At a recent rehearsal, the band decided to try a little James Brown-style fling. Funk guitar is deceptively tricky stuff. It's all about finding that elusive rhythmic groove. But hey, I'm a rhythm guitar player, right?
If only it was that simple. I'm watching Patrick's hands flying around the guitar neck as he lays down some funk that the Godfather of Soul's guitar man "Catfish" Collins would have dug. And I'm feeling mighty funk-less.
So the next day I'm poking through The Guitar Handbook, a very cool book I'd been given as a Christmas gift by KCBS colleague (and real musician) Kim Wonderley. Somewhere in a section about chord theory, there's a mention of how funk music relies on 9th chords and 11th chords. I will spare you the heavy-duty musical details, but fix your gaze on this lovely chord diagram:
That, my friend, is a beautiful thing. It's a nice, funky-sounding chord...formed with one finger! It turns out the whole funk guitar sound can be created just by sliding up or down a fret from the starting point.
I love the 11th chord. No excuses now. It's time to lay down the boogie and play that funky music 'till I die.
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