FUNK FUNDAMENTALS
Before tackling this course, you should be comfortable with all the material from Lesson 4 - Ghost Notes

Summary: Completing our triad chord set

Time to add more chords to our funky repertoire! This time it's all about the minor triads (root, minor third and fifth). Simone will show you exactly how to use these awesome chord shapes in a more funky way, using just three string chord shapes.

Chords: THREE STRING TRIAD SHAPES

The basic idea behind triad chords is that you take the minor chords and refine them to just the three notes you need - the 1st, b3rd and 5th. In a lot of barre chords or open chord, or even CAGED chord shapes, you are playing these notes more than once. In funk, we just need the three notes. It’s clean, it’s crisp, and it’s funky! We will focus on three really cool 3 string shapes in this lesson.


Each chord is based on a CAGED chord shape. The first based on the Em shape, the second on the Cm shape and the third on the Am shape. So, to move these around you simply need to find the original CAGED chord and remove all the notes but the 3 strings needed. We’ll use the song below to demo how it works!

Tab: Daft Groove!

Below is the tab for the example track. You just repeat this round and round for the whole track, allowing you to really master these chord shapes.



Audio: Full Track

If you would prefer to just dive straight in and play along with the audio tracks, they are here below. If you're really feeling confident, try with the backing track!

Ready to move on? Remember to check out every lesson in this unit first – then try the next unit...

Lesson 6 - Strumming Masterclass

In this lesson Simone really takes a good look underneath the hood of advanced funk strumming. We see how to move your wrist properly, how to get loose and many more cool tips to take your rhythm to the next level.