Chords for FUNK IMPROV TUTORIAL

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What's up everybody, my name is Scott Paddock and today we are going to talk about funk improv.
Before we dive into the tutorial, if you find my videos [Eb] useful, I'd really appreciate it
if you [Abm] would hit the thumbs up, subscribe to my [Eb] channel, and share with your friends.
Okay, [C] so let's get started.
We are going to use the Bb blues scale as our foundation _ as we talk about how to make
[G] everything sound funky.
Your [N] blues scale is made up of the first degree of your major scale, the flat third, the fourth,
the sharp fourth, the fifth, the flat seventh, and the root again.
Okay, so there are three main steps to make your improv sound funky.
The first step is play your eighth note straight.
When we first start improvising, _ we usually do it in a jazz style, again using your Bb
concert blues [Cm] scale, [D] and it sounds something like this.
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_ _ _ [N] _ _ _ If you want to use those same notes and just play it in a funky style, we would even out
those eighth notes.
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_ _ _ _ [Bb] _ [N] So step one is make your eighth note straight.
Step two to funk improv is to syncopate your notes.
So again, when we're playing in a jazzy style, everything is kind of connected in a line.
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[Db] _ [F] _ _ _ If we want to make it sound funky, we need to put some syncopation there.
So we're just going to play shorter notes and not everything is just going to be eighths
in a row. _ _ _ _
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_ [N] The third step is the secret sauce that makes everything come together.
[G] It's all in your articulation.
So when we are articulating in a funky style, we're going to use harder articulation. _
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[Eb] It's pretty much that simple.
You have three main rules to follow.
One, keep your eighth notes [Ab] straight.
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_ Step number two, syncopate them _ and _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ then make your articulation way harder.
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_ [Gb] _ _ _ _ Those are the three main rules for making your improv [Eb] sound funky, [Eb] but there are definitely
some techniques that can help you dig deeper and do the funk style.
The first one is easy.
It's just repeated notes.
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[F] That simple.
If you're going to play that in a line. _ _ _
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The second one is very similar.
It's repeated [Bb] phrases. _ _
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_ _ _ If you're going to play that in a line, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ if you're going to put the two together, repeated
notes and repeated phrases. _ _ _
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[N] The third is octave displacement.
So when you're jamming out on a line, jump down to a low note out of nowhere, jump up
to a high note [F] out of nowhere.
When you're playing a funky line, that sounds super cool and it's straight out of the Maceo Parker [Ab] handbook. _
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_ _ _ _ The next technique is shifting the beat.
So in this example, we're going to use three notes.
I'm going to use on alto B flat, which is your flat third, G, which is your root and
F, which is your flat seven.
And I'm going to keep shifting it around all over the place.
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_ _ Another funk technique is the two note groove.
You're going to take two notes and you're [C] just going to play a cool groove out of it.
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_ _ _ _ [Db] _ So you want to repeat notes.
That's part of the articulation and repeated notes and the syncopation along with just
having [F] two notes in your groove. _
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_ _ The more advanced version of this is the overtone groove.
If you already know your overtones, this is a great place to put them in.
If you don't, you might [G] want to skip this section because this is definitely more advanced.
[C] But we're going to use our root, which is G and our overtone on C, which will be a G.
So we're going to have two G's.
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_ _ _ _ _ _ [N] And then you can take that to the next level by adding other notes into your overtone groove.
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_ _ _ _ [D] And the final technique is just [Eb] throwing some altissimo in there.
Funk and altissimo go together perfectly.
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So that's [G] pretty much it.
If you want your solos to sound funky, you have to follow three rules.
Rule number one, make sure your eighth notes are straight.
Rule number [Eb] two, make sure you are using syncopation.
And rule number three, _ over articulate.
Articulate really strong.
If you [D] combine those three rules along with the basic techniques I just showed you, your
lines [C] are definitely going to sound funky very quickly.
And most important of all, when it comes to funk, it's all about the groove.
It's not about the chops.
It's not about the substitutions.
[Eb] It's not about how outside you can play.
[B] It's all about playing something that sounds cool, [N] in the pocket, and funky.
Thanks for taking the time to check out this tutorial, and I hope that you found it helpful.
If you did, please make sure you hit the thumbs up, subscribe, and share it with your [Bb] friends.
Thanks a lot.
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