I will be playing live in Ginza Tokyo on July 17th as a member of the group Mellow Tonin’. Mellow Tonin’ consists of myself on the keys and beats. Also a rapper from L.A. by the name of Geno. We have both been living in Japan for a long time and have done various music […]
Live Show – July 17th Tokyo Read More »
As mentioned previously, I am working on a pack of easy to follow 60 second R&B / Neo Soul tutorial videos. These will hopefully be released sometime in June so do check back for updates. Also see below for the first sample video This is explaining how the 2-5-1 chord progression works. This is one
60 sec Tutorials Preview Read More »
I normally use my hardware for playing the keys, I use a Nord Electro 5D. However, for a change of sound I often like to use a VST. My favourite is definitely the Velvet 2 VST by AIR Music Technology. For such a cheap price it has five electric pianos each with seventy awesome presets.
Best Rhodes R&B VST Read More »
Soulful sounding bass notes Here is a very useful trick to make your bass compliment your chords. Normally if you play a chord e.g. C maj7 the bass would normally be a the root. this is perfectly okay but you can make the chord sound much deeper if you play the 9th key as the
FREE Easy R&B Chord Tutorials – Part 6 Read More »
Using Diminished Chords As a reminder, a diminished chord is the 3rd and the 5th flattened. So the D dmin would be D, F and Ab. Now if we add the seventh it would become Half dimished, D, F, Ab and C If we look at the chords again for a particular scale e.g. C
FREE Easy R&B Chord Tutorials – Part 5 Read More »
How to use Dominant 7#5 For this tutorial let’s look at a type of chord that is often used in R&B. The chord is a Dominant with a sharpened 5th. For example C7#5 would be the keys C, E, G# and A# as per the below diagram Simply by playing this chord you can instantly
FREE Easy R&B Chord Tutorials – Part 4 Read More »
Inversions You may have heard of inversions before however, how do you use them? And what role do they play in R&B music? What is a chord inversion? Well basically it is playing a chord with the root key in a different location (other than base). For example lets take a look at the chord
FREE Easy R&B Chord Tutorials – Part 3 Read More »
In Part 1 I explained that a more soulful sound can be achieved by borrowing chords. I discussed switching from Minor to Major and vice versa. Hoopefully you have experimented on various combinations. Some sound better than others, but it’s the trail and error part which is important. Using a 2-5-1 progression We can actually
FREE Easy R&B Chord Tutorials – Part 2 Read More »
Have you ever wanted to play R&B or Neo Soul Chords but never understood the theory. You will be glad to know there are simple ways or formula to explain R&B type chord progressions. Stay tuned for the FREE R&B Chord Tutorial updates. Borrowing Chords You may or may not know the seven chords in
FREE Easy R&B Chord Tutorials – Part 1 Read More »
The pack has been updated with five more sounds. It can be re-downloaded from the original link for those who have already purchased it. Do note that all sound are royalty free for use in your own productions.
Chords, Baseline and Melodies II – Update Read More »
