10 Neo Soul Chords: Advanced Piano Voicings for RnB

[00:00:01]foreign [Music] hey what's up guys so today I am going to show you my 10 favorite voicings for playing neo soul or r b on a Rhodes and although unfortunately I don't have a literal roads here today minora does a pretty good job let's dive into it here are my 10 favorite neo soul voicings all right guys coming in at number 10 is one of my favorite minor voicings technically it's a minor 11 chord but uh honestly I think whenever you see the chord symbol minor seven this can actually still be really useful so let's break this down really quick I'm using G minor to demonstrate this so from bottom to top we've got flat seven flat three five flat seven again nine and on top the eleven and it's this pretty open Sound open rootless voicing right there so make sure to try that out and if you do try it out let me know in the comments because I would love to hear if you guys are having fun with this all right guys number nine is an altered chord [Music] so in this case we are looking at C altered for those of you that don't know the altered scale it goes like this foreign [Music] altered voicings are super useful on dominant chords um I think especially when you're really turning around into for example a minor one so in this case we're doing C altered going to F minor right so let's take a look at this voicing and break it down we have got on the bottom flat seven sharp nine and major three so that's really interesting right this half step we have here and the altar scale gives us an interesting sound very important note here this sharp five then the flat seven then the flat nine and finally again the sharp nine so really quick guys I want to just point out that I am using voicings that have some clustered enclosures because I actually love that sound these are some of my favorite voicings for a reason um so here we've got right we've got an octave double of the sharp nine which for me is an important note in this voicing and also for the style to get it stylistically it's kind of fun to roll those top notes so we can use our fourth finger and the pinky on top going between the flat nine and the sharp nine to get the time [Music] cool guys all right guys number eight is a major six nine chord and unlike our last couple voicings rather than that clustered sound it's very open sounding so we are in the key of B major here and from bottom to top we have the major seven the ten and then we have the six nine like I said major six nine chord and then there we have the five and on the very top major seven again but it's a really pretty chord and also it's pretty fun and easy to move around right we can do it's pretty nice so I love using this in a context when you want that open sound that kind of takes up a lot of the frequency spectrum I think sometimes clustered voicings as great as they are you have these octave doubles and they can actually sometimes interfere more with something else going on so if you're playing behind like a horn player or vocalist sometimes that open sound is really beautiful especially when we're talking about rootless voicings all right guys so number seven is one of my favorite voicings this is going back to another minor 11 chord but this time we've got the root on the bottom and it's a more open Sound we still have this little clustery section in the middle which just gives it a beautiful beautiful chordal Timbre I don't know if that's a term but I I went for it um so from bottom to top we've got one five nine flat 10 11 flat seven and nine a Top Again so we double that nine still and it's beautiful beautiful sound so this is great if you're actually playing by yourself or it's just you and a vocalist for example but it's less um rootless than the other the other chords we've done were rootless so they're great for you know playing with a band when you've got a Bass length down in the bottom but this chord is a better solo Keys voicing laughs [Music] all right guys so number six is a major nine chord it is a beauty [Music] pretty simple voicing actually in the bottom we've just got one five one holding down the low end and giving us that beautiful foundation and then in the right hand we've got 9 10 5 and major seven really pretty voicing very classic standard but one of my favorites and we are in the key of E currently so we've got e b e g flat A flat B and E flat [Laughter] [Music] all right guys we just made it into the top five and I would be crazy if I didn't include a sus voicing in this video so we are looking at a gsus right now the notes from bottom to top are f a c e g and B some of you guys may have noticed that this is actually an F major seven sharp 11 chord right here um with a nine of course as well but when you put the G in the bass we get that awesome G sus sound and so in the key of G we've got flat seven nine sus4 the six the root and the uh three right there or the ten just a beautiful open sustained sound [Music] all right guys at number four we've got a half diminished voicing that I really like um we're gonna do this one in the key of D half diminished so this one is from bottom to top f a flat c e and G [Music] so we've got from bottom to top we've got flat third flat fifth of course we need that flat five for the half diminished sound then we got a flat seven a nine and an 11. so it's actually D half diminished 11. it's a really beautiful sound when you add that 11 in there [Music] foreign chord okay let's get to the next voicing [Music] all right guys coming in at the top three we have got a dominant chord with a flat nine I love this sound we're in the key of G again so from bottom to top we've got G E F A flat B and E on top so that would be 1 6 or 13 flat seven flat nine uh ten or three and thirteen on top beautiful sound right but now part of why this voicing made the top three for me is because of how versatile it is um it can actually also be a diminished major chord in the key of f hmm we can resolve to F major right but it can also be used in the key of E and it becomes an e dominant seven with a flat nine so this chord is awesome I love this chord very versatile that's why it's number three for me all right guys coming in at number two is this crazy major sharp 11 chord um I love it it's super open sounding and it's all built on fifths from bottom to top in the key of G flat we've got g flat d flat A flat B flat F and C on top so by degree we've got 1 5 9 10 major 7 and then sharp 11 on top foreign you can move that around just get some really beautiful sounds with it [Music] all right guys we have finally made it to number one and uh at first this may seem a little anticlimactic to you I will admit but believe me there's a reason I chose this voicing as number one and let me just show it to you first really quick I almost even hesitate to say what it is the reason being it is so useful for so many things but let's just for now call it an A flat major seven here so just a major seven voicing right with that cluster at the bottom that doubles the octave which is the major seven so in the key of a flat we've got major seven one three five major seven super simple chord um in this case g a flat c e flat and G so why do I love this chord so much well because it doesn't necessarily have to be an A flat major 7 it could also be an F minor nine beautiful it also sounds amazing when you move it around in different intervals so let's move it up in minor thirds [Laughter] [Music] awesome I love that sound let's see what else it can be it could also be uh a B flat sus there we go I just love sus that's why I had to make the the Wu sound right there um so the point being this voicing is so useful on top of that you can do these little flicks because I love that doubling at the Active [Laughter] [Music] so yeah guys when you try out this voicing try it out in all the different potential ways it could be useful don't just think of it as a major seven voicing think of it as the other things it can be too A minor nine a sus and just try things out and see what you can do with it move it around in different intervals and I think you'll find some really beautiful uses for it alright guys hope you enjoyed those voicings and hope you guys are gonna go check them out practice them and use them when you're playing your own gigs and feel free to always comment and leave any questions or uh make sure to comment too let me know if you're trying out some of these voicings as always guys thank you so much for your support make sure to click like if this content was useful for you and please click subscribe and click the little bell so you guys do not miss any more videos just like this one also really quickly if you guys actually want to jam out and try some of these voicings in context I have a really cool Neo Soul package available it's called Jazz Style's Neo Soul the links in my description it's got 21 Neo Soul progressions with this awesome drummer buddy of mine Corey Fonville playing drums so you guys can jam with him um with me and um practice out all these voicings that you just learned today so if you're interested check out the link in the description alright guys thank you so much and see you guys at the next video