Neo soul chord progressions are often simple progressions, like a ii-V-I or a I-vi-ii-V, played with lush colors on top: 9ths, 13ths, altered tensions, inversions and passing chords. The basic progression stays underneath, and the colors are there to embellish it. Each progression in this lesson shows a different device for doing that.
One of my biggest mistakes with music and learning guitar was that I was really concerned, maybe slightly obsessed, with knowing everything: all the scales, all the shapes, all the chords. But the true learning comes also from creation. So in this lesson I play five progressions with the big sounds we associate with lofi hip-hop and neo soul, and we look at what’s happening in each one and why it sounds cool.
Progression 1: how do you make a ii-V-I sound neo soul?
Play the same chords with richer shapes and a melody on top. The chords here are just G minor, C, F and D, but I’m playing different shapes for each one.
- G minor 7 9. A shape I like. You can also play just a couple of its notes and it’s going to totally work, but it’s very nice to hear a big chord sometimes.
- C7 flat 13 flat 9. Don’t be scared by the name. It’s a C dominant chord with altered tensions on top, played as an inversion, so you hear it against the C like a color pad.
- F major 7. Simply a shell chord, with the 6 added.
- F sharp diminished 7 instead of D7. I’m using the 7th degree as a secondary dominant, leading back to the G minor. It gives a kind of darker sound I really like.
Why does the F sharp diminished work in place of D7? Both lead back to G minor. D7 is the V of G minor, and F sharp is the leading tone of G minor, a half step below G. In fact F sharp diminished 7 (F sharp, A, C, E flat) has the same notes as a D7 flat 9 without the D. If you take an F sharp diminished and slide it up a tone and a half, you get its inversion, the same chord again.
Pay attention to the melody on top, because that’s something that makes a lot of things click. The second time through, I go to an F major 7 9, which I love, it’s a really beautiful shape, and then a little lick from D minor pentatonic. D minor pentatonic has the same notes as F major pentatonic, so it fits right over the F.
A really big deal is hearing what we’re playing, and one way is singing it. Sing the bass and pay attention. Sometimes I literally say to myself, internally or out loud, this sounds so cool. Verbalizing it is how I’m memorizing and tagging the information.
Progression 2: what happens when you keep one note on top?
You hear the colors change against it. One of my favorite things to do is to take the top note and reharmonize it with different chords.
It’s so beautiful because you can hear how the tension and release happens, while you have that constant note on top, a D in this progression. One of the chords under it is a G major 7, or G major 7 9 over B. You can take anything and try to see what you hear. The only thing you need is to know some shapes. For a step-by-step version of this idea, the neo soul guitar chords lesson builds a whole loop from one note on top.
What I would recommend is learning them and then creating right away, taking the information from the lab into the playground.
Rotem Sivan
Progression 3: how do chromatic chords and tritone subs work?
Pick a target chord and play chords a half step away that slide into it. It’s a super simple device. The chromatic chord is, quote unquote, wrong, but I only touch it slightly on the way to my destination.
The whole progression is C major 7, A minor, D7 and G7. What I actually play is this:
- C major 7. Home.
- B minor, then B flat minor. Passing chords. My target is A minor, so these two just walk down to it. The B flat minor can take a 9 too, which is kind of fun.
- A minor. The target.
- D7. As written.
- D flat 7 9 instead of G7. A chromatic chord, and also a tritone substitution.
Why can I play D flat 7 instead of G7? The most important notes in a chord are the 3 and the 7. G7’s 3rd is B and its 7th is F. D flat 7 has the same two notes, F as its 3rd and B (spelled C flat) as its 7th. They stay intact, they just flip function, and only the bass changes. It’s definitely a different chord, but this is why we call it a substitution.
Then you can add more approaches, like E flat to D to D flat. This is a train of thought I use when I’m improvising and when I’m finding harmonic progressions: target the points I’m interested in and create some motion toward them. The ii-V-I guitar lesson puts tritone subs to work in ii-V-I lines too.
Progression 4: what’s a I-vi-ii-V in neo soul?
It’s E major 7, C sharp minor, F sharp minor 7 and B7 in the key of E, and what makes it work is a little melody on top. I’m thinking melodically, so the chords and the melody are really interconnected.
The second part goes somewhere new. It’s a ii-V, B minor 7 to E7 9, landing on A major 7 in first inversion with a 9. Then an A minor 6, a barre chord from the minor side. We’re in E major, so there’s no A minor in the key, but I’m borrowing it from the E minor realm, and I get this beautiful tension from it.
We want to make sure we’re hearing and understanding and feeling the tension and release here. When you sing something, you start feeling it and understanding it, instead of being confused about what’s going on. A lot of this is actually super simple, but it’s very specific.
Progression 5: how do secondary dominants work?
A secondary dominant is a chord that leads to a chord in the key other than the I, like a V of the ii. This last progression, in D major, uses a lot of chords on purpose, so a few very important devices show up.
- A7 sus4. The V of D major. You can also see it as G major over A, but it’s really A sus.
- C sharp minor. Kind of a weird, surprising chord to go to on the way to D.
- D sharp diminished. A leading 7th chord to the ii, E minor.
- 13 to flat 13. Watching the tension and color move inside a dominant chord.
It’s a lot of chords, I’m aware, but what’s important here is to see the idea of the secondary dominants. If you write something like this, you can also take one small chunk of it. You could literally play just the first four chords and loop them.
A neo soul progression exercise for today
The game in music, I feel, and with guitar, is to take small chunks, mini songs almost, and really internalize them. So pick one progression from this lesson and write it down as numbers, like 1, 6, 2, 5. Play it in time and sing the bass. Then play it in a different key, and then with different voicings. With different shapes, it will still be the same progression.
If you want the shapes behind these sounds, Lofi Guitar Masterclass covers the lush chords and layered loops behind lofi and neo-soul guitar, including the major 7, minor 7, dominant and diminished shapes that show up again and again. And Jazz Chord Essentials rebuilds your chords from the ground up: how a 7th chord is built, the four main colors and every inversion on the 4th, 5th and 6th string sets.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a chord progression sound neo soul?
Often it’s a simple progression underneath, like a I-vi-ii-V, with lush colors on top: 9ths, 13ths, altered dominants, inversions, a melody on the top note and passing chords. The colors are there to embellish the basic progression.
Can you use a diminished chord instead of a dominant chord?
Yes. In the first progression, F sharp diminished replaces D7 and leads back to G minor. F sharp is the leading tone of G minor, and F sharp diminished 7 has the same notes as D7 flat 9 without its root. It gives a darker sound.
What’s a chromatic passing chord?
It’s a chord a half step away from the chord you’re going to, used on the way there. Going from C major 7 to A minor, you can play B minor and B flat minor in between, so they slide down into A minor.
Why does a tritone substitution work?
Because the 3rd and 7th stay. G7 and D flat 7 share F and B, the two most important notes, with their functions flipped. Only the bass changes, so D flat 7 can stand in for G7 on the way to C.
Take one of these five progressions, loop a small chunk of it, and start making something of your own with it today.
