Dive into the captivating world of funk guitar with our comprehensive guide tailored for beginners. This blog article explores the fundamentals of funk guitar, including essential techniques, rhythmic patterns, and iconic chord progressions.
Getting into funk guitar? Congrats, you’re a drummer now! Turns out, everyone in a funk band is a drummer, no matter what instrument they play.
In this blog, we’ll explain what that means for you as a guitarist and help you figure out 16th-note rhythms, string muting, and common funk guitar chords, so you can groove like the greats.
E Dominant 7th Guitar Chord
If you look at the origins of funk music at the beginning of the 1960s, it’s pretty clear why rhythm is the most important aspect of playing funk guitar.
Since you’ll often hear this term used in funky circles, let’s understand exactly what playing, being, and staying ‘in the pocket’ actually means!
What your mind is doing and what your body is up to will affect how you sound. Checking with yourself is key! 🧠💓🎸
Few Funky Chords
Most music happens on some kind of rhythmic grid, and while a lot of pop and rock songs happily exist on a grid of quarter and eighth notes, playing funk requires a bit more subtlety: enter 16th notes. 🕺
In Western music, the quarter note is a very common length for one beat and the most common number of beats in one bar is four. Here’s what that looks like:
If we subdivide each of those beats into two parts, we get 8th notes. If we subdivide each of those beats into four parts, we get 16th notes.
Opus De Funk: Guitar Chords: Guitar Chords Part
In the example below, guitarist Kelyn Crapp is only fretting notes on the top three strings. His ring and middle finger are muting the bottom strings.
There is no right or wrong when it comes to strumming. You’ll have to see what works best for you. We do have some pointers though:
Rest your hand against the strings near the bridge of the guitar. This creates a dampening effect and produces a muted, percussive sound.
Grow Some Funk Of Your Own
Many funk songs not only survive but thrive as one chord vamps. You’ll often find that the chord material is not what’s difficult to master – it’s the rhythm, the attitude, and staying in the pocket.
This is an example of how to add movement to a one chord vamp. Below are the chord voicings, tab, and a backing track for you to play over.
Below are some examples of lean, rootless chord voicings. We’re assuming the bass is covering the root note so no need to double up.
How To Play Funk Guitar
Practice the chord shapes and when you’re ready, try to come up with a groove. Below are tabs if you need some suggestions, as well as a backing track.
As you’ve already seen, funk music is not really the style of music where you play full chords that take up a lot of room. Here’s a riff that outlines chords but is mostly a single note line.
We’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to playing funk guitar. If you want to dive deeper, we recommend that you:
Advanced Funk Guitar Chords Made Simple
You could also take the easy route and use our free 14-day membership to Pickup Music to check out the Groove Learning Pathway. It’s a 3-month program with step by step instructions and feedback on your playing.One of the defining features of funk music is that the harmony of a tune is often quite static. There may only be one or two chords in a whole song.
The story goes that when James Brown interviewed the guitarist Jimmy Nolan, Jimmy was asked, ‘Can you play an E9 chord?’. ‘Of course!’. replied Jimmy. James Brown then grinned and asked, ‘Yes, but can you play it
Whether the story is true or not, it goes to show that playing funk rhythm guitar is much more about playing ‘in the pocket’ than playing elaborate chord sequences.
How To Play Funk Guitar: A Beginner's Guide To Groovy Rhythms
This section examines many ways to approach jamming on static chords and discusses some essential voicings and progressions that you should know. The focus is on developing subtlety and nuance in your rhythm work.
You will improve your repertoire of chord voicings and progressions by studying a more harmonically advanced approach to playing rhythm guitar. Although this approach is a little more reminiscent of disco and soul rather than pure funk, you will find it invaluable when you want to apply the funk rhythm style to more modern types of music.
We will begin with the ‘staple’ funk E9 chord. Although it has frequently been used in this book already, it is a great place to start when looking at some of the nuances common to funk guitar rhythm playing.
Play Funk Guitar
The 7th fret on the high E string is optional so try the chord with or without that note to get different effects.
As this chord does not contain any open strings, it can be moved to any position on the guitar neck. For example, when played at the 5th fret, it becomes a D9 chord.
When you’re practicing the ideas in this section, you should be aiming to attack the guitar very hard with your strumming hand. Most students I’ve seen normally don’t strum or pick the guitar hard enough.
Funking Awesome Funk Chords
You’ve probably noticed that the rhythm guitar sound on recorded funk tracks is very ‘poppy’ and cuts right through the mix. This sound can only be achieved by picking or strumming the guitar quite aggressively so you need to practice this technique. You can always soften off later if you feel that you’ve gone a bit too far, but if you don’t actually practice a hard attack, you’ll never have the option. Try to feel the strings resisting the pick when you are picking or strumming the guitar.
In the first example, the Eb9 ‘approach’ chord is played on the beat. It lasts for one 1/16th note and I have arrived at the target E9 chord on the second 1/16th note of the bar.
Pay careful attention to the strumming directions. Strum once on the Eb9, slide up a semitone and only strum again on beat two. Remember to strum harder than you think you need to!
How To Come Up With Funk Chords On The Fly
The feel and nuance of funk guitar are almost impossible to notate perfectly so play along with the audio example to make sure you’re getting it right.
Notice how example 8c uses an open sixth string on beat one. Remember to keep your strumming hand moving up and down in constant 1/16th notes to help you stay in time.
One tip is to play the scratched notes on the top (higher pitched) strings and to play the full chords from the fifth string. By doing this, you can create a very interesting dynamic in your rhythm playing. You don’t need to hit all the strings every time.
How To Do The Funk Guitar Strum
Once again, listen carefully to the audio and jam along as soon as you can. Don’t worry too much about playing every note perfectly, focus only on getting the Eb9 approach chord on the beat and sliding immediately up to the E9.
The next approach is to play the Eb9 chord on the final 1/16th note of the beat and slide it up so that the target chord is hit directly on the following down-beat. This approach creates a very different rhythmic effect.
The next example shows how the off-beat / on-beat approach can be used from the second to the third 1/16th note of each beat.
Funk Chord Progressions (2023) That Actually Sound Good
This final approach is similar to the previous example where we move from the off-beat to the on-beat, however, the slide is much more subtle and less pronounced. The idea is to hit the target chord on the beat and give it a little
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