Piano improvisation using soulful chord progressions

If you listen to Neo Soul artists like D'angelo, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Dwele, etc. Most of their music contains a lot of complex, deep tension filled chords patterns. If may be difficult to work out a lot of their chords alone, put improvising on the e flat scale we can play the piano to get similar results.

The keys I like to improvise on are the following:

D#, F, G, G#, A#, C, C#

You'll notice that it's not a normal D# scale, I prefer to use a C# instead of a D. It sounds more soulful. If you play it you'll understand. I am not a pro player but this scale is very easy on the fingers and you can trick people into believing you are a pro if you practice the scales. B and one or two other keys can be used as "passing" notes if you want to spice things up. This is a very natural chord to improvise on in terms of finger positioning.

As with Jazzy Neo soul, the best chords to use are 7th's and 9th's. E.g. Try the Fm9 / Dm9 / Cmaj9 - Sounds nice doesn't it.

Using the correct chords for the scales we have:

1. D#min9 (The minor sounds more soulfull here)

2. Fmin9 or 7

3. Gmaj9

4. G#min9 or G# dom

5. A#min9

6. Cmin9 or 7

7. C#Maj9 or 7

The above do not follow the chords theory exactly but following the typical theory can often leave you with a bland unoriginal piece of music. I have adjusted the chords to create a lot of tension for deep soul music.

Try to play the piano combining the above chords with the scale I mentioned earlier and can sound very impressive once you get the fingering speed.

9th chords are probably impossible for most people to play with one hand so invert the 9th and bring it down one octave so that its to the root key. This actualy gives more of a deeper gospel type sound than playing the 9th which both hands.

Using the above chords you should be able to play along with a lot of Neo soul artists. Especially Jill Scott - Layzel in Eb.