How to play Lofi hip hop guitar (And related genres) is a question that gets asked a lot at the moment but there are few resources that outline where you can find chord progressions and ideas… until now! This post is for guitarists ranging from beginners to advanced who want to know where to find inspiration for new progressions and it will highlight some useful chord progressions to know. I have made several successful YouTube tutorials if you are interested which I will embed at the end of this post, for more production tips and tutorials click HERE and I also have sample packs available HERE.
Play-style
Just a quick note on the set up for these audio recordings. I am recording with the neck humbucker on my strat (Set up here) playing with my fingers and usually emphasise off beat pick and arpeggios to keep the imperfections for Lo-Fi.
THE PROGRESSIONS:
Progression #1
This progression centres around the use of Major 7 and 7sus2 chords with roots on the A string. Here is an example progression:
These have their root notes on the A string and its an easy one to transpose and experiment with. Using some whammy and arpeggios sounds great too. When playing the EbMaj7 (This applies to all the Maj 7s in this sequence) you can use your pinky to play the 8th and 10th frets on the high E and with the 7sus 2 chords the 11th fret. In this case you can solo with the C Minor Pentatonic
Progression #2
This is similarly using 7th chords and is a great progression to move up and down the fret board as well as being easy to melodically add notes to.
So this is great for firstly moving anywhere on the neck easily, the solo will be in G#minor pentatonic which translates relatively anywhere on the neck. You can also us hammer-on with the 4h5 and 4h7 on the C#m7 chord as above plus with the G#m7 and chords of that shape, you can hammer on the 4h7 on the high E and 4h6 with the A string.
Progression #3
This one is taking inspiration from jazz and the 251 progression, its great and simple and works well in jazzhop beats.
Progression #4
The last one on here is looking at the most basic chord progressions. Thats major and minor triads, and making them sound great in Lofi music. For this I am playing the basic 3 note triad with root notes on low E.
So this is playing your standard Major and Minor chords but only the triads on the E, A and G strings as above. Ideally playing with fingers to give a more muted and dark tone. Naturally this applies to all standard Major/Minor Progressions. It is just a different way to play them to give that lofi feel.
More On How To Play Lofi Hip Hop Guitar:
More on How To Play Lofi Hip Hop Guitar to come! be sure to join the mailing list to be the first to know. I have a few guitar tutorials live on YouTube also, you can check these out below. Or more on my YouTube here.
