Stop 2 of 8
Funk, pop and soul
Accompanying songs, sixteenth strumming and soul double stops.
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Stop 2 of 8
Accompanying songs, sixteenth strumming and soul double stops.
Second stop on the tour: the place where the guitar is rarely the star and yet holds everything together. In soul, funk and pop, the guitar is one gear in the machine: it backs a voice, locks in with bass and drums and leaves room for everyone else. Here you will learn the most underrated art on the instrument: playing less, but exactly what the song needs.
Soul emerged in the United States in the late fifties, when the gospel of African American churches met rhythm and blues. Labels such as Motown in Detroit and Stax in Memphis created instantly recognisable studio sounds, with house bands playing on hundreds of recordings. In the mid-sixties, James Brown and his musicians pushed that language towards something more rhythmic and repetitive: funk.
The central idea of funk is "the one": the first beat of the bar is where the whole band meets. Around it, each instrument plays a short, repeated figure, and the magic lies in how they fit together. The typical chord is the : a with the ninth added, brighter and less tense than an altered chord.
Funk's rhythmic secret lives in the strumming hand: it moves non-stop in sixteenths, down-up-down-up, like a pendulum. The fretting hand decides what sounds: when it presses, you get the chord; when it relaxes without letting go of the strings, you get a muted, percussive stroke. That short, dry hit on the treble strings is called the .
Listen to the pattern. Only a few arrows actually sound; the crosses are the hand moving on over muted strings:
And here it is in tab, with the E9 shape on the top four strings. The xs are dead notes:
A funk guitarist almost never plays six-string chords. They use three- or four-note shapes on the treble strings, which sound clear and short and leave the low register to the bass. Many leave out the root: the bass already plays it.
A funk trick: play the ninth chord and slide the whole shape in from a half step below just before the beat. Another: alternate two neighbouring chords, such as Am7 and D9, the i–IV of the mode, over harmony that barely moves. In funk the harmony is nearly static; the interest is in the rhythm.
In A Aeolian the fourth chord would be Dm7; in A Dorian it is D7, because Dorian has the major sixth (F♯), which is the third of D. That note is the mode's characteristic note. That's why so many funk and soul vamps alternate a minor seventh with a dominant a fourth higher: it's the most direct way to hear Dorian.
There is also single-note funk: short lines on the middle strings that interlock with the bass, often with dead notes in between. This original line in A Dorian is meant to sound with the chank, not over it:
While the singer sings, the soul guitarist fills the gaps with double stops: two notes a third or a sixth apart, often with a small hammer-on or slide coming in from a half step below. They sound sweet and vocal, like a two-part choir.
Sixths are usually played on strings 3 and 1, skipping string 2. This original fill moves through sixths over C and then over F, entering each time from a half step below:
Thirds fit on neighbouring strings, such as 3 and 2. Moving them along the scale, always inside the key, gives the typical line in parallel thirds:
In pop, the guitar usually has a humble but decisive job: holding up the voice. Progressions are short and , the verse–chorus–bridge is clear, and what sets a good accompanist apart is how the chords sound together.
A classic trick of acoustic pop: open chords that share notes on the treble strings. Here fingers 3 and 4 stay put on fret 3 of strings 2 and 1, and the whole group sounds connected, with a shared shimmer:
That common thread (D and G on the top strings) is a simple form of : the bass notes change but the top barely moves. With a you can take the same shapes to any singer's key.
Verse
Play less: arpeggios, a soft strum or just beats 1 and 3. Let the lyrics come through.
Chorus
Open up: full strumming, more strings, more dynamics. The contrast makes the chorus "take off".
When several guitars, keyboards and bass are playing, the problem is no longer playing well: it's not getting in the way. Arrangers think along three axes:
Guitar 1
Sixteenth-note chank with three-note shapes on the treble strings. Marks the fine pulse.
Guitar 2
A single-note line on the middle strings or double stops in the gaps. It answers rather than repeats.
Listen to the grid below and play the chank first, then the single-note line. If you have a recorder, record one part and play the other on top: you'll hear how the two fit without colliding.
The best school for this stop is records. Some references to start with: James Brown and his guitarists Jimmy Nolen and Catfish Collins; Nile Rodgers with Chic; Prince; Curtis Mayfield; Steve Cropper on the Stax recordings; and, in pop, any song in which an acoustic guitar holds up the voice with very few notes.
Don't just listen to "the song": listen to the guitar part. Ask yourself three questions: how many guitars are there, and in which register is each one? On which sixteenths do their strokes fall? What do they do while the voice sings, and what do they do in the gaps? Then draw the sixteen-box grid of one bar and fill it in by ear. That small exercise in will teach you more about funk than any list of patterns, and it will give you ideas for writing parts of your own, not copies.
Goal: Keep the hand moving in sixteenths for two minutes at 90 BPM, with the chords in place and no stray notes in the muted strokes.
Play the sixths fill over the C–F backing. Then make up your own: use only sixths on strings 3 and 1 and always come in from a half step below.
Goal: Play the sixths and thirds over the soul backing, entering in time with both notes equally loud.
Play the G–Cadd9–Em7–Dsus4 progression: two rounds with soft quarter notes only, two with the full strum. Sing or hum a melody of your own on top.
Goal: Play the progression twice softly (verse) and twice loudly (chorus) without losing the tempo on the changes.
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