Jazz Funk - Jazz Piano Lesson

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Hi! Today I'm gonna show you guys how you can play a style of jazz called "Funk". And this is pretty close to another style of jazz called "Fusion" or contemporary jazz piano or contemporary jazz in general. And this style is pretty fun to play. It can be a little bit of a challenge but once you make it, it's pretty fun.

So I learned this style when I was a child playing Super Mario Brothers on my Nintendo. And then, the main theme of Super Mario Brothers sounds like this: And then, when he hits the star, then this music appears: And that is pretty much like a samba 'feel'. But then I was copying this and I was experimenting with it and I was then trying to do something with it.

And I came up with this and this is pretty much the funk style, right? So I came up with this. And normally, I would play not in this Super Mario feel but play more like a clavinet. And clavinet is all the instrument from the 80s or it came earlier but it was a lot used in the in the 80s. So it couldn't--- it can sound more like this.

When you play in fourths and fifths, it can sound like this: So what you do is to play more ghost notes. Like you play ghost notes with your left hand: in between, and then you play like this: And then, you can also drag it up in tempo and it can sound like this: So this is a pretty cool pattern to use and I've been only using this whenever I play any kind of funky music.

By the way, you can download this, written as a sheet, if you click on the download link after watching this video. So this is the pattern. And then when it comes to harmony, when you play together with people, what I like to do is to just use upper structure voicings like this: But I made a whole video about upper structure voicings that you can find on YouTube so I'm not going to go in depth with this right now.

Another thing I do is to add 4th voicings. And that is when you apply fourths instead of just playing the chords up and down. Like if I wanna play a Cmi7, I can then play up fourths: that's the fourth. Another fourth. And another fourth: and then third at the top: And then, you can just move this around: pretty much like this.

And of course you need to use your ears and once you have been doing that for a very long time it just goes automatically. So that's the harmony part of it. And then, when you're going to improvise, when you have a solo, then what I like to do is to use three types of scales. So the first scale is the pentatonic scale.

And the pentatonic scale are two types or contains two types. So you have the major pentatonic scale which is, for example, the FMaj pentatonic scale: which is then the same as the Dmi pentatonic scale: So that's very much used when you play funk music. Playing pentatonic scales: And there is another scale called Phrygian scale and this is a mode, one of the modes.

I don't like to use the word mode but I am gonna show you now how you can find this Phrygian scale in any key. So the Phrygian scale is simple. It's just the E to E on the white keys. That's the pattern. So: So that's the scale. And this is a lot used by Chick Corea. You can probably hear this sound already if I play something like this: So that's a pretty neat scale to play.

But I'm gonna show you now how to find this scale. So it's pretty easy and straightforward to play this in E, right? Because that's just white keys all the way up. So from E to E: anyone can do that. But if I ask you to play the C Phrygian scale, how would you find that? Well, I'm gonna show you now.

Once I learned this, I stopped using the words Phrygian scale and more. I just have the sound in my ear, and then I know how to apply that sound by just playing the major scale. So again, the E Phrygian scale is just the white keys: from E to E, right? And those are the same notes as the C scale, right? So, all you need to do is to play the major scale starting from down a major third step from the key that you're--- where you have your starting point.

So I'm gonna show you what I mean. So if I want to play the E Phrygian scale: all I need to do is to play the C scale starting from E, right? If I want to play the D Phrygian scale, all I need to do then is to play it down a major third step and then play the major scale starting from Bb. I hope this makes sense.

So now I want to play the Bb scale: to get this phrygian sound. So that can sound like this: And of course, if I want to play then the C phrygian mode, I just need to play the Ab scale. So that, of course, will sound like this: And the last scale I want to show you is something called a phrygian dominant scale.

And this phrygian dominant scale is the same as the harmonic minor scale but now we're going to start from the 5th notes in the harmonic minor scale. So I'm gonna show you how to find this as well. If you then play the C harmonic minor scale: That's the scale, right? And this is then the 5th note from the scale which is 1 2 3 4 5.

And you use this as your starting point. Then you have the Phrygian dominant scale. Pretty -- pretty simple. And this sounds a little bit Arabic or something. I like to use this a lot and if I want to play this scale, I like to play it in octaves. So if you play in octaves: you just have 2 octaves in between like this.

So you count 1 and 2 and then you play the scale here. Up here: I'll introduce you now to my brothers and my friends. So we have now recorded a tune of mine called Still Sphere where we are combining all of the elements that I've talked about today. But there are two more essential ingredients to this tune which are pretty common to find in the funk style.

So first of all, the melody is pretty outside of the A part and then it goes inside at the B part. So the A part is going to sound like this: You gotta play that with two hands. And then, the B part is pretty inside. So there's another element to this and that is stabs. Because when you play funk music, you've got to play collective stabs.

That means syncopations where you play together with the rest of the band basically. So if you play with trumpets or whatever, they play the stabs and you have to play that together with them as well as the drums and bass and guitar and whomever you're playing with. So you can find this tune... We're gonna play this tune for now.

You can find this -- you can find this tune by downloading, clicking on the link on this video and then you can download this tune and together with some exercises. And if you are one of my students, you can even get a play-along track for this and more. So I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and I will see you next time! If you liked this video, please hit like, subscribe and share.

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