GET THE FUNK OUT! Best Of The 70s

Jon Bishop enters a Boogie Wonderful where soul, i= pop, R&B, dance, groove, disco, and gospel combine to create one of modern music's most evocative styles.

Welcome to our 1970s-based funk lesson, the aim of which is to arm you with the skills you’ll need to create great 70s-style funk parts.

The first technique to examine is 16th-note strumming, which forms the basis of funk rhythm guitar and we have some easy drills to tighten up your strumming hand.The pattern consists of alternating down and up strums and, as the name suggests, you’ll find 16 strums in a bar of 4/4.

Let’s first establish the pattern of alternating down and up strokes. Lay the fingers of the fretting hand lightly on the strings to damp them. Our strumming pattern is counted 1–e-&-a, 2–e-&-a, 3–e-&-a, 4–e-&-a and starts on a down strum. Once we have established this framework we can mix up the rhythms and start to create far more funky sounding parts. The easiest way is to finger a simple octave (Example 1). Keep the strumming hand going and only press the octave down when you want to hear them sound.