Funk Piano Patterns

                The style of funk piano incorporates elaborate rhythmic patterns that quickly alternate between the left and right hand.  This style of playing does not view the hands as separate entities playing separate parts.  Instead, the two hands work as one group of ten fingers playing one rhythmic pattern that stretches across the keyboard.  The sensation of this style of rhythmic exchange between the hands is something that the conventional piano player is not initially accustomed to.

                In The Way You Love Me, the primary musical hook is composed of a piano funk pattern.  This pattern arpeggiates the chord tones, but not in the typical liner arpeggio style of motion.  The back and forth motion between the hands is what helps to create the funk feel within the pattern.  This pattern is repetitious and identifiable; creating a focal point that the listener can latch on to.  It appears in both the introduction, portions of the verse and portions of the chorus.  This presence throughout the song helps to tie everything together under one rhythmic motif. 

The use of this rhythmic hook also helps to fill out what would ordinarily be empty space between the chord changes.  A major concern that piano players express when attempting to play chord changes on a lead sheet is that they do not know what to play between the changes.  This stems from being accustom to playing printed music where everything is written out.  When playing chord changes, we are called upon to spontaneously create and compose while we are playing.  Incorporating rhythmic and melodic patterns that are based on the chord tones (or scales associated with the chord) is a great way to accomplish spontaneous creation.  We fine tune this skill by creating patterns that are recognizable motifs which reoccur throughout the song.

       This Learning Music With Ray video discusses a basic application of funk piano patterns within contemporary Christian music. In this lesson, I provide a step by step demonstration (and explanation) of the funk piano patterns found in my arrangement of the original song The Way You Love Me.  I also provide a chord analysis and explanation of chord voicings used throughout the lesson.  However, the primary focus of the lesson is to demonstrate how knowledge of chord theory can be used to create interesting rhythmic and melodic patterns out of a simple chord progression.