page_title: Funk
section_title: Keyboards
hierarchical_section_title: Funk / Characteristics / Instruments and vocals / Keyboards
caption_attribution_description: Black soul singer en:Isaac Hayes performs at the International Amphitheater in Chicago as part of the annual PUSH [People United to Save Humanity] `Black Expo` in the fall of 1973. October 1973.
context_page_description: Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of soul music, jazz, and rhythm and blues. Funk de-emphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a drummer, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Like much of African-inspired music, funk typically consists of a complex groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths.
  Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with heavy emphasis on the first beat of every measure, and the application of swung 16th notes and syncopation on all basslines, drum patterns, and guitar riffs. Other musical groups, including Sly and the Family Stone, Kool and the Gang, Parliament-Funkadelic, B.T.
context_section_description: A range of keyboard instruments are used in funk. Acoustic piano is used in funk, including in “September” by Earth Wind & Fire and “Will It Go ‘Round in Circles” by Billy Preston. The electric piano is used on songs such as Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” (a Fender Rhodes) and “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” by Joe Zawinul (a Wurlitzer). The clavinet is used for its percussive tone, and it can be heard in songs such as Stevie Wonder's “Superstition” and “Higher Ground” and Bill Withers' song “Use Me”. The Hammond B-3 organ is used in funk, in songs such as “Cissy Strut” by The Meters and “Love the One You’re With” (with Aretha Franklin singing and Billy Preston on keyboards).
  Bernie Worrell's range of keyboards from his recordings with Parliament Funkadelic demonstrate the wide range of keyboards used in funk, as they include the Hammond organ ("Funky Woman", "Hit It and Quit It", "Wars of Armageddon"); RMI electric piano ("I Wanna Know If It's Good to You?", "Free Your Mind", "Loose Booty"); acoustic piano ("Funky Dollar Bill", "Jimmy's Got a Little Bit of Bitch in Him"); clavinet ("Joyful Process", "Up for the Down Stroke", "Red Hot Mama"); Minimoog synthesizer ("Atmosphere", "Flash Light", "Aqua Boogie", "Knee Deep", "Let's Take It to the Stage"); and ARP string ensemble synth ("Chocolate City", "Tear the roof of the sucker", "Undisco Kidd").
  Synthesizers were used in funk both to add to the deep sound of the electric bass, or even to replace the electric bass altogether in some songs. Funk synthesizer bass, most often a Minimoog, was used because it could create layered sounds and new electronic tones that were not feasible on electric bass.
caption: Isaac Hayes playing keyboards in 1973
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