The latest issue of Bass Player (I think it's the latest - it's the one with Mike Inez on the cover) has a nice short lesson with some basic funk grooves.
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How do you funk up a bassline??
- Thread starter v1paul
- Start date
At the risk of offending:
Imagine watching a curvaceous woman in tight clothing and high heels walking away from you in time to the music.
Now sight-read her ass.
I am not kidding.
Imagine watching a curvaceous woman in tight clothing and high heels walking away from you in time to the music.
Now sight-read her ass.
I am not kidding.
Lots of good advice here....
Apologies for short circuiting the question, but over time I have had to learn to ask , if the urge to funk comes: Does this particular song really need to be funky? Is the drummer and other players also playing it funky?
A really funky bassline played out of place will sound..well, out of place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHE6hZU72A4
Great vid, thank for the link. If anyone knows about funk it's bootsy.
I agree with the rest of the advice in this thread too - play less, play more stocatto. I don't know that chromatic helps, but playing the box helps - root, flat 7th, octave, 5th with a raised 7th as a passing tone. If you want to add a motown/stax feel, then root, fifth, sixth is your ticket, sometimes in inversion - e.g. with the root on top. (such as root C, 3rd fret on the A string, fifth G, 3rd fret on the E string, sixth A, 5th fret on the A string).
Examples:
Night Train - James Brown. Classic root, octave, 7th, 5th bass line. Find a good, slow version & practice along. It's a bit vanilla but gives you a sense of the feel.
Think - James Brown. Similar, but throws in a 6th, but it almost serves a sort of chromatic role and uses a good one root, octave, fifth too for good measure.
Just My Imagination - The Temptations. A very slowed down groove, but sped up & ripped off by Joss Stone for Super Duper Love Song, uses root, 5th, 6th. The Joss Stone version throws in a 7th for good measure.
Invalid Link Removed - Otis Redding (dig those backup dancers), The Blues Brothers. Classic root, 5th, 6th inversion - this is also the basis of Sugar Pie Honey Bunch (about 3 minutes in).
This may not seem "funky" but this stuff is the roots of what most people think of funk. Bootsy got his start with James Brown, for example.
I agree with giving more space. Play the "1", then let the snare have the "2" by itself, that will give you a feel for starters. You can practice w/a metronome clicking the "2" and "4" instead of all 4 beats. However, I'm mediocre, so take w/a grain of salt!
Thank you...
Check out Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - a contemporary "throwback" funky band.
Yep, check out Rocco with Tower of Power; the definative Back to Oakland is a good place to start (was it really 1974!!) although there lots on youtube as always.
Listen to Come on Come Over from Jacos first solo album
Bass Gibbon
Listen to Come on Come Over from Jacos first solo album
Bass Gibbon
Lot of good info here. In addition to JB, etc., also try listening to Paul Jackson bass lines (early Herbie Hancock) for a little different spin on weaving simple funky bass lines into different types of melodies. "Steppin' in It" has 3 distinct parts and Jackson lays down some simple but incredible funk lines for each section. (Charts are available).
Yeah this is where it is at! It is a timing thing (including space). Watch the timing section on Groove Workshop (Victor Wooten with Anthony Wellington (?) )and you'll get a really good appreciation of this. I have to play in major keys almost exclusively at found it hard to make it funky until I watched this segment.
"If you ever want to find a groove, it's on the e's and the a's. If you need to mail a package to the groove and you go to the post office and you want to know its address, they gonna say it's the e's and the a's. If your groove is missing and you need to put out an APB out on your groove, the FBI's gonna tell you the groove can be found on the e's and the a's" - Anthony Wellington
If you want a heavy hitting sound you have to respect the spaces between the notes. It's the spaces that make the notes. The NYC skyline is beautiful because of the spaces between the buildings - if all the buildings were the same height, it wouldn't be a skyline, it'd just be ground level 90 stories up.
It seems like a lot of people are saying "play on the one" and "leave space". Playing on the one is a good place to start, but leaving space doesn't necessarily make anything funkier. I can think of tons of bass lines with a lot of space that aren't funky at all. Additionally, there are tons of bass lines without much space that are extremely funky, including many by Bootsy.
The Bootsy Funk Formula is a good place to start, as long as you realize what is happening in the video. In case none of you noticed, Bootsy is a funk machine and there is a lot more going on in that video than what he explains. Listen to the way he talks. Every word he says grooves just as hard as his playing. Learning how to funk from watching Bootsy is like trying to learn how to fight by watching Bruce Lee. Sure you might pick up a couple of moves but that is all.
If you want to get funky you have to be able to do it with a single note. If you can groove on one note you can groove on them all. If you can't groove on one note you can't groove on any. How do you do this? Pay just as much attention to where the note ENDS. Starting on the one is solid, but end the note with funk or it was all for nothing.
Imagine a drummer playing a kind of shuffle beat. Think about the hi hat. On the hi hat the 1/8ths are swung.
1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
So the 1 2 3 4 parts all last longer than the "and" parts. If you were to play this straight, they would all be equal. If you were to play these as broken triplets, the 1 2 3 4 would last twice as long as the "and" parts. Funk and anything that swings is right in between.
So what you have to do to get funky is to start on the one, and then release on the 'and'. Any 'and' will do.
Think of all the variations possible. For example, you can hold a note for "1 and 2" then release on the and before the snare hits. This is extremely funky. Instead of silence on the release you can hit an octave or do anything.
All the other advice given is solid, but none of it will work if you don't watch your releases. On the flip side of that, you can get people to dance with ONE NOTE if you learn how to properly release.
There is a lot more but this is where you start.
The Bootsy Funk Formula is a good place to start, as long as you realize what is happening in the video. In case none of you noticed, Bootsy is a funk machine and there is a lot more going on in that video than what he explains. Listen to the way he talks. Every word he says grooves just as hard as his playing. Learning how to funk from watching Bootsy is like trying to learn how to fight by watching Bruce Lee. Sure you might pick up a couple of moves but that is all.
If you want to get funky you have to be able to do it with a single note. If you can groove on one note you can groove on them all. If you can't groove on one note you can't groove on any. How do you do this? Pay just as much attention to where the note ENDS. Starting on the one is solid, but end the note with funk or it was all for nothing.
Imagine a drummer playing a kind of shuffle beat. Think about the hi hat. On the hi hat the 1/8ths are swung.
1 and 2 and 3 and 4.
So the 1 2 3 4 parts all last longer than the "and" parts. If you were to play this straight, they would all be equal. If you were to play these as broken triplets, the 1 2 3 4 would last twice as long as the "and" parts. Funk and anything that swings is right in between.
So what you have to do to get funky is to start on the one, and then release on the 'and'. Any 'and' will do.
Think of all the variations possible. For example, you can hold a note for "1 and 2" then release on the and before the snare hits. This is extremely funky. Instead of silence on the release you can hit an octave or do anything.
All the other advice given is solid, but none of it will work if you don't watch your releases. On the flip side of that, you can get people to dance with ONE NOTE if you learn how to properly release.
There is a lot more but this is where you start.
If you want a good example of the swingtiming and leaving space thing: listen to The Meters. I.e. Cissy Strut is the best example of how just a few notes in the right timing create funk. As he releases on some notes you can almost hear the following space as a separate note.
