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Styles Lesson Four

Funk Guitar
Lesson Objectives

To develop a tighter, more staccato approach to rhythm guitar.

To gain a better understanding of chord voicings used in Funk.
To begin building a vocabulary of Funk rhythms.

Funk music contains some of the most exciting and rhythmic guitar playing
of any style. In order to play as a convincing funk guitarist, we need to work
on the co-ordination between both of our hands:
01 Funk chord voicings
In our fretting hand, we need to learn some new chord types the standard
open chord shapes that we would use in rock or pop playing are too big
and bulky for Funk. Often, the Funk rhythm guitarist will take a chord (e.g. D
minor7) and instead of playing the whole chord, will play a voicing that only
contains the top three notes.
We do this, because Funk music often has busy basslines and this approach
allows the guitarist to play (in a busy rhythmic style) whilst leaving room for
the bass player to do their thing.
These chord boxes show a typical five-string chord voicing for a D min7 chord
and with it, the stripped down three-string voicing, more common
in Funk.

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Styles Lesson Four

Funk Guitar
These chord boxes show a higher voicing, with a six-string shape for our
D min7 chord and with it, the stripped down three-string voicing, more common in Funk.

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This approach gives us some chord shapes that we can use to jam over a
D minor funk vamp. Youll notice when you play, that although youre now
using the correct voicings, it may not sound very funky yet. We need to inject
some funk rhythms into your playing.
So much of the sound of Funk guitar comes from the rhythms that the plucking hand plays. So next up, well look at a variety of rhythmic approaches,
each of which you can use to add more funk to your playing.
02 Funk rhythms, Ex. 01
For our first basic Funk rhythm, well focus on a four-note idea. Simply strum
up and downstrokes as shown and use both hands to control the string
muting through the rest of the bar.
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Sheet 3 of 5

Styles Lesson Four

Funk Guitar
03 Funk rhythms, Ex. 02
In this example, weve added a slide at the start of the bar. The slide starts
with the shape that were going to use, voiced down one fret. To work on this,
voice the chord where you would usually play it and then move your hand
down one fret. You dont have to think of this too much as a different chord
(although it is, in fact Db min7) - its easier to think that we are sliding into our
D min7 to add some dirt and groove to the part.

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04 Funk rhythms, Ex. 03

In this example, were going to create Funk rhythms using the fretting hand
muting technique that weve worked on in our technique lessons. You need
to get used to applying pressure and relaxing it, without taking the fretting
hand off the strings. The rhythm in our plucking hand is a simple down-up,
down-up pattern. Its the rhythmic interplay of fretted and muted notes that
makes it sound funky.

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Styles Lesson Four

Funk Guitar
05 Chromatic chord movement
When playing over a static chord vamp, we need to have some tasty rhythm
licks we can use to prevent the part from sounding too boring and repetitive.
First up, well use a new chord type D Dominant 9 (D9). This voicing uses the
top four strings.

When playing over a D9 vamp, it can sound very funky to move the shape
up two frets, then down one and then back to your original position. You can
bring this idea to life by experimenting with a variety of Funk rhythms.

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Heres an example of this chord movement used in a Funk groove:

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etc...

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Sheet 5 of 5

Styles Lesson Four

Funk Guitar
06 Tight staccato playing
Its vital for playing Funk that you can control the note length in your chord
voicings. Essentially, were working on playing very short chords, with the pressure lifting enough to mute the strings between strums. Its important to get
the pressure just right too heavy and you will hear choked notes, too light
and the open strings will ring out.
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07 Moving octaves
This is a great way of injecting some melody into your Funk rhythm
playing. Short, catchy melodic ideas work best and its important to
control your unwanted strings, particularly the string that sits between
the two that you are playing.
Guitarists like Wes Montgomery and George Benson could play entire
solos with octaves, so you might want to check out their playing to get
some ideas.

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