BOOTSY'S BASIC FUNK FORMULA
Why Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange recommends it
Music Stack Exchange answerers point people to it when explaining why bass players anchor on the root at the start of each bar and how 'the one' defines funk feel.
Recommended by 3 people across 3 different months, 2016 to 2021.
What it is
A very short clip in which funk bassist Bootsy Collins explains and demonstrates his basic funk formula, centred on locking in the first beat of the bar, 'the one'. He plays and talks through it in just over a minute.
What people said
Recommends Dave · 2016-09 · Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange · on “How can i add simple bass guitar in my simple songs?”
Playing the root of the current chord "on the one" (i.e. for each measure) is the central core of many more complicated baselines [this video] , and just doing it will provide some additional structure to your song. One easy thing to try is to explore when you cut the note off: you can just let the notes ring, or stop the note to be a half note, or a quarter note or do it really staccato. As you've already indicated, continuing down this vein, just setting up rhythms using the root of the current chord (and making sure you pay attention to when the notes end) is probably the next thing. Large swaths of punk music are based on just pedaled 1/8 notes on the root. Traditionally, the first thing you'
Recommends wabisabied · 2021-05 · Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange · on “What are the "strong" beats in a 16th note funk groove?”
Take it from the master, himself. [this video] According to Bootsy, just keep it on the one, and you can do anything else you want with it. “And that’s the funk.” Interesting to hear him vocally grunt the “ands” whether his notes are on them or not. Funk is a feeling.
Recommends piiperi Reinstate Monica · 2021-11 · Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange · on “Do electric bass players commonly play the notes of the current chord?”
Do electric bass players commonly play the notes of the current chord? Yes they do, by definition of what is the de-facto actual current sounding chord. Whatever the bass players plays, defines the current chord . If others play C major, but the bass player plays A, --> the current sounding chord is now an Am7, and there's nothing the other musicians can do about it. Maybe they can file a complaint with a higher authority of some sort. EDIT. Tim has a good point in the comments. I took the question too narrowly. The OP may have meant, "do bass players look at a chord symbol and limit their playing to only the notes in the chord." Well... a lot of the time they do. But a lot of the time they
Cites noumenal · 2017-06 · Music: Practice & Theory Stack Exchange · on “End Accents in Other Cultures”
Rock, pop, and rhythm and blues often emphasize the second and last beat. This emphasis also serves as a backdrop to funk (more below). Reggae has an even heavier emphasis on the same beats often accompanied with an offbeat emphasis. Regarding the bonus question, jazz emphasizes the offbeat and in the jazz "subculture" the band leader typically counts in by snapping the fingers of one hand on the offbeat. In contrast, funk emphasizes the first beat together with "in the pocket" [this video] usually expressed as a few select notes from a shuffle pattern while leaving out (some) dotted notes. It might be a stretch to say that these examples belong to a specific culture, but all these genres are ult