I was showing a musician friend of mine some songs I’m listening to, and he told me: you like funk music.
I do have an idea of what kind of music is funk, and I have heard of James Brown before. However, I couldn’t say what the distinguishing features of funk music are. I have no background in music or musical theory at all.
So – what exactly defines funk music?
In: Other
Heavy bass lines supported by a cast of other musical instruments.
Listen to Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” or anything by Sly & The Family Stone like “If You Want Me to Stay” as great examples.
Very simply, the music was created to be danceable…
My ear perks up to the bass being different and my brain says funky music. As in, play that funky music white boy.
To quote the interwebs-
Funk refers to a style of aggressive urban dance music driven by hard syncopated bass lines and drumbeats and accented by any number of instruments involved in rhythmic counterplay, all working toward a “groove”
Funk music is a style of music that emerged at the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. Musical artist James Brown is responsible for formulating the idea of a specific rhythm style within funk. He conducted his band to play on the first, or one, beat of music. This style of conducting emphasized the first music beat in a measure. James Brown and his band The Famous Flames are deemed the originators of the funk beat that played at the end of the 1950s and into the early 1960s.
That’s a tricky question. It is one of my favourite styles of music, and it has been for decades, and you have asked for an exact definition of what it is but I can’t say, I don’t know for sure. It is more about groove than melody. For timing the off beat is more important than the on beat. Different accents and emphasis in different places in the grove are important, but usually avoiding what would suit a marching band, i.e. not a steady beat. The same or similar phrases are repeated rather than having a changing and evolving melody. What I am saying doesn’t really mean anything, unless you feel it yourself. And some people don’t feel it, they don’t get it. Those that do, it makes them want to dance. There is my 2 cents worth of nonsense. I admit it probably won’t help.
An aside but an interesting one, funk has become a catch-all term in a lot of ways. Baile funk, often just referred to as funk in Brazil, is nothing like funk music, same with future funk and same with UK funky, and even funky house.
I used to confuse Funk and Disco. One thing that’s helpful is listening to the drum pattern.
[Billie Jean](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y) by Michael Jackson has a Disco drum loop, while [In The Closet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY6fbugcisY) by Michael Jackson has a Funk drum loop. The Funk drum pattern has become very popular in Hip-Hop music.
A Disco drum pattern usually sounds balanced and appears a lot in House music. It usually puts emphasis on the 2nd and 4th beat: 1, **2**, 3, **4**… 1, **2**, 3, **4**… like in this Disco drum loop [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZC7RWguGgE). Funk puts the emphasis on the 3rd and 4th beat: **1**, 2, **3**, 4… **1**, 2, **3**, 4… like in this Funk drum loop [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8wOEny3VSo).
When Disco began to be seen as uncool, it was eventually rebranded as Dance music. Disco, Funk, and House all seem to be Dance music. Here is a House song with a similar drum pattern to Disco: [Move Your Body](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFdbueklpwY) by Marshall Jefferson x Solardo. Don’t confuse this type of Dance (*Disco, Funk, House*) with EDM (*Electronic Dance Music like Techno or DubStep*), though.
Jersey Club also evolved from House music, so I would also put it in the “*Dance*” genre. Here is a Jersey Club drum pattern [here](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wX5B8LbCPKs). You can find the Jersey Club drum pattern in [Boy’s a liar Pt. 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oftolPu9qp4) with PinkPantheress and Ice Spice. It can also be found in [Just Wanna Rock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhbixyxgsiU) by Lil Uzi Vert.
The beat emphasis is different.
The emphasis is on the one, when you count out 1, 2, 3, 4 in time with the music
See Bootsy Collins explain it here:
Syncopation and swing are some of the main things that make music feel “funky”.
Swing refers to the idea of playing some notes or beats a little bit later than they would be when played “straight”. This gives the music a loose feel, making things sound a bit more playful.
If you want to hear this kind of effect on its own, try listening to some Swing music: https://youtu.be/62ZSQUyU00s?si=jUrzxRwg1bHkiTVM
Notice how things feel bouncy, and if you try to tap the groove, you’ll naturally group two taps together, like “tap patap patap patap” rather than just “ta-pa-ta-pa-ta”.
Syncopation is the idea of layering different time signatures within the groove. Part of the groove will be in 4/4 (most music you listen to is in 4/4) hitting each beat, but others parts might be in 3/4 or something else, with their “beat” shifting around.
This is quite common in some electronic music genres, like House. An artist who does this a lot is Deadmau5, it’s particularly notable in his track “Closer”: https://youtu.be/52Nla2rMuvA?si=dDv9fUxW2mtp84c2
Notice how the tune is shifting around the beat, creating an effect where the main beat is stable, but there’s a strange interaction with the tune that feels stable, yet also morphing over time.
Funk doesn’t swing as much as Swing, nor does it go all-in on syncopation like Deadmau5 does, but it uses these techniques to generate a “funky” groove, playful and loose, with interesting patterns between the drums, bass, guitars, horns, and vocals.
Funk is often played on the Blues scale, giving it a jazzy feel too, and features a lot of staccato (quick & short notes rather than sustained notes), and puts a lot of emphasis on the drums and bass in particular, typically featuring slapped bass and other flourishes rather than letting the bass sit in the background.
Hear how this all comes together with the one and only James Brown in Get On Up: https://youtu.be/BCCkb6k_aow?si=2IjcSl9mmtgkZo0D
I think this really explains everything:
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