Funk Rhythm

Satriani

Alot of people are intimidated by trying to play some funk. I understand why people are a bit afraid of it, and that is because in MY opinion, it's the most difficult rhythm to play NATURALLY, if you don't have a good natural sense of rhythm. If you are one of those people, read on......

Firstly, turn off ALL and ANY effects you may be using, and switch to your clean channel. You want your sound to be as dry as possible.

The fundamentals of playing funk guitar are based on a CONSTANT 16th note rhythm. This is of course all about your right hand, so don't worry about playing any chords just yet. Mute all your strings with your left hand, and just strum (alternate strokes) with constant 16th notes. IT should sound like this (1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a) etc etc....

Straight Sixteenth Note Funk

Get your metronome going nice and slow at first. If you have a metronome that allows you to sub-divide the beats, then awesome! Just stick it on 16th note sub-divisions, and play every single sound you hear with alternate strokes up and down. If you metronome doesn't sub-divide for you, then simply count out loud saying ONE EE AND A TWO EE AND A THREE EE AND A FOUR EE AND A. That is how you divide 16th notes up. It shoulds sound like Chuck-a-chuck-a if that makes any sense to you ?

Make sure your hand and your wrist are LOOSE and your attack on each stroke nice and sharp.

Swing Sixteenth Note Funk

All we're doing here is 'swinging' the notes. A VERY popular and very cool technique to learn. To do this correctly, you are basically playing the same rhtyhm, but you are jumping slightly ahead with your 'e' note. The idea here is that you're kinda swinging into the 1 and the 3 beats. This is very difficult to explain with text, but if you don't get it, let me know.

Now this is half the battle. GETG THIS DOWN before you move to the next part of playing funk, cause you will not get it right if your right hand is not getting it together.

The second part is your left hand. Frankly, you CAN use any chord you like, but the most common type of funk chords are 9th and 13th chords. Try playing an E9 with your left hand, and get that 16th note funk rhythm going with your right. Now you will notice it doesn't sound like funk, it sounds like rubbish! The art of playing funk lies in your muting / killing/ dampening ALL the strings some of the time, and letting them ring very shortly some of the time. Here's how to play your E9 chord - USE THIS VOICING - E9 - E(1st) G#(3rd) D(7th) F#(9th) B(5th) going from your A string to your high E string.

While the chord is shaped (all the time), we press down only when the chord is supposed to sound out. Also use your bridge pickup for a nice authentic funk sound. So in 1 bar , you have ONE EE AND A TWO EE AND A THREE EE AND A FOUR EE AND A. We want only THESE beats in bold to sound out....

ONE ee and A two ee AND a three EE and a FOUR EE and a etc....
You want the chord to sound out on THESE beats only for now.

So finger your E9 chord, and play that rhythm over and over till you get it naturally. You can then just add the 13th note on the high E string with your pinky on the final 2 beats in each bar (FOUR EE). The 13th note is really just the 6th an octave higher than where you E is. So that will be C# on the high E string.

arjunmenon

Hey Satch,

As always, excellent stuff ? Very Nile Rodgers kinda stuff
I think the funk would be more accessible if somebody were to throw in a few tips on how to get the funk sound happening..i.e. single coil + phase/wah etc. somethin'to that effect.

Cheers

Satriani

Yeah I hear ya. This is more for getting people to understand the rhythmic concepts behind funk, hence I ask them to leave it as dry as possible just to get the technique down. Once they've got that, they can add anything they like! FUNKYYYYYYYY

mushroomeater

great lessons! thanks for sharing..you can also listen to tower of power music if you really want serious funk music.

Still_Missing

mushroomeater wrote: great lessons! thanks for sharing..you can also listen to tower of power music if you really want serious funk music.

after reading this, I figured what would really help this lesson is if you could add a song, say a youtube vid link or something, which best shows the technique in its simple form. It's definitely easier to learn how to do something, when you are absolutely sure you're not misinterpreting the lesson. Right now i'm worried i'm getting something wrong here ?

Satriani

HI Riot. Apologies for replying 10 years later, but anyhoo....

Go to youtube and search 'Dave Weiner Funk'.

Great video ?