Top of the week, y'all!

Time to get to the next groove of the week, so you can keep your drummers off balance with your ever-increasing repertoire of grooves.

This groove is a mixture of Funk and R&B. It works for both the busy Funk style (because of the 16th note emphasis), and the Rock and R&B style (because of the 8th note emphasis at the very beginning of the groove).

The "driving" feel comes from the syncopations on beat 3 and 4. Syncopations are when you play a note ahead of its expected beat, when it comes in early. It gives the groove an urgency, like as if it gets faster. However, the Tempo doesn't change!

The string crossing takes a little getting used to, but once you have it, it makes this a very diverse groove. It fits over Dominant and Minor chords alike, and just drives the music along. My suggestion: When you use one finger per fret, you're best off barring the strings you're crossing. Try to position your fingers so that the hard part (the knuckle) presses the string you're barring.

Settings:

Tempo: 160 (This setting clicks twice as fast as it should, which means each click is an 8th note: 1+2+3+4+, but when you play the groove in real life, you'd count it half as fast. The actual tempo for this groove would be 80.)

Sound: Elec Fing

Click: Always (it makes you hear the syncopations better)

Loop: 4 times



Groove Skeleton: 1+

Tonality: Dominant/Minor

Style: Funk/R&B

You can try this groove in just one key, or, as you get more comfortable, move it around in a blues form. The chords for that pattern would be:

|G7|C7|G7|G7|C7|C7|G7|G7|D7|C7|G7|G7|

or you can do the minor version:

|Gm7|Cm7|Gm7|Gm7|Cm7|Cm7|Gm7|Gm7|D7|Cm7|Gm7|Gm7|

The D7 in the minor blues progression would still be D7 rather than Dm7, it acts as the dominant (function! It's the V) of G, and because of the fact that the groove works over both Dominant and minor, you don't have to switch the notes at all! Enjoy the groove and try it out on your band-mates, and if it falls flat,...naaaaah, won't have to worry about it!

Peace,

Patrick

If you play the "TAB" version, set you Tempo at 80!