funk/hiphop bass techniques

anything you want to say about it is on-topic here

right hand techniques common to funk?...i think i hear a lot of hammers, slides and such?

chords and chord progressions that sound legit

amps or tonal things you use/do...effects chains and such...

anything a'tall....

'jus' get down with tha funk, boy

:)

sorry, you asked for it... cant give you much help chordwise... listen to the meters or Old_Mojos new orleans funk thangs for a start, leave breaks in your playing and stop your notes on the spot. Play less, keep goin (imagine being a parliament funkadelic bassman... 15 mins nothing happening, all night long).
Theres too many styles within funk to say much more... just ramp off a riff, leave at least a quarter of the bar free for others and keep doin that :) now the experts please:

... that said more than you might think, thanks Dick

hehe, wait and see...

all my questions answered in 1:21 minutes!!

[youtube]IHE6hZU72A4[/youtube]

Yay, Bootsy!!

Man, I could write about this for ages, but as I'm at work, I'll just say in terms of chords, you can get a lot of mileage out of just a one chord vamp (Minor or Major 7 chords are nice), or some combination of I IV V. If you're into modes and stuff, lots and lots and lots of funk is written in either Dorian or Mixolydian.

The best way to get an understanding of it all though, I found, was just to play along to loads of funk records and completely immerse yourself in the music.

Oh, and to have fun. And maybe to wear star-shaped sunglasses :-)

great!...well, when/if you have a moment anything else you want to say will be very appreciated alexj....just listening to 3813 and wondering about your techniques, and the tone especially... what bass you play, strings, etc....sounds like you are plucking pretty hard too

listening to bootsy above...seems he has not much bass set really, more toward the mids and highs....idk

sorry to say that, but bootsys sound is really nothing you should copy imo :) liked the vid a lot, cool style explanation, but the sound? naw man...


+1 for the sunglasses!

put a similar thread at talkbass, and got this...could help future wikis digging threads too...

Quote:
Originally Posted by simmerdown
right hand techniques common to funk?...i think i hear a lot of hammers, slides and such?

Those are left hand techniques, unless you are left handed. There's a type of "vibrato" (not sure of you can call it a vibrato) where you slide up and down ~ a half step to a whole step up and down in both directions. You can hear it a lot on Stevie Wonder's I Wish, Boogie Oogie Oogie by Taste of Honey, and a lot of mid to late 70s funk tunes.


Quote:
Originally Posted by simmerdown
chords and chord progressions that sound legit

Most common funk chord progression is just to groove on a single chord in either Mixolydian or Dorian mode. You can even use both modes interchangeably, and the tonality can switch back and forth between a dominant 7th chord sound, and a minor 7th, based on context.

Other common chord progressions are I - IV, V - I, VI - V - I, and the standard blues progressions.

Chord tones that make a bass line sound funky are the major 6th and minor 7th, which are both found in the Mixolydian and Dorian modes.

Sorry for all the theory in a thread about technique. Funk isn't really about technique.

As for technique that would apply to both funk and hip hop, you want to pick cleanly, preferably with fingers, and make liberal use of left hand muting to keep notes short and punchy. Listen to Jerry Jemmott. He's more known as a blues and soul bassist, but he's been sampled a lot, and he played on Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which was a tune that laid one of the cornerstones of hip hop.

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Edited by simmerdown on April 12 2012 16:52