10 Best Neo Soul Chords _ RnB Piano Voicings Lesson

Hey , what's up guys ?

So today I'm gonna show you my 10 favorite voicings for playing neo soul or R and B on a roads .

And uh although unfortunately , I don't have a literal Rhodes here today .

Uh My nor 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 .

Um 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 35 , flat seven again , nine and on top the 11 and it's this pretty open , sound , open , rootless voicing right there .

So make sure to try that out .

And uh 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 .

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 and it's , this sound 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 ?

Um 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 in the altar scale gives us an interesting sound .

Very important note here , the 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 cause I actually love that sound .

Um 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 um going between the flat nine and the sharp nine to get that sound cool guys .

All right , guys , number eight is a major 69 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 10 and then we have the 69 , like I said , Major 69 cord and then there we have the five and on the very top major seven again , but it's a really pretty cord 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 .

Um I think sometimes clustered voicings as great as they are .

You have these active doubles and they can actually sometimes interfere more with something else going on .

So if you're playing behind like a horn player or a 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 , but we still have this little cluster section in the middle which just gives it a beautiful , beautiful coral timber .

I don't know if that's a term , but I , I went for it .

Um So from bottom to top , we've got 159 flat 10 , 11 flat seven and nine on 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 lang down in the bottom .

But this chord is a better solo keys .

Voicing , right guys .

So number six is a major nine chord .

It is a beauty , pretty simple voicing actually .

Um in the bottom , we've just got 151 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 Ebeg flat , A flat B and E flat .

All right guys , we just made it into the top five and I would be crazy if I didn't include a suss voicing in this video .

So we are looking at a G suss right now .

The notes from bottom to top are fa ce 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 base , we get that awesome G Sus sound .

Um And So in the key of G , we've got flat 79 sus four , the six , the root and the uh three right there or the 10 .

It's just a beautiful open sustained sound .

All right guys .

At number four , we've got a half diminished voicing that I really like .

Um we're gonna do this one of the key of D half diminished .

So this one is from bottom to top fa flat ce ng so um 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 , then we can go down to D five major chord .

OK .

Let's get to the next voicing .

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 Gef A flat B and E on top .

So that would be 16 or 13 , flat seven , flat 9 , uh 10 or three and 13 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 hm .

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 159 , 10 major seven and then sharp 11 on top and you can move that around , just get some really beautiful sounds with it .

All right guys , we have finally made it to number one .

And uh at first , this may seem a little anti climactic 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 7135 major seven .

Super simple chord .

Um In this case , G A flat ce flat and G .

So why do I love this Court so much ?

Well , because it doesn't necessarily have to be an A five major seven .

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 .

Awesome .

I love that sound .

Um Let's see what else it can be .

It could also be a , a B flat Sas .

Oh , there we go .

I just love , that's why I had to make the uh the 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 .

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 s um And just try things out and see what you can do with it , move it around in different intervals and uh I think you'll find some really beautiful uses for it .

All right 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 uh 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 .

Um As always guys , thank you so much for your support .

Um Make sure to click like if this content was useful for you and please click , subscribe and click the little bell so that 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 voicing in context .

Um I have a really cool neo soul package available .

Um It's called Styles 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 voice things that you just learned today .

So if you're interested , check out the link in the description .

All right guys .

Thank you so much and see you guys at the next video .