What are some Good Starter chords for Slow Jamz/80-90's R&B?

When it comes to neo-soul, R&B, funk, jazz and gospel, our good friend, the Minor 9th chord is a great place to start. He has some close friends, which would be the Dominant 7th flat 9th chord, or the Dominant 7th sharp 9th chord (the Hendrix chord for any guitar players).

I skipped around in the video here but found some traditional R&B progressions. The one at the 5:00 minute mark sounds like Fmajor7, Edominant7th(sharp 9th or flat 9th) to either an Aminor7th or a Dminor9th, could be both. That may not be the exact key, I don't have my guitar next to me to tune it to the song to be sure.

Here is a progression for ya:

Sequence Dminor9th, Gminor7th, and then a Cdominant7th,Flat9th chord. You make up the bars/rhythm of those chords, but use those ones. The last chord should just be thrown in rhythmically, like that ugly augmented chord in the "Anytime" Janet Jackson riff well all know and love.

If you are using any DAW with a chord menu option, that will give you a good, proper voicing to start, but you can make these chords sound fuller and fatter themselves by spacing out the notes so that more octaves are heard. Try to hit up YouTube with a search like "Bill Evans Chord voicings" or even "minor 9th chord voicing jazz piano chord". Or like I said, just edit the notes in the grid to make it look like the chord was played with two hands.

Let me know if that's helpful, and if you want the exact notes for these chords go to the "look no hands" "chord house" website they have a tool that can help.

Good luck!
 
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