Different genre's and forms of music each have different tendencies. Elements which they uniquely possess which makes them recognizable. Basically their are certain "rules" to playing a form a music in a way that is recognizable to those that are familiar with it. The rules are typically arbitrary, and are generally based on a shared consensus by the people who make the music and those who enjoy it. Yes, any musician can break the rules - but there is difference between breaking them because you are adding to the form and the genre and breaking them because you don't know any better.
The primary issue is knowing what the rules are. The following are some of the rules of creating Funk and how they differ from Rock music.
Maybe it was Led Zeppelin that popularized it, but there has been a tendency within rock bands for them to stack their sound instead of layer it. What I mean is that very often they will come up with in instrumental part (often referred to as a "Riff"), and everybody will play it. (This kind of "Stacking" is called in musical terms..."Unison") Even the drummer and sometimes even the vocalists will sing along, all with the same timing and melody. (Listen to the Chorus of "Whole lotta love"...Got..ta..whole lot..ta love...) The advantage of this is that everyone playing the same thing gives what being played more power than if just a single person is playing it.
Funk doesn't usually work like that. Funk often works on a layering effect, where several different instruments are playing different parts, which overlap and interlock. (In musical terms, this is called - "Contrapuntal") They act as twisted little echo's of each other, in call and response fashion. In fact, a few Funk songs even did this with the bass lines, using two distinct ones, like on Parliament 's "Flashlight", on the Isley Bro's "Take me to the Next Phase", or the Gap Bands "You dropped a bomb on me".
Keyboard parts, horn parts and guitar parts were all intermingled and layered with each other.
On Extreme 's "Cupid's Dead" (Listen in Real Audio) everyone is playing the same rhythm as the drum part. The bass an guitar are pretty much duplicating the snare and bass drum hits. The potential for interactive syncopation is muted by this. Another song by the group Mothers' Finest called "The Wall" (Listen in Real Audio), also uses almost the exact same "Funky Drummer" drum part, but instead of imitating it with the other instruments, Mother's Finest creates counter rhythms against it, and IMO as a result has a much funkier song. (Much Heavier too, as the record that this song appears on "Black Radio will not place this Record", is all Hard Rock in the Ozzie Osborne vein, except that the primary vocalist is more like Tina Turner.
Oh, and "The Wall" is slower than "Cupid's Dead" also.
In order to accomplish a thick layering effect, more than the typical
three piece rock band (drums, bass and guitar) is really often required.
Extreme
would normally use the stacking technique, where bass and guitar (and sometimes
drums) are playing the exact same rhythmic figure. They didn't do this on
"Get the Funk out", bass and guitar are independent for most of the song,
but they also used horns on that song. And the horn parts exactly match
and stack on the guitar parts when they appeared, which diluted the funkiness
of their impact.
When Extreme
used horns, this is manner in which it was done.
The only time I recall this not occurring was during a break down section
in the middle of their "III Sides" tour. There with Nuno on guitar, and
the their touring horn section ("The Heavy Metal Horns"), they did a serious
of call and response riffs, echoing and twisting the sound back and forth
between them to create a unique syncopated rhythm.
Now, that was funky. It was almost like old Earth,
Wind and Fire.
One of the funkiest songs Extreme
ever did, was on their last album "Waiting for the Punchline". It was their
last single before they broke up..."Cynical (F*ck)". It that song they created
a call and response echo between the bass and guitar with each panned to
the far left and right to maximize the effect. And the two parts weren't
exactly the same, which heightened the effect.
Sadly, they rarely did this on record. What would happen was Nuno would
overplay to create this type o syncopation all by himself. Pat the
bassist, would usually play the exact same part - only he wouldn't play
during the "response" parts that Nuno created. Most of the Pornographitti
album was like this. Not that I'm complaining mind you, part of the reason
I appreciated Nuno's guitar playing was the fact that he was *able* to sound
like he was playing two or three parts and instruments all at once. Frankly,
it was amazing.
But it created a distinctly different effect than actually having two
or three people each taking a section of the riff, and playing it together
tight enough to make it sound almost like one person. (Usually when Funk
bands did this parts overlapped and each instrument had a different sound,
so it was obviously different people)
It was a completely different thang. Not better or worse, just
different, but certainly more funky because this arrangement greatly enhanced
the syncopation of the overall song..
A second guitarist would have been helpful in this area. Mother's
Finest used two guitarist's (on tour, but not in the studio), BodyCount
has two guitarists, as does Sevendust,
Electric Boys, Infectious Grooves, and even Ugly Kid Joe. It helped them
create the kind of syncopation they wanted, and Funk demands. Now it can
be done with a single guitarist... like the Chili Peppers have or Lock
Up (One of the Funkiest Four man bands on the planet - featuring Rage
Against the Machine Guitarist, Tom Morello - check out this sample of
"Peacekeeper") has, you just have to be a bit more
aware of some of the other elements for it to work.
And syncopation is why Parliament
had about 15 people in their band. Three of them guitar players and sometimes two of more bassists as well as a horn and keyboard section. Most of the rest were vocalists, because not only did they create layering in the instruments, there was layering in the vocals as well.
Extreme
only had four people, each playing one instrument at a time (although on
record they sometimes doubled up since Nuno also played drums and keyboards,
or else they they sometimes used the outside help like or a horn section
or orchestra).
Three of them sang, however. Gary, Nuno and Pat. They frequently created
rich harmonies and vocal layering which was one of the strongest features.
At the end of "Get the Funk Out" is a vocal section, done almost "in the
round" where each of them is singing a slightly different thing on top of
the other.
