How To Steal The Genius of Stevie Wonder

[00:00:00]If you want more soul, gospel, and R&B in your guitar playing, there's no better teacher than the legend himself, Stevie Wonder. You might be thinking, "Okay, Stevie wasn't a guitarist." But trust me, you're not going to believe how his approach to the piano translates so well to the guitar. So, in this video, I'm going to break down five secrets that I pulled from the last 20 years of studying this guy's music.

[00:00:23]Tabs, there's going to be chord charts, fretboard diagrams. If you want to learn this from me in particular, there's a link in the description to check out my system. Let's get into it. Here's one of Steviey's signature secrets that I've picked up from his technique of what I like to call moving triads. So, instead of relying on big complicated chord shapes, what he would do is he would take simple major and minor triads in the key and he would move them around over the same bass note or group. And those triads, as they shift, the harmony takes on a completely new color. It's a huge part of the sound on songs like I Wish.

[00:01:01]Check it out.

[00:01:15]looking.

[00:01:18]The song's in the key of G flat, but he's starting on the six chord and he's using those triads from the key and sort of moving them around over the six chord. So what's interesting about just like a minor 7 chord is there's actually the major one just buried as a triad underneath the bass note.

[00:01:42]So you can move these triads under each chord. Listen.

[00:01:49]Same here on the next chord. We go to this A flat dominant.

[00:01:55]Right? So the whole example would be like this.

[00:02:21]So, you see how I'm just kind of like moving those dancing triads around? It just gives it that groove and it keeps that momentum. So the lesson here is you don't always have to think in these big kind of stagnant chord shapes. You can actually start breaking up these chords in unique and interesting ways and use these small movable triads.

[00:02:46]Then once you learn how to isolate them, let the melody kind of guide the movement and connect them more creatively, the fretboard really starts to open up in a completely different way. So triads are just a huge part of my system I teach because they really help you understand harmony instead of just memorizing shape. The next secret is the jazz gospel chords that Stevie used. So he borrowed these rich gospel voicings, a lot of jazz like 251 progressions, passing chords, colorful tensions, and had voice leading in his piano playing, but somehow turned them into songs where the type of harmony didn't feel forced. It felt natural and incredibly catchy for pop tunes. That's one of Steviey's greatest gifts. He could take incredibly sophisticated harmony and make it simple and emotional. So, we're going to start with a gospel voicing that Stevie used a lot, the minor 7 sharp five chord.

[00:03:41]Normally minors are played like this.

[00:03:44]But what he does is he takes the fifth of the chord and he sharps it. And it kind of gives it this uplifting and brighter feeling than a normal minor chord. And he uses this in a ton of tunes. But a classic example is in his song overjoyed. Check it out.

[00:04:07]>> Right here.

[00:04:12]in my dreams.

[00:04:14]>> Such a good tune. So even though he's walking down from that four chord, right? He's like then it's still uplifting when he goes to this minor 7 sharp five.

[00:04:31]Right? And so again, normally the minor chords are played like this, but he's sharpening that five. And it just sounds so much more uplifting. So check it out.

[00:04:43]Here's the full melody with the chords.

[00:04:55]Up a whole step.

[00:05:09]So here are the chords slowed down. So he starts on this major 7, then goes to a major 6. Same chord, just a different voicing. Then here's that minor 7 sharp five.

[00:05:28]Now a little kind of 251 sound.

[00:05:32]Now he modulates up a whole step.

[00:05:37]Same chords.

[00:05:39]Now down a half step, little 25 suspended.

[00:05:49]The next chords that CV uses a lot are suspensions. Now, if you've watched our breakdowns on Silk Sonic and other soul artists, we've talked a lot about the sus chords, you can play them to substitute out for typical major or dominant chords, which are typically on the five of a given key. So, he uses this on Isn't She Lovely. Check it out.

[00:06:14]>> Isn't she lovely?

[00:06:18]Isn't she love?

[00:06:23]She passes less than one minute.

[00:06:31]>> And I actually love this sus chord so much that I actually took it and put it on the intro. I did something like this.

[00:06:36]It was like So right there on the five to the one. You can also use sus chords to sub out for minor chords too. But in this particular instance, it's used to sub out as a dominant chord. and it just sounds bright and gives a beautiful lift before resolving back to that one.

[00:07:24]Stevie uses another voicing, what I like to call gospel tension voicings. Here's an example of him using it in a song called You and I. Check it out.

[00:07:44]Here we are on earth.

[00:07:55]>> When I hear this type of tension, it creates like a feeling of longing and warmth and emotional tension and adds kind of a bittersweet color that makes the harmony feel really deep before resolving back home. And it's one of those sounds that instantly gives a progression, a soulful, almost spiritual quality to it. So, here's like a chord melody version of the song. Check it out.

