Funk Guitar Beat

[Emerson Mata]

Therhythm of funk guitar is not just part of how cool it sounds, It also plays an essential role in the song its self. The guitar is three things, melodic, chordal and rhythmic. And in funk guitar, the rhythmic aspect comes straight to the forefront!

It could be the placement of the chord on an off beat, or the muted clicks of the strings, back and forth, that pushes the song further along. Or, it could be the rhythm of muted strings accented with the up and down slope of a wah wah pedal.

In this lesson, you will learn the funk guitar basics needed to play smooth funky jazz. We cover both parts of learning how to play funk guitar, starting with a rhythm guitar lesson, learning how to play funky guitar chords and chord progressions. In the second section, you will learn how to play funk licks and fills.

When learning a new style of music, the most important thing is to listen to notable tracks from that genre. Because of this, check out these two jazz funk tracks before diving into the lesson material below.

While listening to the track, take in all the different components that Benson used when playing this piece. Melodic double stops start out the piece, while the four-chord progression of Dmaj9-Bmadd9-Em9-G/A is strummed in an upbeat fashion.

If you always find yourself playing four-note chord shapes, it can be a beneficial strategy to drop root notes and create rootless three-note chord shapes. This will help both your comping over standards and your jazz funk playing.

In this example, I use the theme as a call and the B altered licks as a response. By alternating between a theme and a lick, you can build longer solos that sound well-constructed due to the melodic theme throughout.

Simon Pratt heads up the Fundamental-Changes YouTube channel providing a wide range of video lessons for the site. He has written three number one bestselling books, the latest of which is the Finger Guitar Gym. As well as writing books and producing videos, Simon spends his time devoted to teaching the guitar and has students from all around the world via Skype.

beautiful work. tasteful every time..I would tend to define what you taught as more in the smooth jazz genre, than, say the work that Niles or Prince did.. But clearly they are all from the same beautiful tree, just different flowers

Thank you for those kind words. Yes it is hard to define however I class Nile Rodgers as disco/funk and Prince as funk. Not so much in the jazz arena but as you say they are all within the same area. I love all of it!

Thank you so much Kim. Nothing makes me happier than motivating people to play the guitar. Highly recommend listening to as much as possible and transcribing and stealing other guitarists licks as well.

These are great! More of these classic funk tune chord progressions, with some riffs and grooves to be applied to them would be much appreciated. What about some James Brown tunes, and Jimmy Nolan riffs, for example? Thanks again, Simon!

Thanks for writing! I think you are referring to the rock with you chord sequence? The next chord there is a Bb/C, which is the same shape as the final slash chord up one fret, giving that dominant feel. I hope that answers your question.

I think also it is true what Jimi said. I think that primarily Jimi was an excellent rhythm guitarist. We do not forget that he has obtained lots of experiences in other bands like rhythm guitar player before he founded own band. By the way he was a genius.

Chris will show you short rhythm patterns that bounce between chordal patterns and single note lines, medium tempo jams, how to lock in with classic funk approaches, NOLA funk from the French Quarter, odd-time funk grooves, deep down and gritty grooves, Lone Star funk grooves, mashed up Latin and metal funk, how to sweeten up your funk rhythm phrases, upbeat funk grooves, and dozens of other funk rhythm guitar approaches.

I've got a trio of ESP Eclipses but no matter which pickups are in them, they just don't feel right when playing clean, funky rhythm guitar. Instead, I find myself reaching for my cheaper Korean Fender Tele FMT. I can't put my finger on it; they're both mahogany/maple set-neck guitars with twin humbuckers but the Tele just lends itself so much better to that style of playing. The main differences between the Tele and the Eclipses are the scale length (Eclipse, being similar in shape and construction to a Les Paul, is slightly shorter than the Tele) and the body shape - would these really make that much difference?

I can't play rhythm on a Les Paul, either. I think it's too heavy and too uncomfortable. Too many edges. The LP is essentially a slab body, so I think that has a lot to do with it. I prefer my Strat, as it's contoured and much more comfortable. Get down! And so on.

Yep, I think it`s the body shape, and the angle of strings across the bridge that make the LP style not so good for funky work. For me it`s all about placement of the strumming hand, and the angle at which the arm/hand approaches the guitar, and the construction of the LP prevents said hand getting to the ideal position.

It's strange because I usually really like the Eclipses and most of what I play would be considered "rhythm" but I just can't get comfortable on them playing in that particular style. The scale difference is less than an inch, the width at the bridge is less than 3mm different in total (so .5mm per string) and the string gauge difference from 10s to 9s is also very small, also the Eclipse body is contoured and slightly thinner than a traditional Les Paul which should also negate much of the differences in body ergonomics too. I guess it must be a case of one thing not making a lot of difference but when you put them all together at the same time, they all add up and do make a difference.

Also the sound of a Les Paul is usually too fat for playing funk rhythm without some judicious sonic sculpting. Of course there will always be exceptions, as I am sure we will learn further down this thread...

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1508628424' post='3393476']

Also the sound of a Les Paul is usually too fat for playing funk rhythm without some judicious sonic sculpting. Of course there will always be exceptions, as I am sure we will learn further down this thread...

[/quote]

It's not so much the sound, it's the way the guitar makes you play it.

I use my ESP Eclipse E-II for metal, it is not a comfortable body, mostly better played standing up, but the EMG pickups sounds so bloody good and clean for metal rhythm palm muted playing and solos with lots of distortion, IMO, nothing can beat it for some Metallica riffs...

And then when I want a clean funky articulate sound, what I need is single coils, for that, I have a Fodera Emperor Standard with 3 single coils pups, which is a bit like a Tele with a slightly different bridge and middle pickups position, and a far better built guitar.

Body countours are far more comfortable for a start, the neck is incredible, even though the guitar is still heavy, but tonally it is extremely resonant, defined, articulated, and funky in clean modes, but with distortion, not so much... It will not sound as clean and quick as the ESP with EMG HBs. Ground noise pops out really quick, unless you select multiple pickups, but then loose the bright tone....

I used to love playing a Les Paul, and always found the strat a bit toy like in comparison. That said, I'm a bit bigger than average so the LP never felt heavy, hard edged and slab like to me like it does to some other folk.

The tele tends to be fat and sweet with both pickups on and it carries a nice bite. Prince used one as a main guitar for this reason. But the strat gets a look in as well, with Nile Rodgers and pretty much anyone playing in the 4th position (Cory Wong, I'm looking at you).

BUT...don't write the LP off. I'm not a fan of the LP body shape so I have a couple of Yammie MSG's instead and in one I replaced the stock pickups with jazzier/archtop type PAF by Aaron Armstrong. So on the neck pickup I can get some mellow stuff and on the bridge pickup I can still get some decent chunk with distortion on.

For clean LP - Long Train Running, Play That Funky Music, most of the Brothers Johnson stuff, Brick House, a lot of Bobby Womack stuff, Tower of Power stuff, one of James Brown's guitarists used an LP...even the intro to the Theme from Shaft.

You could even swap out the humbuckers for P90's for a fat sound with more single coil bite and be set up for the solo to Another Brick In The Wall (Gilmour played it on a LP with P90's)

I started the idea with a bass line on the Moog Little Phatty. For the sound I used one of the presets in the Moog V3 update called Taurus Bass. This is obviously a recreation of the classic Moog Taurus synthesiser.

The main part of the sound in this came from an Auto Wah patch in Guitar Rig. To keep the sound cleaned up I went into the audio file editor and cut out any extraneous string noise. I wanted to go for a clinical, more sampled vibe with the guitar and cleaning the audio up with tight chops always seems to help me give a played part this feel.

3a8082e126