skills/ensemble-arranging/references/rhythm-section-bands.md

# Rock, pop and funk bands

## Roles

| Role | Rock | Pop | Funk |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| lead | voice or electric-guitar | voice | voice, trumpet, alto-sax |
| harmony | guitar power chords | electric-piano or piano pads, backing voice | horn punches, guitar 9th chords |
| bass | bass, roots in eighths | bass, root-fifth-octave | bass, syncopated sixteenths |
| comping | rhythm guitar | acoustic guitar arpeggios or piano | guitar scratch, electric-piano stabs |
| time | drums | drums | drums |

## Register separation

- Bass E1 to G3 alone. Kick and bass lock: bass notes fall on kick hits.
- Rhythm guitar on strings 4 to 6 (rock power chords) or 1 to 4 (pop and
  funk triads and 9ths). Keyboards then take the other register: pads above
  C4 when the guitar is low, left-hand octaves below when the guitar is high.
- Lead vocal or melody C4 to C6, nothing else sustaining in that range.
- Guitar and keys never play the same voicing in the same rhythm.

## Guitar

- Rock: power chords (root, 5th, octave) on strings 6-5-4 or 5-4-3, palm
  muted eighths, one open-string pedal riff per section.
- Pop: open chords and barre chords strummed in eighths, or arpeggios in
  eighths with let-ring; change chord on 1 and sometimes the and-of-4.
- Funk: 9th and 13th chords on strings 1 to 4, sixteenth-note rhythms with
  rests on most sixteenths, single-note lines in unison with the bass.

## Bass

- Rock: roots in eighths, octave jump at the end of a phrase, fifth on the
  and-of-4 into the next chord.
- Pop: root on 1, fifth on 3, octave or approach on the and-of-4; half notes
  in ballads.
- Funk: sixteenth patterns that repeat every one or two bars, the downbeat
  of every bar attacked, rests on beat 2, octave pops on the and-of-2.

## Drums

- Rock: hi-hat or ride eighths, kick on 1 and 3 and the and-of-3, snare on 2
  and 4, crash on section downbeats, fill in the last bar.
- Pop: hi-hat sixteenths or eighths, kick on 1 and the and-of-2, snare on 2
  and 4, open hi-hat on the and-of-4 every other bar.
- Funk: hi-hat sixteenths, kick on 1 plus one syncopated sixteenth, snare on
  2 and 4 with one ghost sixteenth before 2, open hi-hat on the and-of-4.
  Set `feel: swing-16th` for a laid-back groove.

## Form and density

- There is no dynamics field, so build with density. Intro: riff plus drums.
  Verse: bass, drums, one comping instrument, melody low. Chorus: everyone,
  melody a fourth or fifth higher, guitar doubled by keys in a different
  register, horns or backing voice on the hook.
- Riffs repeat verbatim for two bars, change the last beat the third time.
- Horn section in a funk band: two or three horns in unison or in thirds,
  short punches on offbeats, resting between; one long-note background
  under the chorus.
- Backing vocals: thirds and sixths above or below the lead, only on the
  hook words, held notes rather than the melody's rhythm.