funkbandstuff-blog

[funkbandstuff-blog]

Funk Drumming/Percussion

Funk Drumming is personally one of my favorite styles to play, Its effective, complex and impressive but doesn't take itself too seriously. Usually in funk songs the drumming is usually the back beat and is rarely the main focus of the track, but can be as intricate as possible and wont be out of place it will fit in (in most cases)

In funk songs you will hear other forms of percussion as well as the main drummer, it can be as simple as the singers clapping, people playing the tambourine or small shakers. Certain musicians such as stevie wonder has three percussionists when he plays live, a main drummer, a second percussionists and a third percussionist who plays hand percussion like bongos and african drums etc.

Usually funk songs have horns and hitting crashes on horn climaxes help emphasize them, for example superstition by Stevie wonder. Funk drumming consists largely on ride/hi-hat/snare/bass-drum patterns. Funk drumming has alot of ride bell and ghost notes in it.

In the video link above i will show you Stevie wonders drummer of 12 years playing along to a track demonstrating most of what ive said.

[funkbandstuff-blog]

Modern Funk/Soul

What I find interesting about funk music I have heard or have delved deeply into is that it is commonly infused with genres such as neo-psychedelia, electronica and dance; with obvious and subtle elements. Even band’s like Tame Impala, his music isn’t classed as funk but elements can be found there (e.g. ‘The Less I Know The Better’ - Currents). Popular examples of modern funk/soul is Childish Gambino, specifically his 2016 album, ‘Awaken My Love!’. Donald Glover Jr.’s influences consist of many artists including the early 00s punk-funk artist ‘LCD Soundsystem’ and ‘Funkadelic’: one of the greatest pioneers of funk/soul rock. The guitarist from this band (Eddie Hazel), I believe is one of the most underrated guitarists. The song named ‘Maggot Brain’ is the first song on Funkadelic’s 1971 album entitled, ‘Maggot Brain’. The song is 10 minutes and 29 seconds worth of consistent guitar solos that also had influences and elements of late 60s acid rock and psychedelia. The entire song was finished in 1 take.

YELLOW DAYS - WHAT’S IT ALL FOR?

https://youtu.be/mn98TiA37-s

BAD SOUNDS - LIVING ALONE

https://youtu.be/qdFThOciz1g

[funkbandstuff-blog]

Funk music has more complex rhythms than soul music. It often involves lots of drums and provides a more starring role for electric bass, an instrument that, prior to funk's development, hadn't been featured as prominently in popular music. It's the continual groove of the bass line in funk that makes you want to move. Melody is less important than the beat in funk. The music often has extended vamps, or repeated bars of music that can be played as many times as necessary or until the group decides to move on, of a single chord rather than many different series of chord progressions.

Sometimes funk groups also included horns, such as saxophones and trumpets, which were used for emphasis, almost like percussion instruments. When you listen to many funk songs, you can hear horns pop out aggressive bursts of notes. To make music funky, it was syncopated and had displaced rhythms. Instead of a standard straight beat (for example, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4), funk threw beats off the regular stroke and placed them on the and of the beat, such as 1 and 2 and 3 and 4).

Funk also had a distinct social dimension. Its lyrics often involved social or political issues.

[funkbandstuff-blog]

Funk Music Research

How Funk Music is Made

As a part of my groups presentation on 1960/70s funk music, i have done some research on what makes great funk music and how to make a funk song. I begun my research by listening to some well known and respected artists of the genre from this time period. James Brown, George Clinton, CHIC and Marvin Gaye were a few names that were often mention when reading about funk music during the 60s and 70s. Common instruments played in funk music is the bass guitar, electric guitar, drums, synthesiser and even an organ. 

After this i searched on YouTube how to make a funk song. I browsed through many different videos and managed to discover a fair bit about how they are usually written. For example, when the rhythm is being played on an instrument, the chords mainly consist of 7th and 9th chords. This is effective because rather than just playing a standard major chord with just a root note, a 3rd and a 5th, the genre is going beyond this and adding 7th and 9ths to make the chords sound brighter. The rhythm is also played very staccato-like also, which is very important because funk is made to make the listener want to move and dance to the music. Another big role in funk music is the bass guitar, which is often the most valid and integral instrument in the entire song. This is because this is where music gets its “Funk” from. The bass lines are always thick and is what the listener can follow whilst listening to the music. The lyrics are usually simplistic but the vocals will be loud and meaningful to hype up the crowd

Here is the song ‘Get Up’ by James Brown which is a great song to use as an example of funk. The tempo is quick and the bass line is staccato-like and follows through the song, leading you through, listening to the other instruments. The guitar uses 7th and 9th chords and playing its own rhythm thats separate to the rest of the song. The vocals from Brown are loud and interesting for the crowd and the backing vocals play a QnA type game with the lead vocals. When the lead vocals sing, “Get up”, the backing replies with “Get on up”. 

[funkbandstuff-blog]

Funk 1960s/1970s

Funk artists of the time: James Brown (The Godfather Of Soul), The Ohio Players, The S.O.S Band, Earth,wind and fire

Funk fashion was predominantly tight clothing that included giant necklines.

Funk originated in the USA. African American musicians fused soul, jazz and rhythm and blues to create a new sound which was funk.

James Brown is considered the father of American Funk. His style as well as his music shaped funk. Brown introduced the idea of using the beat on the first beat of the bar. The first song that introduced this was ‘cold sweat’.

Labels such as Motown and Stax began to take their music in the direction of funk with Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Issac Hayes.

Funk also helped in the fight for civil rights for African-Americans during this time as it gave black people a voice. James Browns’ ‘say it loud (I'm black and proud) was a significant song that helped black people establish that they were fighting for their rights in a country where they had been stolen.

[funkbandstuff-blog]

Funk research

“We want the funk!”  “We need the funk. Gotta have that funk”. Those words will forever live in the legends of music history, these are the slogans that took Funk from being just a sub-genre of R&B to becoming a life of its own. There were a number of influential artists that took the genre by storm, these are some of the many artists that had a massive impact on the revolution of funk and on music in general:

James Brown

James Brown is often credited as the “Godfather of Soul,” but he can also be titled as the man who made Funk a trending sound.

Earth, Wind & Fire

Marvin Gaye

The Jackson 5

Stevie wonder

these amazing artist have created the amazing hits such as “sex machine”, “The boss”, “its a mans world”, “September”, “boogie wonderland”, “lets groove”, “lets get it on”, “sexual healing”, “i want you back”, “blame it on the boogie”, “ABC”, “superstitious”, “inst she lovely”,  “higher ground”

What is funk music you may ask, well Funk music is a popular genre of the 1970s and 1980s technically a combination of African American soul music and a strong syncopated beat. But Funk is much more than what it is written on paper, but even the legend Prince him self said that  “If you can describe it, it ain’t funky”.