[00:08:34]So what's happening here is we're starting on the one chorus, but we're doing this really interesting major 7th voicing, then doing another suspension with an add four, add six, and then moving to this minor 4 sound. And to me, what they're doing is they're kind of borrowing from the chord scale up a minor third.

[00:08:56]And in this case, we're in the key of F sharp. We're going to move up a minor third to A. So, it's borrowing from all the chords essentially in the key of A.

[00:09:05]And in this case, we're just kind of borrowing from that one triad in the key of A, right? You could say it's like the two chord of the A. So again, listen one more time. We got this. Then we got the added sus. And then now instead of doing that minor four sound, right, we got this two and we're making it a half diminished. So it's all kind of that same sound, the minor 4, the two, making it diminished. Or you can even take a flat 6 off this main key. 1 2 3 4 5 flat 6.

[00:09:44]Notice they all have this one triad in it. So, it's all that kind of like longing and that really deep spiritual gospel sound. Again, it's just that four chord, the two half diminished or that flat 6 major 6. In a lot of Steviey's funkier tunes, he uses a voicing called the dominant sharp nine.

[00:10:04]It combines the tension of a dominant chord, which is normally voiced like this, and you got that major third, but in this chord, it takes the emotional color of the minor third. So, it gives it that kind of bluesy, gritty, soulful, funky sound. Here's an example of it being used in a track called Higher Ground. Check it out.

[00:10:28]Just rocking. people keep on learning soldiers.

[00:10:40]So the opening riff is just built around that E flat 7 chord and you can just use an E flat minor pentatonic over that. But Stevie adds that sharp nine and that single note again just adds that tension and makes the rhythm feel alive.

[00:11:12]The takeaway lesson for this is start introducing color chords, right? Those dominant sharp nines, those minor 7 sharp fives, maybe some of those suspension chords.

[00:11:24]substitute them out for simpler chords and try to sprinkle them in more familiar progressions. You don't necessarily need to use them all the time. Just try to tastefully use them and it can completely transform the emotional impact of a song and make you sound more mature as a musician. If you really want to understand these and use these chords and understand why these chords work, I highly recommend learning the number system on a deep level. Once you understand chord functions and chord scales, you'll be able to apply these chords in unique and interesting ways around the fretboard in any key and write progressions that sound much more expressive. If you want to learn this from me in particular, there's a link in the description to check out my system.

[00:12:07]Another technique Stevie used all the time was called the pedal tone technique. He'd hold one note or bass note constant while the chords underneath it shifted and changed. And that single note acts like an anchor.

[00:12:21]Then he combined it with the chromatic movement moving the surrounding voicings by half steps. And that creates the incredible sense of tension and motion and release without the harmony ever feeling disconnected. He does it in a song called Golden Lady. Check it out. known before.

[00:12:41]I'll leave it up to you to show it to her. And golden lady, golden lady, I'd like to go there.

[00:12:56]Golden lady, golden lady, I'd like to go there.

[00:13:04]Take me right away.

[00:13:07]So what he's doing is he's just hanging on on this G minor chord. So we're in the key of B flat. It's on the six chord and he's just dropping that midvoicing down chromatically.

[00:13:19]Right now it's a major minor 7 down to a minor 7 then a minor six chord. It's the same chord technically. He's just moving that chromatic voicing down and it just changes the quality of the chord. Then he's moving up a half step to that flat 7 major 7 which is super hip. And this is actually used in a lot of uh modern R&B chord progressions.

[00:13:48]So here's the melody.

[00:14:24]So again, that chromaticism just gives that falling motion down to that major 7 up a half step. It's such a nice touch. Here's another example of that chromaticism in a song called Mr. Knowit All. Check it out. He's a man with a plan dollar.

[00:14:54]So, he's got this repetitive melody that's consistently landing on the third of that major. So he's just playing that melody over and over again, and he's always changing the quality of the chord down a half step. So it's major, major 7, dominant 7, and then we go to that gospel tension that we talked about in the last section. One more time.

[00:15:35]One more example of this pedal tone drop is in his song called Overjoyed. Check it out.

[00:15:53]>> In this example, he flipped it. The highest tone is being the pedal while the bass notes and the chords move down chromatically. So we're starting here, right? So before the bass notes were taking over. Now the pedal tone is in that higher tone. So, we're starting on this major 6 chord, then going down a half step to a dominant, and then we're doing that major 7 chord.

[00:16:27]Super hip.

