Why You Should Learn Neo Soul Styles

If you’ve been striving to find the secrets behind making your guitar lines sound more vocal, Neo-soul has the key. The genre is all about the emotive sound of the human voice which is often at the forefront of the style, taking on a role of an instrument. A vital part of the genre style is based around vocal harmonies and really harnessing their power to carry a whole song, often with very little accompaniment (ala D’angelo). What is awesome about the vocals taking such a lead role for us as guitar players, is that they are so easy to listen to, and listen you must.

Once we begin to listen and study Neo-soul vocals, we can start to understanding that a lot of what makes up this super soulful sounding approach is in the inflections and expression. We can then start to imitate these inflections using expressive techniques as simple as slides and vibrato as an addition to notes within the melody, later adding in harmony as we see fit. With this, we can quite often end up playing parts that have little hand movement and sound just the part for the genre. For example, in figure 1, I’ve taken the melody line from D’Angelo’s “Feel Like Makin Love” and built it up, adding the two ingredients in expressive techniques and simple harmony:

This example shows what we can harness that soulful sound, whilst playing a simple vocal melody and welcoming the addition of some easy to use expressive techniques, in order to make our guitar playing sound more vocal in its approach. We can build this up from pretty much any vocal line from any song within the genre - Neo-soul is gold dust library for improving the vocal-like quality of your playing. Furthermore, you could go as far to say that it’s the foundation for getting to understand the whole genre and its stylings. It’s there to study, so go make that guitar cry and sing!

Neo-soul is often characterised by the use of the guitar, or moreover; the distinct sounds of the chords and chord voicing played within the Neo-soul rhythm guitar style. It’s a fantastic genre for expanding your chordal knowledge and even a great introduction to the world of jazz harmony. These chords can often sound a little more sophisticated but don’t let that overwhelm you as more often than not, triads are going to sound just right for coming up with guitar parts in this style. Though, the chords are you are going to run into and certainly need to use to get that authentic sound and feel are going to be extended chords, shell chords, altered chords (diminished & augmented). Neo Soul chords tend to extend past the complete triad of a chord, adding further chordal harmony within and outside the scale's octave. From there we’re going to need to learn about:

• Close voiced triads (all notes are as close together with octave as possible)
• Open voiced triads (raise the middle note of the triad by an octave)
• Shell voiced triads (omits the 5th in exchange for the 7th, 9th, 11th, or 13th voicing whilst leaving the root and 3rd of the chord)

We also have some 4 note chord voicings we must look out for in the form of:

• Drop 2 Voicings (four notes played, drop the second note an octave)
• Drop 3 Voicings (four notes played, drop the third note an octave)

All of these elements play pivotal role in creating that authenticity and though, it can take some time to get your head around, learning the chord theory behind the genre will surely propel your chord knowledge to new heights. Try the exercise in figure 2 to get you started on putting these elements into practice.

Here, we are in the key of D major and playing over a ii, V, i progression, highlighting the chords using close voiced and shell voiced triads, helping us to get familiar with the triad movements we can expect when playing over a chord progression familiar with the genre. Once you’ve got it down, why not come up with different triad formations using the same chords and see what you come up with? It can seem daunting but with a little practical application, it will start to feel like something you gravitate towards when comping R&B style rhythm guitar parts.

With its influences pulling from the likes of Jazz, it’s safe to say there is free rein to improvise and experiment when getting to know this genre. Many of the classic Neo-soul songs have a very live sound to them, favouring the communication of the human experience within the music, delivering something that feels loose yet planned in its presentation. This, coupled with its time feel roots lending from Hip-hop and R&B, generally offer up a super open and rhythmic canvas for which to expressively improvise within.

It’s a genre that gets you feeling the rhythm, which can be sometimes torn between straight and swung, as well as dragged and pushed; forcing you to think differently about the way in which you rhythmically approach your playing. If you’ve been feeling that your improvising has been getting a little note-heavy, it’s definitely a genre which will get you to appreciate the less is more cliche. Think more ‘how can I play this simple part as groovy as possible’ and less how many notes can I cram into this section.’

Due to the fusion of its genre influences, Neo-soul will help you on your way to becoming a more cultured and versatile musician. Whether it be it vastly improves your rhythm guitar playing, makes you write better songs, or simply better understand chordal theory and harmony interaction; this genre has so many elements from other genres that you’re learning about them sometimes without even realising.

You will definitely open musical doors embedded with then genre’s DNA and is, in my opinion, a style that every guitarist can take something from.