It was something like the kind of vocal layering that Parliament
might create, but they didn't really leave spaces for each other to fit
in. (Sometimes called "Hot Space") So it was still, different, even though
similar.
Many funk songs are driven by the bass line. The bass line is the hook.
It's what draws you in, and all of the other instruments are adornment and
accompaniment for that hook. Rock tends to set the hook on the guitar line.
Also a heavily distorted guitar, which is often used in rock and especially
Hard Rock, tends to overpower a lot of the other sounds, nearly making the
bass inaudible. There are hundreds of Rock and Hard Rock songs were you
can't tell *what* the bass is doing, if anything other than echoing the
guitar.
In rock, the bass is often the accompaniment for the guitar and as I've
mentioned above it tends to simply follow the exact same line rather than
an independent line. (Although there are distinct situations where this
doesn't happen, nearly 80% of the time with Rock songs, it does. Whereas
nearly 80% of the time with Funk, it doesn't)
The practice of slapping and popping bass strings was something that (I
believe) the Brothers Johnson first popularized. It occurred because the
drummer had damaged one of his cymbals or drums during a gig... so the bass
player decided to snap one of his strings to fill in the gap that was left.
This innovation eventually turned into a style of bass playing all it's
own. It was used in Funk in the same manner as the layering... to added
to the syncopated call-response echo between drums and bass. But as time
went on and more players adopted it, it started to get a little out of hand.
When the Peppers
bassist Flea, combined that style of bass playing with the manic energy
of Punk, all bets were off. Even Flea eventually realized he was going too
far, and changed his style radically on the album "Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magic".
Bassists began slapping and popping simply to show off that they could,
not necessarily to improve the quality of the song. One of the best bassists
who employed this style, but didn't abuse it (IMO) was Mark King of the
British group Level
42 Another master popper would be Les Claypool of Primus. But then, I've
never liked Primus much, even though I recognized their playing skill. They
were waayy to annoying for me, but they managed to build a large
fan base largely because IMO they were so annoying, and defied convention
so well.
I felt the same way about Iron Maiden too, good players, but I didn't
want to listen to it.
A lot of the original Funk bands like Parliament
or James
Brown , didn't use slapping or popping. A lot people believe that one
of Funkiest songs Parliament
ever did was "Flashlight", and the bass line for that song was played on
keyboards.
No slapping.
No popping.
The downside of and this extracurricular bass work was that people began
to associate this style as a prerequisite to funk. In several interviews
when the subject came up... Extreme
bassist Pat Badger defended the band and the claims made that they were
not that funky, by saying that he didn't care to play all that "slap bass",
as if that would be all it would take make them "Funky".
But nothing could be further from the truth.
The key to creating a funky bass line is really in establishing the groove.
It needs to be strong hook, but it shouldn't be too long or too short. Usually
a groove cycles and repeats every X number of beats. Funk tends to repeat
the cycle every 8 beats ("Flashlight","Superfreak","Freddy's Dead" and sometimes
16 ("You Dropped a bomb on me"). Where as Extreme
tended either create really short cycles of 4 beats (way too short for the
groove to breath). These were slightly modified every other repeat to create
a total cycle of 32 beats ("Little Jack Horny","He-Man woman hater")
It is kind of comical in a way, in that the phrasing is exactly the opposite
from each other. Funk at 8 & 16. Rock at 4 & 32. Almost like Little
Richard used to say... the black kids would clap on the 2 & 4 (beat),
the white kids on the 1 & 3.
Rock songs tend to be faster than Funk songs. Funk needs to be a bit slower,
about 105-110 beats per minute (on the average), in order for their to be
enough room for the song to breath and enough to for all the layered parts
and echoes to be heard and create the syncopation. Rock songs in general,
tend be a little, to a lot faster. They often have fewer instruments, and
are stacking their sound rather than layering it - so as a result the songs
have to go faster rather than slower, or else they sound like their dragging,
or like a dirge. On Extreme
's first tour, I noticed that when they played their song's live, they were
much slower and as a result the groove more pronounced, and they actually
became much funkier, especially their first hit song..("Kid Ego").
In summary, there are a lot of difference between the two forms, but many
of these differences can be bridged. None of the "rules" I've outlined are
written in stone, the descriptions "Funk" and "Rock" are mere matters of
convenience, both words are used to describe a wide variety of things. There
really aren't any wrong answers on how you bridge the tendencies of the
two forms, but since their are so many differences anyone who attempts to
cross the bridge has to makes some compromises. It requires a little give
and take. It might cause the integrity of the Rock to suffer (which is something
that IMO happened with quite a few R&B who attempted Rock songs), they
might cause the integrity of the Funk to suffer (as with Extreme), or the
end result may be virtually unrecognizable when compared to either of the
original "donor" forms (ala Primus). Very few groups have been able to do
both without this happening... Sevendust,
Rage Against the Machine and Pantera come to mind, when I think of those
that haven't really sacrificed either. They are all very heavy, very rock,
but they're also very funky.
Extreme
didn't let the Rock suffer, and that's fine. What was always frustrating to me as a fan of Extreme
's was that the didn't always Rock. They frequently did other forms of music, and they did them well. They were a truly great band, but for some reason they never really did Funk as well as they could have.
Either they didn't know the difference or they didn't care to be as respectful with their handling of it as they were with big band (like when they did "When I First kissed you") or Orchestral pieces (like "Everything under the Sun") or Pop ("More than Words").
I never found out which that it was.
Copyright 1998 F.V. Walton
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