To me, at least.
Sorry, this question doesn't seem to fit another forum, so I'll ask it here. And it's probably a real newbie question. I think I have part of the answer, but I'm hoping someone can point me to a defining authority. Here it is, with some explanation:
I'm okay with reading charts where the chords are noted as such: C - F - Am - G7 - F#m7 and such. But some of the charts I have for worship songs I'm playing have a notation I'm not familiar with. For example, one piece has the following: A - Asus -A5 - A.
Now, I know that Asus is a suspended chord, but is it a suspended second, or a suspended fourth? Or, heaven forbid, a Asus2sus4? And what's this A5? Now, my handy-dandy chord finder suggests that this is a sequence:
A is, of course, the movable barre form, fretted2, fretted2, fretted2. I'm guessing the Asus is fretted2, fretted2, fretted3. I think the A5 is openA, fretted2, fretted2, and then back to A. At least it seems to work in context of the song.
But then we move on and I have D2 - A - Bm7 - E(4). D2? I'm guessing that's another suspended chord: open-.D, fretted2, fretted3, open-e. But what's with the E and a parenthetical 4? It's the only way E is represented throughout the song.
I can play the first sequence as a straight A chord, D2 as a straight D, and the E(4) as a straight E.
So what's with the weird notation?
(I learned using chart diagrams, so no interpretation was necessary).