Minor Seventh Vamps

Most funk and soul grooves are not progressions in the way a song is. They are vamps: two or three chords cycling for minutes, going nowhere on purpose.

That sounds like less to play. It is actually harder, because when the harmony stops moving, the only thing holding a listener's interest is what your right hand does. A vamp exposes a weak rhythm instantly.

The chord you will meet most is the minor seventh — darker than a plain minor triad, less final, happy to sit still for sixteen bars. Both charts below are the same grip at two different frets, which is the economy you want: one shape, twelve chords.

Em7

Em7 as a compact four-string voicing, up the neck. No open strings, and nothing below the D string.

Bm7

Bm7 — the identical grip, five frets lower. Same fingers, different chord.

This track vamps Em7 to Bm7 to Cmaj7 and stays there. Nothing surprising happens, which is the whole idea.

Give yourself a rule for each pass and stick to it. First pass: one pressed chord on beat 1, scratches for the rest of the bar. Second pass: move that pressed chord off beat 1 so it lands just after it — the chord arrives late and the bar suddenly has some lean to it. Third pass: two pressed hits a bar, neither of them on a downbeat.

The third one is where it starts to sound like a record.

Em7 to Bm7 to Cmaj7, indefinitely. Three passes, one rule each.