Help on FUNK

[bassAddict05]

ive been making some nice Funk grooves out of my head. But i want to expand on funk.,can anyone give me some tips on how to be a better funk player , i heard dorian scale is good......but i dont see how, anyways thanks.

[heavyfunkmachin]

i would say rithm its an absolut basic, because once you know the scale your playing in, you can actually play "wrong" notes if you hit them in the right time (off time actually) and because funk its, as james brown said, just like playing all instruments like they were drums...

so work on polirithms,mixing up 3/4 and 4/4 and stuff like that... and try some 6/8, 3/8, 12/8, 6/4... ng the drums and so on, and once you´ve got all the complex rithms and you´ve learn how to "elude" strict scales and you can impress your people with amazing chops remember that GROOVE must be your moto, your only objetive, no mather what do you do to get to it. i think some old school funk will help with theese, so try motown, stax, check out dyke and the blazers, james brown and then some sly and the family stone, funkadelik, parliament of funk... but i woudnt get too much into slap funk untill you can play it really nice figerstyle because it might sound impresive and somehow stop your progres... well that happend to me, might not happen to you...

ow! and dont listen only to the bass part when listening to funk, keep your ears on the kick drum and the charles... well just dont miss a beat...

hope this helps

[heavyfunkmachin]

when i said

12/8, 6/4... ng the drums

i meant

12/8, 6/4... shifting tempos, double beating the drums...

[Whafrodamus]

I can't make funk grooves out of my head, but I can make animals out of my hair. Yes.

[GSPLBASSDC]

A short list of funk bands might be helpful:

Lakeside
The Brothers Johnson
Parliament/Funkadelic
Cameo
Brick
Fatback
Con Funk Shun
Dazz

Since the audience I primarily play for probably never heard of these bands, I'm free to "borrow" licks, and suddenly I'm a bad mofo!!

[Bayou_Brawler]

get james brown's "20 all time greatest hits" and learn to dance. then you will be funky.

[Aaron]

The notes definitely aren't what matter. For instance- in the bridge of "cold sweat" - odum is playing in C while the guitarists are playing in C and F. Bernard Odum also emphasized The major 7th on the bottom against an F7 chord on "I got the feeling." Very dissonant, but very cool- altough it was used more as a passing tone on "I Got the Feeling."

Other essential funk/funky stuff-
Tower of Power
Sly and the Family Stone
Earth, Wind, and Fire
Maceo
Miles Davis in the 70s (esp. Jack Johnson and On the Corner)
Stevie Wonder
Fela Kuti

[Steve]

I would suggest to you that if you approach it from a modal or scalar direction, chances are your comming out of the shoot wrong.

Think rhythm. Don't think about the note, think about the space between the notes. Really good funk is sparse as hell.

Try listening to some Salsa music. Those guys can get more out of a root, fifth, octave then anyone on the planet.

[jazzbo]

It comes in all shapes, sizes, colors
Textures and falvors
But don't be fooled
Because you've got the old school
And the new school
You see there are no rules.
You've got your discount
Dog mount funk
You've got your half-price
Pete Wiess funk
In fact you've got a little bit of your
low brow
High brow pee wee pow wow funk
You've got you uneducated funk
As well as you educated funk
And trust me when I tell you
That funk comes in between.
Indeed the funkiest Jew I ever knew
Displayed the funk that was always true
It ain't no mystery
It's just a little bit of history
Funk's been around as long as earth
In fact funk's as old as dirt.
Defunkt P-Funk rock 'em
With the we funk
The madder the monk
The fatter the funik
The bigger thebeat
The quicker the feet
My friends come funky
With the funked up heat
Never gonna be no torn up relic
I gotta lotta love for Funkadelic
Breakin' it up shakin' up your frustration
You gotta get with Graham Central Stations
Layers and layers and layers
O fthe musical mayors
My o my Ohio Players
The crazy love I know
Comes from that Funk-O-Joe
Dr. John's around, that I know
P-Funk is the bomb I'm on
So be good to my ear-hole.

[GSPLBASSDC]

....I swear I saw Sir Nose D'Void - O Funk just leave the building!

[c-ba55]

George Clinton said something like funk is just the blues, sped up.
As far as notes, it's pretty much the minor pentatonic with the b5 added in. But like everyone else said, rhythm is way more important.

The Dorian mode has the b3 and b7, like the pentatonic minor.

A lot of funk songs are I-IV jams. Like blues, the chord may have a major third, but the minor third will be used in leads. Or sometimes, they just go ahead and play the minor chord. But the b7 is pretty much there all the time. (But not literally all the time)

So you can get the vast majority of funk with this assumption, get familiar with the sound, and familiar enough to hear when something else is happening instead.

[Norwoodrules]

this thread came up in a search on 3/4 time i was doing, and I have to tell anyone that lands on this that I text-searched "meters" on this page and it didn't find a single mention.

If you wanna learn to play funk, study the meters.

The guy that mentioned the space between notes has it nailed. Its all about sitting in the pocket. Playing one note is called for more often than you would think.

No one creates that pocket like the meters.

[azfryguy]

Groove, you have it or you dont.

[Snarf]

I'm disappointed, I came into this thread hoping someone had posted the Bootsy video.

edit: For the heretofore unwashed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHE6hZU72A4