Thank you Chris for sharing this video. Great efforts!
1) You need to keep 16th strumming (Do not stop) Your strumming is not making a steady 16th rhythm.
2) Plesae pick slower tempo.
3) 9th chord from 5th string root. X R M3 b7 9 5 ... Listen carefully and let M3 heard more. Your 2nd finger preessing the 4th.
This one is very difficult.
I made this suppotive video. Plesae watch it.
Tomo
Thanks much Tomo for this. I find it extremely useful to continuously moving my hand during accents. I transferred this sometimes on single notes and then my beat is so on point.
Needless to say I gathered additional good stuff for my future Just Funky / funk practice.
Keep pushing the limit, Chris!
Hugo
Great rhythm practice reminders Tomo!
Thank you Hugo & Clay! I really appreciate it!
Tomo
Wow, thanks for this Tomo so much to learn I’m realizing.
I will work on just consistently strumming and then adding in the accents on 1, 2, 3, & 4.
I will slooow it down. And concentrate on M3 sounding out and forget 13th for now. Will practice daily and circle back again in a couple weeks.
so when we play funk something I grapple with is "strict forearm motion" vs "a relaxed wrist".
is it better to play with more forearm action and less wrist ???
Is that one of the reasons for R37 Swing groove , it develops a "strict" up and down strumming facility/technqiue with the forearm , and once that is engrained then we can add the nuance of a little relaxed wrist action during strumming????
Personally I play it with more forearm motion but I can do more with a relaxed wrist too.
I think first with forearm then add a little flexibility with wrist movement. This way you have "techniques"
You can do anything you would like... after you have a solid foundation. It's not strict. Just better way to learn. Freedom is waiting!
Tomo
I think it's best to stick with Tomo's suggestions at the beginning of the practice, not just because "Tomo said so". In my opinion, funk and rhythm guitar playing has important focus and foundations on the beat (and unity of sound). If we only use more of our forearm at the initial stages of our practice, it's much easier to focus on getting the beat and the sound right. It's simpler and gives less burden and variables to our brain to process.
In addition, parts of our hand aren't exactly isolated, in that they will work in tandem regardless of whether we want or not. It will be great to add more wrist force or angle for details and speed once we got the forearm section "right" (cross reference to bending where some people use more of their finger force but definitely they still have used some or little of their wrist force). I see in this way: precisely because Tomo stuck to his training routine for years, you can see that when he played Just Funky, his strumming is very consistent (the sound, the mute) and almost robotically accurate (in a good sense), but very rarely I see cover artists do the same, although they can sort of mimick the song generally. It's almost like martial arts practice - you train a million times for the few kicks and you develop something truely amazing; but if you don't set some of the foundations correct (such as beating the sandbag with the same simple jab for god knows how long), you don't truly advance and may be running circles at a stage.
Hugo
Thank you so much Hugo!
Tomo
just thought Id share this Jeff beck tune. Listen and watch him play the intro to this song called "you know what I mean"
he uses the funky 9th chord with the 13th embellishment that is in this funk exercise your working on
right at the first 6 seconds in you can see him playing it and doing funky muted strums on the 9th chord
Good one!
Great song! I used to play that song when I was a student at Berklee!
Tomo
Wow, he absolutely slays that funky 9th chord. Impressive and his guitar playing whilst gum chewing capabilities ha ha ha. I like how tight the whole song is, feels very funk syncopated across all the elements. Thanks for sharing.
You can try that funky D9 chord! I made this additional video at my lunch time!
Tomo
Thank you for making Tomo!