Basic Funk Chords (Guitar Lesson RH-021) How to play

Hello, how are you doing? Justin here.

After my little wah-wah pedal reviews
the other day,

a lot of people asked me to do some
lessons on some funk guitar.

So, I'm going to do this little series now

This first lesson is going to show you
some basic funk chords,

so it'll just be looking at six
really common, cool,

fairly straight-forward,
not-too-difficult to play, chords

that are good for doing funk.

Next lesson we're going to look at
rhythm guitar, basic funk rhythm

then a few more fancy chords
in the next lesson,

and then a few more complicated rhythm
strumming patterns

that you might use in funk.

A lot of people asked that before I go
and do the lesson

I show you what's gonna happen in practice

I'm going to play a little bit of
the funk that you'll

hopefully be able to play at the end of
the course after

you've done your practice

but don't expect to be able to do it
straight away. So,

Take it away, Justin!

(jamming funkily)

(jamming intensifies)

That kind of thing.

There was a lot of chords
going on there

more chords than you probably
need to do

and I was just showing off how many...
kind of the possibilities of it.

So, what we're gonna start off with is
just looking at six really cool,

common chord grips.

These are going to be
I'll do a close-up of these

E9,

another version of E9,

E13,

E7,

another version of E7,

and E7sus4, or E11.

Before I try and show you how to use
any of these things,

we need to get close-up and
make sure that you get the

finger right for each of the chords
because it makes a big difference so

Let's go real close-up and
check that out.

The first chord to look at today is this

E9 chord, which looks like this

I'll run it through with you, so it's

2nd finger on the 7th fret
of the 5th string,

that's the root note, where we get the
chord's name from.

Then the 1st finger going down
on the 6th fret of the 4th string,

3rd finger going down on the 7th fret
of the 3rd string,

little finger going down on the 7th fret
of the 2nd string.

It's very important that you realize when
you're playing this chord that

the second finger here is touching
the thickest string and muting it,

and the little finger, the underneath
of the little finger there,

is muting that 1st string, so that
we should have

muted 6th string, then note...

...

and that thinner string is muted.

So that's the first E9 chord we're
looking at.

Now, the second E9 chord we're looking at
is very similar,

but all we're going to do is we're going
to use our 3rd finger to make a little bar

on the thinnest three strings.

Now, make sure that you remember to get
this knuckle further away from the neck

than this part of the hand, so it's really
going out there towards you there.

So, just like when you're doing an A-shape
barre chord it's the same kind of feeling.

Then we have 2nd finger reaching over the
top of the 3rd finger there,

and 1st finger in the same place as it was
for the other E9.

So this one's really similar...

but now we get this top note as well there

so the top note here is B, the thinnest
string is being held down

so this is also an E9.

So we have that E9...

and now we've got this E9...

Now, a really funky little variation of
this one is to use this 13th chord.

So, this is the same as our 9th chord here
but we stretch out with the little finger

up two frets so this little finger is just
going down here, this is in the 9th fret.

E9

E13

Very cool little chord, so that one there
that's an E13.

Now, another really common chord that we
can use here is little E7 chord here,

just shuffle my hand back a little bit,
there we go.

So, now this one here we've got the root
note here with the 3rd finger,

2nd finger is going on the 6th fret,

little finger is going on the 7th fret
of the 3rd string,

1st finger is going on the 5th fret
of the 2nd string

This is an E7, noting of course again that
the 3rd finger is muting that

thicker string so that doesn't sound,

and the underneath of the 1st finger there
right around at the back there,

is touching the 1st string, so we should
have muted note,

note, note, note, note,

and thinnest string is muted again,
so that one's an E7.

Now, there's another very common way to
play an E7,

which is up here...

Now, this one's just kind of an A-shape
barre chord.

There would be your regular like E chord,
your barre chord,

notice I'm tucking that finger away so you
get a good view,

you wouldn't normally play it like that.

So that would be your regular E chord.

Now, E7 is played like this,

so this is a full barre with the 1st
finger at the 7th fret,

the root note being there,

and again making sure that the tip of the
1st finger is muting that thicker string.

Doesn't really matter when we play an
E chord, but it matters

when we play other chords.

So, then, 3rd finger is going down in the
9th fret of the 4th string,

little finger is going down in the 9th
fret of the 2nd string,

now...

that would be the whole chord,
so we've got like

nothing on the thicker string, 7-9-7-9-7
would be the fret numbers.

Now I often don't like the sound of that
thinnest... that B at the end

so a little trick for you sometimes is

I play a little barre there
with the first finger,

but I'm lifting that knuckle up,
this one here

I'm lifting that up a little bit so that
the thinner string is actually muted,

so if I strum it we get...

and the thinner string is not there.

I quite like the sound of that, not having
that B on the top,

the same with the E9 we had two types,
so with the E7 we can have all the notes,

or we can stop it at the 2nd string...

and this leads us very nicely onto our
last chord for this session, which is a

E11, or an E7sus4, depending on who...
either one is correct really,

which is exactly the same as our E7 but we

just move our little finger forward
one fret...

There's E7, so E7sus4 or E11...

and E7...

Now, if you put these in a particular
order, you can end up with a really cool

chord scale, so if we had here
E7... E9 (the first one I showed you)...

E7...

E11...

E9 (the second one)...

and the E13...

hopefully you can hear the top note is
playing like a little scale...

Again...

And that's one of the big tricks to making
melodies out of your funk chords is having

all of those melody notes available.

Before you get going and trying to learn
the rhythm,

it's a really good idea to practice up
those chords.

We're mainly gonna be using the 9th chord
(the 2nd version of the 9th chord)

when we start learning our funk
rhythm guitar,

but have a practice of all of them,
practice between them,

it's quite challenging for these things,
especially when you have to change them

quite fast, in a kind of a funky way,
you don't have a lot of time so just

find a couple of 'em that you think sound
good together

and practice moving one to the next,
one to the next.

Use the one-minute changes, which I think
is a video lesson here called

"How to Make Your Chord Changes Faster".

That would be a really good thing for you
check out too.

So, have a bit of fun with those chords
and I'll see you very soon for some

basic funk rhythm guitar.

Take care of yourselves.

(wombat noises)