Vanilla Funk Sundae!

Hey once again, shredders! For this tutorial, I chose to break down a track that was (structurally) written by myself and a drummer friend of mine, Brandon Hopkins, with some super funky bass lines and keyboard tracks done by Tony Dickinson. (www.tonydickinson.net). It's entitled Vanilla Funk Sundae - and we'll be highlighting all the parts in the track min...

As I mentioned in the introduction, here's where the "groove" aspect of your playing should be in full-force. Learn the notes, analyze the demonstration video to ensure your 8th shuffle feel is in line with the original, and have fun. A quick pointer... Muting: Make sure that when you see a rest - it's a rest. Diminishing the amount of noise during the sil...

Here's where we're introduced to our first "Guthrie" influenced lead. It highlights an F#m9, Dmaj7 and Bm7 progression and floats in and out of notes diatonic to the key to offer a very "accidental" sound. Focus on all the techniques used, including pre-bends, multi-pitch bends, slide-ins, slide-outs, etc., to solidify the unique "voice" of the melody. The...

This riff predominantly consists of three notes, F#, E and A. Still keeping with our shuffle-feel, the note groupings offer a polymetric sound that extends four bars. In bar 36, the meter resets resulting in a "speeding up" effect that helps the riff along to its conclusion. Keep an eye on the mutes located before each group of 4, as the snare beat is ...

At last, the guitar solo! Again, within the F#m blues scale, the scale slips in and out of different modes hinting at all kinds of different flavours. Bar 60 through 61 consists of, yet again, another tapping lick - and like before - the rhythm is dependant on the player to "squeeze" the notes into the given meter. While it's written in 6's and 7's, keep t...

Download the Backing Track here and have fun!