, but the overhang points the other way.

Anticipations turn up constantly just before a cadence. Sounding the final tonic a beat early means the melody has already landed by the time the harmony arrives, which lightens the arrival. The popular-music habit of ending a vocal phrase just ahead of the barline is an application of the same device.

Suspension beside anticipation

▶Suspension (late)▶Anticipation (early)

Check: In the first, the earlier note lingers and leans on the second beat before resolving. In the second, the coming note arrives early and has already landed before the harmony changes. Both are V to I, but running late and running early give the ending opposite characters — the first heavy, the second light.

9-8. The soprano lands late

Suspensions can be chained

The resolution of a suspension can double as the preparation for the next one. The resolved note remains as a chord tone, the harmony changes again, and it becomes dissonant once more. Repeat and the suspensions link into a chain.

Chained suspensions were a staple of Baroque slow movements. Because every resolution starts the next dissonance, the music never quite settles and a long descending line can be sustained. The sense that Pachelbel’s Canon simply keeps unfolding comes partly from this mechanism.

The trick when writing them is to move the bass regularly and delay the upper voices by one beat. Shifting the upper parts slightly behind where they “should” be produces the chain on its own.

The tie is what decides the classification

A caution is needed here. Suspensions and anticipations cannot be told apart from the notes alone.

Both can take the form of one note sounding twice with a chord change in the middle. What separates them is which chord the note belonged to.

• a member of the previous chord → dragging behind → suspension
• a member of the coming chord → running ahead → anticipation

In notation, a suspension is tied to the note before it. A tie means “held rather than restruck,” so the presence of a preparation is visible on the page. Pressing the tie control in this unit’s tool flips the classification to suspension for exactly this reason.

Check

A note sounds across two chords. It is a member of the earlier chord but not of the later one. What is it called?

anticipationpassing tonesuspensionescape tone

Check answer

▶ Switch between suspension and anticipation in the labeling tool Load the suspension example, then remove the tie on the second note. Once the preparation stops being registered, the classification changes Nonchord Tone Lab →

Suspensions and anticipations are ways of introducing a discrepancy in time between melody and harmony. The next lesson covers non-chord tones that involve neither stepwise motion nor holding, but a leap. Once leaps are involved the tension arrives abruptly, and the melodic profile becomes considerably more vivid.