[00:16:40]The takeaway lesson here is you can hold one note constant while the harmony changes around it. So that stationary note, whether it's the bass note or the melody up top, creates that continuity while you can move the voicings and create tension and release.

[00:16:55]Stevie has a lot of songs that stay centered around a single minor chord.

[00:17:00]But what makes them so captivating is how he creates movement without constantly changing the harmony. He just decorates the main minor chord throughout the song with other chords like passing chords, suspensions, chromatic movement, and subtle voice leading. So, the tonal center stays the same for most of the song, but the harmony is always shifting and creating tension and release and emotional depth around that main minor chord. Here's an example in his song called Jesus Children. Check it out.

[00:17:32]>> Hello, Jesus.

[00:17:34]Jesus childrenus.

[00:17:38]>> Here's the movement.

[00:17:45]>> Now we're back.

[00:17:48]>> Okay, so we're starting off in the key of A flat. Here's the melody.

[00:18:02]Here's the turnaround.

[00:18:12]So, the key takeaway lesson here is you don't always need lots of chord changes to create movement. You can learn how to build tension and release while staying centered around a single minor chord by using those passing harmony, voice leading, and colorful chord substitutions. One of Stevie Wonder's signature writing techniques was using strong unison lines where multiple instruments would play the same rhythmic melodic idea together. So instead of relying solely on the chords, Stevie would drop everything out harmonically and create these unforgettable hooks by adding synths, horns, clavs, bass, or just vocals to lock in on a single melodic line. So this technique adds incredible energy and rhythmic precision while making even like sophisticated melodies feel very memorable. He does it in songs like Sir Duke, Do I Do and check out Master Blaster right now.

[00:19:05]Here's the line.

[00:19:07]We'll be jumping until the break down.

[00:19:11]I know I told you that you be until the break.

[00:19:18]We dare.

[00:19:33]Put your hands together.

[00:19:36]They remind me of simple pentatonic exercises that I learned back in the day.

[00:19:59]>> Here's another unison line on the song Do I Do? Check it out. Do I do what you do when I do my love to you?

[00:20:19]>> So good. What's cool about it is that the chords are incredible, too. So you got this sus chord starting out sharp nine.

[00:20:41]Then we go to the five augmented flat two to resolve to the one.

[00:20:49]Really hip. So the key takeaway lesson here is don't think only in chords. You can try to write single rhythmic and melodic lines in between your chord progressions. And a great unison line can really help break up a typical chord progression and become the main hook that defines the entire song or idea. So we went over five secrets today and here are the key takeaways just to recap. The first are moving triads. You can stop thinking in big chord shapes all the time and start breaking those up into smaller movable triads. Let the melody guide your movement and experiment with moving major and minor triads over the same bass note. It's one of the fastest ways to create unique, creative, rich harmony and more melodic playing over your chords. The second is jazz and gospel harmony. Don't be afraid to introduce colorful chords like dominant sharp nines, minor 7 sharp fives, suspended chords, diminished passing chords, and minor four chords into familiar progressions, but use it tastefully. Just one unexpected chord can completely transform the emotion of a song and make it memorable. The third is the pedal tone technique. Keep one note constant while the harmony around it changes. It can be a single note or a bass note to create continuity while moving voices create tension and release. It's an incredibly simple way to make your progression sound richer, more emotional, and more sophisticated in general. The fourth is the minor pull. When you're jamming over a minor chord, you can stay centered around that and then use passing chords and chromatic chords on the turnarounds at the end of the progression and voice leading to create tension and release and emotional depth without really losing the groove. Number five are the unison lines. Don't think only in chords. Try to write a strong rhythmic and melodic line in between your chord progressions. A memorable unison line like that can become the hook that gives your song or chord progression a strong identity. It's also worth taking into account that Stevie Wonder was blind when he was writing all this music. So, this guy was not relying on visual patterns or shapes the way many musicians do nowadays. His relationship with music was built through listening and feeling. This guy developed one of the greatest ears in modern music. And I think it's a great reminder not to get trapped on the fretboard with patterns or complex music theory. It's more important to train your ears first.

[00:23:11]really learn how to listen deeply and internalize the music in a deeper way, then let your fingers follow. If that's something that you'd like to develop in your own playing, there's a link in the description below where I can walk you through the exact system that I use to help hundreds of guitars train their ears, unlock the fretboard, helping them get away from the trap of the endless YouTube videos and complex theorybased education. So, you can check it out by clicking the link in the description below. And if you want to see exactly how I use this system to break down one of my favorite R&B songs in real time and transform it into a complete guitar arrangement, click this video right here. I'll walk you through the entire creative process from start to finish.

[00:23:50]I'm Todd Pritch. I'll see you in the next video. Peace.