Minute one: boring. Minute five: his index finger felt numb. Minute fifteen: his right hand found a pocket he didn’t know existed. The space between the clicks became a soft, velvet cushion. Minute thirty: he closed his eyes. He wasn’t playing a note anymore. He was listening to the silence around the note. The ghost note—a percussive slap of the string against the fretboard—suddenly spoke. It said: “I am the funk.”
The instructional material " Abraham Laboriel: Beginning Funk Bass basslessonabrahamlaborielbeginningfunkbass1pdf top
Supplement your PDF studies with visual masterclasses. While some classic videos have become rare, communities on Facebook and Instagram continue to archive his "brush-up" techniques. Minute one: boring
The second pillar of Laboriel’s beginning funk method is the mastery of the ghost note . Unlike rock bass, which often holds whole notes, or jazz bass, which walks quarter notes, funk bass treats the instrument as a hybrid of bass and snare drum. Laboriel’s exercises typically involve muting the strings with the fretting hand to produce a percussive "chuck" or "pop" that falls on the backbeats (beats 2 and 4). The space between the clicks became a soft, velvet cushion
“Funk is not what you play. It’s what you LEAVE OUT.”