Lead In Melody Line for Funk Piano

Video Transcript

"Hi. I'm Jonathon Wilson on behalf of expertvillage.com. We're learning how to play an advanced funk groove on the piano and to get things started, we're going to take a very simple opening kind of intro line. It's not a bass line. It's not even really a groove; it's just something we want to settle in over the top of what's going to be drums and whatever else is playing along with us. And it's very simple. And it lets up come into the tune and it lets us get out of the tune. Okay, very simple. It goes like this. I'll play it with a metronome at like half speed so you can get an idea of how it goes. Okay, so very simple, no problem, you'll be able to get that without any worries. So the things to keep in mind when you're playing any kind of funk, it's all about contrast, making long notes that contrast with short notes, loud and soft, busy and sort of open sections. That's the whole name of the game. You want to make lots of variety, lots of unpredictable things and we'll learn all kinds of techniques for doing that. This is actually a pretty good one, because it's a long, open, not very note-y section that sort of builds a little suspense. What's coming up. Are we going to let this thing groove? Or is it just going to be this boring intro? Okay. So let's take that same thing that we heard and hear it up to speed with a little bit of a drum beat behind it. That's why I play with the metronome and you can play with the drum beat. So hear it is full speed over the drums. Alright, that's the intro full speed. It's a great way to get into and get out of our funk groove. We'll use it at the beginning and probably come back to it at the end. It's just a great place to start. Next, we'll be talking about the bass line."