How do you funk up a bassline??

[mobax]

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.

The Meters = funk

 

[jhan]

Chek out MarloweDK's channel on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MarloweDK

Lot's of good grooves.

 

[Hoover]

If you want to get funky you have to be able to do it with a single note.

Check out Larry Graham's bassline on "Everyday People" by Sly & The Family Stone. One note. One relentless string of that one single note...but omigod the things Larry does to that note! There's a directed shape, a progression, a dramatic arc to the way his line moves through the verses; it's almost like his articulations alone create a melody. So freakin' funky it hurts. One freakin' note. Genius.

As he releases on some notes you can almost hear the following space as a separate note.

That's a great imagery to use; I find when I'm really locked into a syncopated funk groove that I'm "hitting" the rests almost as hard as I'm hitting the notes! You have to shape every aspect of your sound, not just the length of notes and rests but how those notes and rests start and end. Air sculpting.

 

[DanAleks]

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.

Funny... this is very similar to how I explain the feel you want in a samba.

 

[Deesack]

As Bootsy sais, it's the ONE and 2 and 3 and 4 and ONE and two..

that's the funk

 

[Etingi]

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.


There is a lot more but this is where you start.

I'd love to hear what "a lot more" is. This really helped me better understand the why of feel. You can hear the 'and' release on It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing. The walking line has an early release on the first three notes and then holds the 4. I could hear it before but didn't realize it's because of the swing feel over each individual note. Thanks

 

[DogPlaysBass]

I'd love to hear what "a lot more" is. This really helped me better understand the why of feel. You can hear the 'and' release on It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing. The walking line has an early release on the first three notes and then holds the 4. I could hear it before but didn't realize it's because of the swing feel over each individual note. Thanks

No problem. The "a lot more" begins with knowing how to play around the beat. Concepts like playing before the beat and after the beat are not abstract concepts. Take the Funkadelic song "How Do Yeaw View You". When the snare first hits it is clearly behind the beat. That means that it happens a few milliseconds later than it would had it been played 'perfectly'. To get extremely funky, you need to be able to slam the one, play behind the beat, and the go back to slamming the one. Over the course of four beats, or one measure, this creates and entirely new kind of swing. A funky kind.

Learning to play behind the beat is challenging because nobody ever really talks about how to do it. For me, the trick is to play in between the metronome. For example, say I set my metronome at 100bpm. Most people hear 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 in their heads automatically. What I like to hear is and "and and and". This can be very hard to do at first, but you will gain such strong groove control if you learn how to do this your groove will become undeniable. Go as slow as you have to until you can feel the metronome as clicking on the "ands" rather than 1 2 3 4. So what you do is play in between the "ands", essentially establishing the downbeats.

The reason this is important is that it allows you to place the "and" anywhere you want. If you place the downbeat right in the middle of the metronome clicks, your playing and the clicks will be evenly spaced. If you place your downbeat closer to the first click than the second, you will get a nice bouncy swing feel. If you put it too close it will sound like a broken triplet. If you put it closer to the second it might feel unfunky at first, but you can groove with it once you get used to it. The overall goal is to be able to BE the one, not just play right one it. Then you can make the metronome be as funky or as unfunky as you want. You need to be able to release your notes by or before the clicks or the whole thing won't work right. You need to be able to release instantly at any time.

You can gain the control to put the beat wherever you want it. Beware however, the prerequisite to doing this is being able to play on top of a click so perfectly that you can't hear it. If you can't do that, trying to float between a click will not help you.

 

[Treybass]

if you were to count by 1/16'th notes in a measure, you would say "One-ee-and-uh-two-ee-and-uh-three-ee-and-uh-four-ee-and-uh". well, if your bassline starts on the down beat, try starting it on the ee's and the uh's. experiment with your basslines by moving the notes around the 16 subdivisions of a measure. kind of confusing i know, but I hope it helps!

 

[groooooove]

/thread

 

[tdizzle]

 

[musicbikeman]

I like the bit about the metronome work. I would also say that "running" to the next phrase is pretty funky. For instance, if the song is slow enough, like "Brick House", you can leave space after One, until beat 3 or the "and" of 3, and then do a sixteenth note run that leads right to the next One. Also, I would say that triplets or really fast sets of notes inbetween the action of the song are a pretty good way to funk up a bass line. And yet, most of the great funk bands have bass players that play on one, play on 3, and do it again. Very very seldom do they pull out a lick. Maybe twice in a song. The first guy said it, Don't add, subtract. I know we are all pretty bad at math, but we count to 4 pretty well, right?

 

[phxlbrmpf]

To me, funk is all about 16th notes, even if it's only one or two per bar. I can hardly think of any funk grooves that don't have a couple of them thrown in. Now accentuate the "one" and be creative with rests and there you go.

It's like playing a drum groove. As soon as you start spicing the bass drum pattern up with a couple 16ths, the groove will slowly start sounding funkier.

 

[greekorican]

I absolutely love funk. Before I found funk, I played guitar, mostly classic rock. And then I started listening to old school RHCP, and my mom turned me on to Parliament. When I heard Parliament, I instantly had to have a bass guitar. (I'm actually listening to some P-Funk right now. I've definitely come a long way, I'm just about at the point where I can play the correct notes with the correct timing, though there are still songs that will give me trouble. Unfortunately, correct notes with correct timing doesn't sound nearly as funky as bootsy does, I really have to work on feel. A lot of funk songs are actually very simple as far as fingering and counting, but when I play it, it sounds stale. I went through a phase where all I was playing was motown, and reading this thread inspired me to play some funk today. Motown definitely helped with feel a ton, but I'm still not satisfied. What can I work on specifically to put some feel into my playing? Don't tell me it comes with time, there has to be some specific things I can work on.

 

[BuiltToSpill17]

Listen to Jamiroquai's older recordings... Stuart Zender (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Zender) is outstanding and I've learned a lot about the various techniques to "funkify" my basslines. He usually uses a Warwick which when EQ'd and played close to the bridge can sound really growly and punchy like on this one, although I think Cosmic Girl's bassline sounds like it was recorded on a Fender Jazz... could be wrong...

Jamiroquai - Runaway
-

Probably two of my favorite bass lines to play, lots of ghost notes on Cosmic Girl. Good mix of staccato/syncopation too.

 

[J. Crawford]

Is it possible to ask how to make funk?

 

[lancimouspitt]

Listen to your drummer or play along with a drum machine.
Leave holes in your playing,and pretty everything covered above.

 

[gai113]

the best way to learn the funk is to listen to it...

one i understood the one the rest was history..

oh and envelope filters

 

[NortyFiner]

You might want to check out Bootsie Collins on You Tube he does a formula he learned from James Brown about creating Funk grooves by always playing on "The One".

 

[R. Laevinus]

How do you funk up a bassline?

Wear a cool hat while you play!

Fig. A