Funk on E9

Jam track · Funk vamp · Funk · E minor pentatonic

Now

E9

Next

E9
  1. E9
  2. E9
  3. E9
  4. A9

E minor pentatonic · box 1

Orange dots are E, the home note.

151712EGABDEGABDEG

Funk is rhythm first. Play short, choppy notes on the sixteenths and leave lots of gaps.

100BPMJam tempo

Funk on E9 backing track

A funk vamp in E at 100 BPM, with a funk groove on drums, bass and rhythm guitar. The loop is 4 bars long and uses 2 chords: E9, A9. Solo over it with the E minor pentatonic box shown on the fretboard.

The chords

  1. E9
  2. E9
  3. E9
  4. A9

What to play

Funk is rhythm first. Play short, choppy notes on the sixteenths and leave lots of gaps.

The orange dots are E, the home note. While the band plays, the notes of the chord playing now light up. Ending a phrase on one of them sounds settled.

Learn the box firstScale drill

How to practise with it

  1. Play the box up and down once with the band, one note per beat, to hear how it fits.
  2. Make up a two-bar phrase and repeat it. Change one note each time round.
  3. Leave gaps. A phrase, then a bar of rest, sounds more like music than notes all the way through.
  4. Turn the guitar off and play the chords yourself, or slow the tempo down to learn the changes.

Drums: Sonic Pi sample library from freesound.org, CC0. Bass and guitar: MusyngKite soundfont by Benjamin Gleitzman, CC BY-SA 3.0.