Jazz Funk Rhythm Guitar – Intro Lesson

 

Have you ever found yourself comping over a tune with cool-sounding chords, but your rhythmic playing is falling flat? If you’ve ever wondered how to take your chords and make them hipper, then studying jazz funk rhythm guitar may be the answer you’re looking for.

 

Combining jazz chordal qualities with the sophisticated rhythmic patterns and fills of funk, jazz funk is an exciting and fun to play modern musical genre. When learning a new style of music, the most important thing is to listen to notable tracks from that genre. Because of this, check out these two jazz funk tracks before diving into the lesson material below.

George Benson – Breezin’

George Benson is a guitar genius. He combines fluid jazz guitar runs and chords with a silky smooth voice, and is widely accredited with bringing jazz to a more mainstream audience. “Breezin’” was a smash hit instrumental track for George Benson, and to this day provides a wonderful crossover between jazz, funk and pop.

 

While listening to the track, take in all the different components that Benson used when playing this piece. Melodic double stops start out the piece, while the four-chord progression of Dmaj9-Bmadd9-Em9-G/A is strummed in an upbeat fashion.

 

The main melody throughout uses a D major scale, proving that to sound jazzy you don’t always need to know a thousand scales.

 

Michael Jackson – Rock With You

In 1979, Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall was released. To this day, it remains king of all the funk rhythm guitar albums. Legendary session guitarist David Williams recorded the main rhythm guitar part heard on the track “Rock With You.”

 

This track features a jazzier vibe than Jackson’s other recordings and features some of the chords you’re going to look at in today’s article. The crisp tight rhythm sound heard on this recording is something to try and emulate in your own funky compositions.

 

Jazz Funk Rhythm Guitar Progression 

This example introduces the chord progression that’ll be used throughout this entire article. The chords that’ll be used are Dm9, G/A, and A/B. Fretting the Dm9 can prove tricky at first, but it’s excellent sound makes up for the extra effort needed.

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play

 

 

 

Syncopated Strumming Pattern

 

Funk rhythm guitar relies heavily on groove and syncopation. This next example adds a funk-based groove to the chords and uses a chromatic passing chord of Ab/Bb (same shape as the other slash chords) to add variation and excitement.

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play

 

 

Triads Shapes for Funk Jazz

 

In jazz, you often play chord shapes that use four or more notes. In funk guitar however, triads or other three-note chords are a more popular choice. As you’re looking at jazz funk, you can steal ideas from both genres. Here you’ve dropped the root note from each of the chords in the progression.

 

This creates three-note mini ‘triad’ chord shapes, which will form the basis of the following two examples. If you always find yourself playing four-note, or more, chord shapes, it can be a beneficial strategy to drop any root notes and create three-note shapes. This’ll help both your comping over standards and your jazz funk playing.

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play

 

 

 

Adding Slides To The Triads

 

Triads are far easier to slide on the guitar than four note chords, and sliding triads is a classic sound heard throughout jazz funk guitar. This example demonstrates sliding the entire shape from one fret below each triad chord seen in the previous example. There’s also an added groove-based rhythm and a passing chromatic slash chord, first introduced in example two.

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play

 

 

Adding Muted Chords

 

The next example adds mutes to example four to create a modern jazz-funk groove. Imagine if George Benson and Nile Rodgers combined to create a riff, this is it,

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play

Different Neck Positions

Now that you’ve learned the chord progression and some ways to funk it up, it’s time to learn the same shapes in a different area of the neck. It’s recommend when learning chords, scales, and arpeggios that you know at least two different patterns on the fretboard. The Dm9 chord in this voicing is a little uncomfortable to fret, so as you’ll see in the following examples, it’s easier to play if you take off the low D on the 6th string.

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play

 

 

 

Adding a Strumming Pattern

 

As mentioned in the previous example, it’s easier to fret this Dm9 chord if you take off the 6th string root note. This allows for all the chords to be on the top four strings, which is common in funk guitar rhythm playing. Make sure you practice all the examples shown today slowly, and with a metronome, before using the backing tracks provided.

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play

 

 

Triads Part II

 

In a similar way to example three, example eight creates mini ‘triad’ shapes high up the neck. These triads are named in terms of what they produce when played along with the backing track. The shapes seen in this example are fundamental to funk, reggae, and ska guitar parts.

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play

 

 

 

Slides Part II

 

Example nine builds a lovely jazz-funk rhythm part simply by adding slides and a syncopated rhythm to the chords introduced in the previous example.

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play

 

 

Mutes Part II

 

In this example, you add muted strums in between the chords to add a percussive funk based effect.

 

Backing Track

Listen & Play

Conclusion

The options available when playing rhythm guitar are vast. I often hear students and fellow guitarists saying, “Rhythm guitar is boring,” and my answer to that is always, “You’re just not doing it right!”

 

By starting out with a simple three-chord jazz progression, you were able to build ten different patterns around the neck that introduced syncopation, triads, slides, and mutes. Even by adding one of these techniques to your rhythm playing arsenal you’ll be able to add excitement to any chord progression you play.

About the Author

Simon Pratt heads up the Fundamental-Changes YouTube channel providing a wide range of video lessons for the site. His first book Exotic Pentatonic Soloing For Guitar was a number one bestseller on Amazon and his second book is due for release in March 2016. As well as writing books and producing videos, Simon spends his time devoted to teaching the guitar and has students from all around the world via Skype.

 

 

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