This is a summary of something I’ve been doing with a few of my students, adding some moves to the basic cut time funk grooves, which we get by reading Syncopation, pp. 34-37— book rhythm […]
Category: funk
Groove o’ the day: Let Me Have It All – Andy Newmark
Nice piece of early 70s funk from Andy Newmark playing on Let Me Have It All by Sly Stone, from Stone’s album Fresh. It’s busy, with a lot of variety, based on a loose idea […]
Funk loops embedded – 01
Continuing to post some of my favorite practice loops, here are some slower tempo selections from my funk folder. Also check out my rock loops I already posted. Betty Davis – If I’m In Luck […]
Fill phrase with RH lead on toms
We’ve got a good little fill unit going here lately— usually these might be taught with a single instruction, “groove first measure / RH lead second measure”, and that’s mostly enough, but, reading from Syncopation, […]
Free 8th note fills in 2/2
In the middle of a big fill unit with several students. Here are some sketches of single measure fills with 8th notes in 2/2, with minor embellishments, for moderate tempos. Stickings are left unspecified— you’ll […]
Reed tweak: expanding a fill phrase
Opening up a stock fill phrase I use with my students, reading, as ever, from Syncopation. A couple of easy moves for not being so barline oriented. This has a pretty energetic feel, with a […]
World’s stupidest debate
All right, let’s get massively on line, people. There’s a hot theory “debate” happening on “Instagram”, about WHERE’S THE 1 on a simple damn rap song by Ludacris, “Rollout”, which I had never heard before […]
Filling in funk beats – 01
This is in development, it’s not necessarily a finished “lesson.” We’ve done a lot making simple rock beats into fill phrases, here we’re doing that with a more complex beat— looking at some possible ways […]
Rock beats with fill phrases
Using this framework a lot with my students in recent months, marking up Funky Primer with a Sharpie, putting accents over the bass drum notes to indicate a crash, marking over the remaining notes with […]
Fills in a 4/8 framework – 01
Continuing the concept of that last thing, Fills in a 3/8 framework. Here we’ve got four 8ths of space to deal with, a cymbal accent, and three 8ths of fill. I’m very pleased with how […]
Squarepusher beat
This came out of a mistake by a student, when we were working on some basic ghost note materials. Some things considered to be “advanced” come up naturally in the form of mistakes and general […]
Funk warmups – cymbal on offbeats
A page of groove fragments, really, for one of my students— to help get oriented working out of New Breed. We were having some difficulties with this particular cymbal rhythm. You could play this […]