Funk is a genre of music in which guitarists and other musicians can achieve extremely high levels of musicianship.
I’ll be giving you a total of 30 funk guitar riffs divided into three lessons covering beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels of funk guitar playing.
It is important to note, however, that the beginner level in funk differs from the beginner level in playing the guitar.
Before learning these riffs, make sure you’re familiar with the following items.
If you aren’t, I recommend that you click on the relevant links to gain a working knowledge of the item before moving on to funk guitar riffs.
- Reading guitar tabs.
- An understanding of the basics of the guitar including basic chords, fluently changing from one to another, and steady strumming.
- Playing basic rhythmic patterns, especially those involving 16th notes, which are predominant in Funk rhythm guitar.
- Muting notes/chords – In Funk, some of the sixteenth notes in the pattern are struck while others are played muted (this is represented by the sign x in the guitar tabs). To play Funk you need to develop the ability to mute the notes at will by lifting your left hand fingers, while keeping them touching the strings.
Executing the muting technique itself is easy, since you just lift your fingers. The harder part is muting and pressing again, while strumming. - Ability to play guitar with a metronome – After you learn each riff, make sure you can play it on time with a metronome. Then lock in with the metronome and repeat the riff over and over to get it under your belt.
Are you familiar enough with these guitar skills?
Let’s get the funk started!
Tip: Any funk riff can be simplified not only by lowering the tempo, but also by isolating small sections of notes. If you find the music challenging, consider learning one beat at a time rather than whole bars.
Riff 1
The first riff makes use of the most basic elements of funk music including sixteenth note patterns and staccato notes.
Notes that have a small dot over them should be played with a staccato effect, which means they should be held for a shorter time than their full duration.
It is important to familiarize yourself with playing some notes staccato if you want your riffs to sound funky.
Riff 2
The next riff uses the same elements as the first and also adds vibrato technique.
Adding the vibrato effect to a note is an important technique used not just in funk but almost every other genre where the guitar is used.
This riff also starts on an off beat, which means you don’t play the first note exactly on the beat, but a sixteenth note later.
Starting a note not on the beat creates another effect known as syncopation, which is very common in funk music. Syncopation occurs when the accent is not on the note that the listener expects to be accented, in this case, on the beat.
Riff 3
The following riff uses the same elements as the previous two, but it is busier, with more sixteenth notes, sixteenth note rests, and syncopation.
Riff 4
This riff introduces a crucial element in funk guitar playing – ghost notes.
By lifting your left hand finger enough to mute the note (but still touching the string) and picking the note with your right hand, you get a sound that has a rhythmic value, but no identifiable pitch – a ghost note.
Ghost notes, also called dead notes, are used in many genres of music but in funk they’re a foundational element.
Riff 5
This riff and the next explore further single note funk riffs that make use of ghost notes.
Unlike the others, which have a time signature of 4/4, this riff is in 5/4. Go to this lesson if you want to explore the topic of time signatures further.
Riff 6
Riff 7
The next riff introduces our first chord, D9.
If ýou’re at a beginner or intermediate level on the guitar you’re probably not familiar with this chord since it is not very commonly used outside genres like Funk and Jazz.
However, in Funk, extended chords like 9th, 11th and 13th are even more common than popular chord types like major and minor.
Building a vocabulary of such chords is crucial if you want to play Funk.
Note: These chords are moveable, unless they contain open strings. To play E9, simply begin the D9 pattern shown below from the note E (two frets above).
Riff 8
Because Funk is a rhythm-based genre, a riff can be created from a single chord and made more interesting by combining muted and non-muted chords.
To mute a chord, lift all of your left-hand fingers together while keeping them in contact with the strings. As you did with the ghost notes, this time apply it to the entire chord.
The chord is D9, which we explored in the previous riff.
Riff 9
The next riff uses similar concepts at the previous one, but this time the riff is based around the chord of C9, and briefly touches another important Funk chord, C13.
Riff 10
The last riff in this lesson makes use of two notes an octave apart.
The note between them should be muted all the time by the fleshy part of your left hand finger.
Conclusion
Congratulations if you can play every funk guitar riff from this lesson.
You’re well on your way in mastering a genre of music that hard to play.
The riffs in the next lesson, will explore more layers of complexity, new chords and other techniques that are commonly found in funk rhythm guitar.
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