How to Play a Funk Groove on the Piano
- November 17th, 2007
- Posted in music
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I’ve edited this post to provide a concise set of links to the music, backing drum loops and videos, in order. Hope this helps.
- PDF of music
- Loop-it-yourself drum backing
- 5-minutes of drum loop
- Video 1 – Intro
- Video 2 – Lead-In Line
- Video 3 – Bass Line
- Video 4 – Right Hand Comping 1
- Video 5 – Right Hand Comping 2
- Video 6 – Stab Breaks
- Video 7 – Hangs
- Video 8 – Bass Techniques
- Video 9 – Riff Variation
- Video 10 – Stops & Glissandos
- Video 11 – Tremolo
- Video 12 – Double Stops
- Video 13 – Left Hand “Helpers”
- Video 14 – Rolling Blues Chords
- Video 15 – Accent Notes
- Video 16 – Aggressive Riff Variation 1
- Video 17 – Aggressive Riff Variation 2
- Video 18 – Full Song
The final video in the series, demonstrating all of the techniques from the series is after the break:
Hi Jonathon, thanks a lot for that great tutorial! I’m having a lot of fun with it ! What would be great if continue this in future times is the riffs written down on sheet to donwload.
I’m looking forward to more!
Greetings from Germany, Sebastian
Hi Jonathon, thanks for great tutorial!
) ). The problem is with the lesson 4 so far. I think that what’s missing is the part where you’re plaing both left and right hand’s part together but slowly, just like you do when you introduce new part. We have problem synchronizing left and right hand in this lesson 
)
My friend and I try to follow it (and we are very motivated to learn the groove because it sounds, well… groovy
Anyway – we keep practice. I hope the music sheet will help a bit.
Greetings from Poland, Slawek
Yeah, definitely download the music. It shows both hands together. I would try to break the measures down into a sixteenth-note grid, so you can see which notes line up between the hands. In other words, if you break the beats down into the old “One ee and a, Two ee and a, Three ee and a, Four ee and a” — where each syllable is a sixteenth note. See if you can figure out where you push the keys down to line up. Do it very very slowly, until you get the feel of it. Good luck, and thanks for commenting! -Jonathon
Hi Jonathan
Thanks for the great series on funk piano.
I have one reservation about presenting the bass and comping individually (as in your first lessons) – because I’m really learning them together – or do you advocate learning them separate this way?
I myself have some videos on playing Bach at http://www.dirkbertels.net/music/favourite_Bach_performances.php and some funk grooves at
http://www.dirkbertels.net/music/Piano_diary_2000_03.html
Maybe some is of interest to you.
Once again thanks for the excellent presentations …
Dirk Bertels
dirk@dirkbertels.net
Excellent Stuff, Dirk! Although it’s always hard to pick just one, Bach is definitely very near the top of my list of favorite composers. I think its the programmer in me coming out. If you haven’t heard Glenn Gould perform Bach, then I’d recommend it.
Your funk grooves look cool, too — I like the way you set the bass to not always hit the downbeats, and to interplay with the comping. Regarding your reservation — I chose to present them separately, so that students would have the simpler option of learning them one at a time, and also allows an understanding of what’s going on in each part. The music download shows them together. And you’re absolutely correct — to master them *together*, you’ll have to practice them that way!
I have an (i think ) more exact rendition of your funk groove 13 score. If you’re interested send me a quick email and I will send it to you. Love that lick by the way.
And your ‘rolling lick’ (14) is something I’ve been hearing so much and never been able to figure out before – so that was an eye-opener.
It’s interesting how few websites offer free instructions on funk piano (are people crazy or what ?) … So yours is really the only one that ‘googles’ up in this category.
I’m also interested in what SW you used for editing the videos (and what camera).
Lastly, do you know of any interesting (free) repositories of funk grooves (either midi or score).
Cool! Just send it to me, and I’ll update my notation. I did the scores pretty quickly, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t some mistakes in there… Glad you like the rolling lick. It plays well in many genres (I have the same thing over in the blues licks series). Haven’t found much in the way of funk grooves for piano, I’m afraid — you and I will have to continue to help out here!
As far as software, I edited these on Adobe Premiere, but I often use the more powerful, but less user-friendly, and *free* Avisynth. This is my old camera — a Canon ZR-200 cheap Mini DV camcorder. I’ve since upgraded to an HD Canon, which I’ll use on the next series. Hopefully it will be a bit sharper!
You play lick 16 differently each time in your example where you play all your funk licks. I liked every one of those iterations – so managed to score the 4 variations. Interested in the midi/score files for them?
How about a deal, you release your 2nd lot of Funk licks and you get the files …
Ha! Nice, Dirk! I’m definitely interested! I’ll trade you the music for funk groove #2 and an audio file (before the vid is out… early access!). Somehow, I feel like you’re going to give the best review of my scoring that I’d find anywhere…
Alrighty — I added downloaded audio from the original video, along with sneak preview audio and the full downloadable notation for the upcoming sequel, “How to Play a Funk Groove, II”. Downloads are here: http://www.aqua-web.com/2008/08/22/early-beta-release-of-how-to-play-a-funk-groove-ii/
Reworked this post a bit, to include links to all of the backing stuff and all of the videos in order (while they last) on youtube. Hope this helps!
Hi Jonathon, you are really a great pianist, i really enjoy all your funky stuff.
I’ve already learned this groove and now i’d like to improvise on this stuff but I’m not able to make good things with the bass line you gave, it’s so difficult. Can you suggest a good sounding & easy bass line for improvisation on this groove?
I’m also waiting forward your new lessons
Greetings from France
Links for backing track doesn’t work. Could you repair those.
Should be fixed now – please give it another try.
This stuff is great. I’m studying this very closely and found something that bothers me. If you could comment on this I would appriciate it.
On lesson 6 (Stab breaks) you play an example really slowly so it gave me opportunity to compare it to notation and I have some doubts. It doesn’t concern stab breaks infact. In a first measure second note (A) in a bass clef has a dot on notation so it should be short and in your example it sounds untill left hand goes to C and when you hit C you still keep A pressed. Then you play F and A with your right hand which is a quarter note in notation and it should still sound when right hand plays Bb but you play it differently.
I’m beginner so there is huge possiblity that my comment is quite stupid. Please correct me If you have a moment