Funk groove 1

This is a medium-tempo funk groove built around a ‘4-3’ bluesy crunch (or ‘double-stop’, to borrow the name of a bowing technique). What I mean by ‘4-3’ is that the main lick involves moving from the 4th to the 3rd of the chord, with the 3rd being flattened at first, before moving up a semitone to become the natural third. This is a classic blues technique. Tap ‘Play’, have a listen, and check out the guidance after the written score.

Guidance

• Notice the ‘ghosted’ notes, marked in drum notation. They’re played lighter than the other notes, and are essential in establishing the groove and feel.
• Start by practising this example slowly, and get the notes down first; once you have them more or less committed to memory (so you don’t have to think about them), focus on feeling the groove. See if you can play ‘in the pocket’: hold back just a bit behind the beat.
• For the bluesy crunches, take your time before resolving the grace notes from the flattened to natural thirds: they shouldn’t be too short. Hang onto the flattened third, dig in, and go for an almost ‘squelchy’ sound. This technique is one of the ways us piano players can simulate a note bend.
• A few of the chords are marked with the numbers of the chord degrees. Keeping these in mind helps when transposing. Have a go at taking the bluesy crunch at the start of bar two, say, and playing it in other keys. First make a mental note that you’re playing the 4 and flat 7 of the B flat dominant 7 chord (E flat and A flat respectively), so if you were to move it down a semitone, the chord would be A dominant 7, and the 4 and 7 would be D and G. Being able to play in all the keys is really useful when someone calls, say, a blues in E flat at a gig; or maybe A if you’re working with a guitar player.

Jamming on the fly: creating your own grooves

While playing existing funk grooves from a score or by ear is a worthwhile learning exercise, the ultimate aim is to be able to come up with grooves on the fly as you jam along in real time with other musicians or to a backing track.

It’s good to start simple, both in terms of the rhythm and number of notes you play. A simple funk groove can actually be the most effective kind. Maybe take just a B flat in the left hand and the A flat above in the right and work with that. It doesn’t need to be rhythmically busy. Leave space between the notes.

Below is an example I recorded:

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend learning this note for note. The point of the exercise is to practise coming up with your own grooves, starting off simply. Record yourself and listen back, identifying what you like and don’t like.

If you’d like to jam along to the drum beat in this example, change the Keys dropdown from ‘Yes’ to ‘No’, and activate the Loop switch.

Closing thoughts

Listen out for stuff you like, in recordings or at gigs. When I hear something that sounds cool – it could be just a phrase – I might learn it in different keys. The phrase, or something similar to it, will then often find its way into my own playing when I’m jamming. I got the ‘4-3’ bluesy double-stop in this tutorial from something I thought I heard in an Esbjörn Svensson Trio recording. Listening to the e.s.t. track back today, it turns out Esbjörn actually plays something different – but that’s OK because I’m happy with the lick I got out of it.

And on this subject, you probably don’t want to become a clone of some other player. They’re already doing their thing. Take things from them, sure, but the exciting part of the musical journey is finding your own path and arriving at a style that feels like your own.