Eighth notes give you two notes per beat. Sixteenth notes give you four. Funk lives in sixteenth notes, often with ghost notes filling the spaces and pitched notes hitting the strong beats.
Count it out
Sixteenth notes are counted "1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a." Each beat splits into four:
beat: 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
That's 16 notes per measure. Most aren't all pitched, some are ghost notes, some are rests.
A classic funk pattern
beat: 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a
play: E X X E . X X E E X X E . X X E
Pitched E on beat 1, ghosts on the e and &, pitched E on the a. Rest on beat 2, ghosts, pitched on the a. And so on.
The pitched notes hit on the off-beats (the a of each beat), the ghosts fill in. That creates the syncopation.
Listen to Higher Ground
Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground (the 1973 original, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers cover) is built on a 16th-note slap pattern that uses this kind of phrasing. Slow it to 50% on YouTube and play along. You'll see the structure.
90 BPM. Play the pattern above on the E string. Loop for five minutes.
Variations
- Move the pitched E to F (E string, fret 1) for one bar, then back. You've now got a one-chord groove.
- Substitute the pitched E on beat 4-and with a pop on the D string (octave). Slap + pop + ghosts.
When 16ths feel impossible
They will, at first. The trick: slow the metronome to 60 BPM and play the pattern exactly on every click. Once it feels natural at 60, bump to 70, then 80. Speed comes from precision, never the other way around.
Next: reggae and Latin grooves. Same notes, totally different feel.