“I changed from the upbeat to the downbeat … Simple as that, really”
– James Brown
What is Funk?
Funk – 1967-1978
Funk was derived from Soul and R&B in the late 1960s by James Brown, Sly & the Family Stone and Funkadelic. Funk progressed as mainstream popular music and peaked in the early to mid-1970s where it changed music forever with its emphasis on the bass guitar and the rhythm section. The new bass playing techniques would permeate throughout all the other genres of the 1970s (Light Rock, Country Rock, Prog Rock, Hard Rock and even early Heavy Metal like Black Sabbath). Like Rock music, modern pop music would never be the same and shows a distinct line of demarcation in technology and fidelity in the new sounds. Furthermore, Funk would spawn the future genres of both Disco and Hip Hop music. What would all these genres sound like without Funk’s enormous influence?
The Rhythm and the concept of “The One”
The concept of the One is the heavy emphasis on the first downbeat of every one or two measures, bars or counts. A Measure or a bar in funk music is accented by the bass drum counting “ONE-two-three-four”, with the emphasis on the one. Previously in Soul music, the emphasis was the backbeat snare drum count on the “two” and the “four” of “one-TWO-three-FOUR“. The beat driven by the bass drum emphasis on the one combined with the syncopating boom of the bass guitar is the root of the funk band.
The rest of the band acts as rhythmic instruments, such as, and most importantly percussion instruments like a set of Congas, bongos, and timbales as well as anything you can shake (Tambourines, Maracas), hit (Claves, Agogo, and Cowbells), scrape (Guicas), etc. The rhythm section was the whole point of the funky new propulsive style of dance music. Bo Diddley would always have a percussion player (Claves, Maracas, etc) syncopating rhythms with the Latin music “concept of clave”
The guitars gave heavily syncopated patterns using new electronic gadgets like the wah-wah pedal that came from guitarists like Jimi Hendrix over a drums/bass groove. The horns provided the bebop jazz chords but at rhythmic “Stabs” punctuating the funk groove, with synchronized accents.
The funk band grooves or vamps, which means picking a funky groove or riff in one key and sticking with it, with no chord changes. This can also be referred to as a jam that can go on longer than the average 3-minute pop song.