All styles

Blues, jazz, soul and funk

Funk on guitar: chords and rhythm.

Funk often sits on one or two chords, a m7 and a 7, played very short on the high strings. It is all in the strumming hand: constant sixteenth notes, most of them muted. Em7 – A7, the Dorian vamp, drives hundreds of funk tunes.

i7 – IV7Level · Advanced

The progression

Pick a key: the charts change right below. "Listen" plays the progression with its rhythm; a click on a chord plays it alone, the arrow opens its page.

Key

In E minor · 100 BPM
  • Em7
    E minor 7123
  • A7
    A 7×12

The rhythm

One bar of the strumming hand, beat by beat. While it plays, the stroke being played lights up.

1
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·
·
2
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·
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3
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4
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  • down, cut short
  • muted strings, as percussion
  • up, cut short

In the collection

4

Songs in this style, with their chords or the scale of their solos.

From the same world

The music born of the African American tradition: the blues' seventh, the rich chords of jazz and soul, the strumming hand of funk, and gypsy jazz's la pompe.