Simon Pratt - The Neo-Soul Guitar Method: A Complete Guide to Neo-Soul Guitar Style and Technique

As a genre of popular music, Neo-Soul emerged in the late 1990s and was pioneered by artists such as DAngelo, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill and many more. The phrase Neo-Soul was coined by Kedar Massenburg of Motown Records, in order to distinguish the style from more conventional Soul and RnB.

When we discovered Neo-Soul we instantly fell in love. The combination of Gospel, RnB, Funk, Jazz and Hip-Hop, seamlessly blended all our favourite styles of guitar playing into one glorious sound. Now, several years on, being asked to write a book on the subject is a true honour.

In this book we will look at the important techniques, approaches and concepts that make up modern Neo-Soul guitar style, and break them down for you into a journey of over 100 musical examples, exercises and songs.

Were honoured to have worked with Mark Lettieri of the band Snarky Puppy for this book. Marks style is infused with the influence of artists such as Spanky Alford, Jubu, Jonathan Dubose and Curtis Mayfield, to name a few, and we are thrilled that he has written two exclusive pieces for this book that you can learn in full. Not only that, Mark has recorded videos for each one so you can jam along with him.

If youve not heard much Neo-Soul before, its essential to get its sound in your ears by doing some serious listening. By all means check out the artists weve mentioned thus far in order to understand where this music has come from, but in this book we are going to be referencing the guitarists we love who are the current torch bearers of the Neo-Soul flame. These are the players who are currently taking the genre to new places:

• Todd Pritchard
• Kerry 2Smooth Marshall
• Landon Jordan
• Magnus Klausen
• Beau Diakowicz
• Isaiah Sharkey
• Curt Henderson
• Justus West

If you want to hear just three tracks that really capture todays Neo-Soul guitar sound, make sure to check out Montreal by Mark Lettieri, Movie by Tom Misch, and Nakamarra by Hiatus Kaiyote. This is Neo-Soul with a contemporary twist.

These tracks will lead you down a rabbit hole of musical discovery and get you well versed in the stylistic approaches of the genre. There are plenty of playlists on YouTube and time spent listening will massively improve your knowledge and understanding of Neo-Soul, and hopefully inspire you to give your all to the lessons in this book. Plus, its fun and funky so youll have a great time. You can thank us later!

This book is divided into two parts, the first dives straight in and breaks down the technical, chordal and single note approaches used by the greatest Neo-Soul players and condenses them into musical examples that you can use right away. When you apply these techniques to your own chord sequences and riffs, youll quickly find your own unique style on the guitar.

All the techniques are taught around actual chord progressions you can use in your music instantly, so please feel free to steal our ideas.

The second part of this book begins in Chapter Seven and consists of four original Neo-Soul guitar tunes that have been specially commissioned for this book. Two pieces are by Mark Lettieri, along with a couple of pieces from us (Simon and Kristof). These tunes are designed to build your performance skills and teach you more musical applications of the techniques in Part One.

If youre new to Neo-Soul, we recommend that you work your way through this book from start to finish, so that you learn and develop the techniques in a logical fashion. If youve been playing Neo-Soul for a while and are just looking for some fresh ideas, feel free to jump in anywhere you like!

We believe in the value of having a jam buddy or a band to practise with, but fully understand this isnt possible for everyone. To help, we have included drum tracks and backing tracks to make the process of learning Neo-Soul as practical as possible. Refer to the end of the book, just before the conclusion, for more details on how to use these tracks.

Our hope for this book is that it will give you valuable tools to develop your Neo-Soul guitar skills or bust out of any ruts you may be in. It will definitely provide new challenges and insight as you seek to improve your playing.

Its also worth pointing out that, although highly suited to electric guitar playing, Neo-Soul also works well on acoustic guitar. we trust that youll enjoy the book and expand your playing skills.

Happy Playing!

Simon and Kristof