What is funk really like?

[zuluMusic2]

Okay here it is. I hope I wasn't too strict with the scale. I removed some stuff, but left the most as they now work better with better matching tonalities.

[Mihai Sorohan]

I think is better, still, needs work on the brass section, but you are on the right groove

[zuluMusic2]

Thank you! It's a relief to here that I have made some progress. I'm getting the hang of this soon. Just what kind of work does the brass section require? Could you be any more specific or do I have to listen those clips over and over again and copy from them until they and mine sound pretty much the same?

[Mihai Sorohan]

The problem is the usual, tonality matching.
I would suggest to let it like that for now and make another track, this time keep everything simple.
Just try this little experiment:
Make a bass and drum a little bit slower (80~120 bpm) and keep all just in one chord, build on that, try to make a melody, make the brass section to "respond" to that, after "theme" back everything off, drumm softer, less keyboards, no brass and very minimalistic bass. On that you start a solo with some synth and slowly build up things. First more bass and drums, then some chords on keyboards... later guitar groove get in, the soloing gets crazier and as a peak of everything goes first melody again.

Too bad that in several hours I'll go in Romania for a while and couldn't go on with this but I'll be back in two weeks, maybe less.
Make an account on http://www.slicethepie.com/ and upload your music there, people get payed to write reviews, so you'll get a lot of feedback. Beware that people are VERY harsh there, don't get disappointed of the bad reviews, try to get the constructive criticism.

Best regards and see/ hear you later.

[mkoenig]

That site seems like a great concept

[Mihai Sorohan]

Originally Posted by mkoenig

That site seems like a great concept

Slice the pie? nah... as you can get a lot of feedback and get payed for reviews, you find there a lot of kids just "copy/paste" carppy hateful offensive comments like:
"HATE IT! this is NOT music. its just sounds like a big instrumental mess! get rid of it. sorry for the strong opinion but i cant bare it."

[mkoenig]

Ahhh... well in that case... check out my old site

YourBeats.com the forum is still active but hidden just for hard core members
http://yourbeats.com/index/index.php

Post there and you'll get some good reviews.

[zuluMusic2]

Okay, here is a new try. I couldn't stay between 80-120 bpm, it's 125, but now I think there's a good groove. Maybe too much stuff again, but I like it this way, though I might have lost a bit of funk. This sounds to me like music from Super Mario 64, which on the other hand is not that bad. I have no funk guitar here at all this time, instead there are a piano and an organ. I haven't studied how to use organ in any style of music so it could be bad. Need some help with that probably.

I paid a lot of attention to the overall tonality, but to those who are interested I used the Mixolydian C mode (based on F major), C (major) and a blues scale with the key note at C too.

I like the music, but is it funky?

[Mihai Sorohan]

Hi
I just come back from Romania...10 days of traveling here and there, no internet
So, I see that you payed attention to structure and made several things quite nice.
The beginning (that bass slap tone) reminds to me of Seinfeld
Also the organ solo, it's making the track more interesting.
Is it funky ? I don't know, at least the bass is funky even if the rest have a "Super Mario Feel".
See (hear) you later.

[zuluMusic2]

Nice to hear from you again Mihai, I hope others will come along and join this thread, it's a tough job for you alone to be helping me out, and I don't want to be anyone's burden.
Maybe I'm on the right track, I don't know, but I guess I should take what's good in my beats, say the bass and the drums for instance and try to make the other intsruments respond to that groove, blend with it and enhance it instead of playing around too independently.
Finding out what makes funk what it is may not be easy if I'm just asking about the use of every instrument separately. So we should find another way to advance to the main goal. What that path is I don't know but perhaps we should analyze the entire band, what is typical for funk beats on a larger scale, not only listing different elements that the beats typically consist of, because it's the way how you mix it all together that eventually makes the style, I think. Pretty long sentence but hope it can be understood.