Funk

Harmony steps back while drums and bass turn a single beat into the main event through syncopation and space.

Related

ContemporarySyncopationElectric guitarDrum Kit

Funk pushes harmony back and makes the syncopation of drums and bass the main event.

Origins and era

In the mid-1960s James Brown brought the dance floor of gospel and soul to the front, with Papa's Got a Brand New Bag as a starting point. In the 1970s Sly Stone, Parliament-Funkadelic and jazz-funk added synthesizers and longer grooves.

What you hear

Lock onto kick and bass. The kick lands once, while the bass fills the gaps with short notes and rests. Snare hits two and four, hi-hat divides into sixteenths, and guitar chops short chords in and out. Harmony may be one chord or two, with change carried by rhythm and timbre. Voices shout, and horns answer in short riffs.

Key figures

James Brown fixed the density of the one, Sly Stone made bass and drums one engine, and George Clinton stretched funk with synthesizers and long grooves. Herbie Hancock's Headhunters brought jazz harmony in, while Earth, Wind and Fire built horn arrangements like architecture.

Lineage

Soul and rhythm and blues feed in; disco, hip-hop sampling and funk rock come out. Its phrasing is built on sixteenth notes.

Common misunderstandings

Funk need not be slow; fast funk is just as tight. Nor is it loose repetition, since every part leaves space at fixed points. Treating it as bass technique alone misses the interlock of drums and guitar.

Sources

• Rickey Vincent, Funk：The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One（St. Martin's Press, 1996），用于核对放克的代表人物与年代
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry Funk，用于交叉核对风格特征与谱系

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.