Term 2 - Lesson 8

Today we began to look at Funk! Last week we were given a song called Cissy Strut by The Meters to look at which included two riffs and used the 12 bar blues that we have previously been looking at. We noted that Funk is largely made up of semi quaver beats and lots of upstroke strumming on beats 2 and 4. This is what makes a song sound 'funky' but the fast tempo and horn sections differentiate it from Jazz or Reggae. So for the first part of the lesson we practised the two riffs of Cissy Strut; it was in C minor so from learning about blues I know that the first chord is Cm, the second is Fm and the third is Gm. I could also use a C minor pentatonic to improvise over the solo.

Image result for c minor pentatonic scale

The second funk song we looked at today was Papa's Got A Brand New Bag by James Brown. This song uses 9th chords which I have seen a lot of before in funk music but they are awkward chords to play if you haven't played them.

I figured out that by keeping the end of my third finger flat on the bottom three strings and keeping my second finger curved I can successfully play the chord. This just isn't a shape I'm used to playing as I've never been able to play barre chords with my third finger. This song uses the 12 bar blues too but is different at the end - there is a whole bar of the fist chord and then a single strum of chord five.


Image result for a9 chordImage result for e9 chordImage result for b9 chord

At the end of the lesson we talked about songs that we would like to learn and be able to play really well. I would love to be able to play the solo in Hotel California by The Eagles because it's a really definitive solo for me. It would help me improve my picking and slides and I would like to learn the theory of the song too. As part of my practise this week I am going to start learning the chords and become more familiar with the song.

The Longest Wave by the Red Hot Chili Peppers has a really interesting melody guitar part through the whole song. I can play it slowly at the moment but the actual song is pretty fast so to be able to play it well I need to practise with a metronome and tidying up all the little slides and hammer ons.

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