Right Hand Comping for Funk Piano

Right Hand Comping for Funk Piano
Hi. My name is Jonathon Wilson on Expert Village.com. We're learning how to play an advanced funk groove on the piano. Last time we learned the bass line, that's cool, but we got to add something to that to make it a little bit better. This time we're going to take a look at what we can do with the right hand. Some comping patterns that works with that bass line to make a good funk groove. In our case, for this first one, what we really want is something that interplays with that bass line. If you remember, the rhythm on that is fairly syncopated other than the downbeats. So we want to work in something where the right hand plays when the left hand isn't playing, and vice versa. That's where we get this kind of kind of a back and forth interplay between the right hand groove and what's going on in the bass line. Again, we still want to emphasize those downbeats in the bass line. The right hand, we just want it to kind of roll in there, sort of settle into the places where the bass isn't playing. Very slowly, with the metronome, it's going to sound like this. Okay. So to keep in mind, as I mentioned, you want this to sort of roll along. It's pretty light; this isn't a very aggressive part. This would normally be played in the funk groove when we're just kind of getting into it. We've played the bass a little bit, maybe we introduce this. Things haven't worked up to a frothing frenzy yet. We're just sort of grooving at this point. So keep it nice and light, roll that right hand. It sort of feels like a rolling right hand groove. Okay? Focus on the interplay with the way it kind of goes back and forth, between your right hand and your left hand, with them playing at opposite times. And just kind of settle into it. If you practice this slowly enough with the metronome, you'll get very comfortable with just the mechanics of the way the parts kind of interplay. And you stop worry about the notes and where they have to sit and things. It'll turn into this kind of fluid thing. So practice it slowly, increase the speed a little bit at a time until you can play it up to speed. We're going to do that now, over the drums, so you can kind of hear how it sounds at full speed. So, that's our first right hand comping pattern over the bass line with the drums, full speed. It's starting to sound a little bit more like a funk groove now. But that's not enough. Next time, we're going to kind of spice up that right hand a little bit with some other variations. Another comping pattern.