Funky syncopated rhythms add a driving, energetic feel to songs across all genres, providing the essential groove that drives the music forward. From the lively beats of rock to the soulful strums of blues, the intricate patterns of jazz to the modern twists in country, funky rhythms create the foundation for many of the songs we love. Their versatility and infectious groove make them indispensable to any guitarist’s repertoire.
Rick Stickney’s Filthy Funk Rhythm guides you through a transformative and diverse collection of 10 funk rhythm approaches that you can use to infuse a funk vibe into any genre you play.
” The heart and soul of funk is rooted deeply in the rhythmic groove that drives the entire band. Mastering the art of syncopated rhythm and dynamic strumming patterns is essential to laying down a solid, infectious funk backdrop on guitar.
In this course, I’ll walk you through 10 funk rhythm approaches. We’ll play and practice together using TrueFire’s learning tools, which sync tabs to the videos with looping and slow-motion controls. I’ll demonstrate a technique, and we’ll put it to work immediately over a backing track.
Along the way, we’ll explore techniques and approaches like 6th & 9th combos, Side Steppin', and a rhythm pattern I call the Funky Flutter. We'll master the bounce technique, explore the harmonic potential of Dorian 3rds, cross over the bar line, and a lot more.”
You’ll have TrueFire’s interactive learning tools at your fingertips, allowing you to personalize your workspace and learn at your own pace.
The demonstrations and performances are tabbed, notated, and synced to the video with controls for looping, slow motion, fretboard animation, and many other tools designed to accelerate learning.
You’ll also get tab and standard notation files to print out, Guitar Pro files, and backing tracks to practice with.
Grab your guitar, and let’s dig in with ‘Filthy Funky’ with Rick Stickney!
What you'll learn
Play a complete funk rhythm pattern combining bounce technique with dead string muting
Create tension and resolution by targeting adjacent then chord tones
Apply Dorian thirds over minor chord vamps
Create the characteristic airy, bouncy feel associated with Nile Rodgers-style funk guitar
Build tempo gradually from 60 BPM to 90-100 BPM using 5 BPM increments
Hey, I'm Rick Stickney. The heart and soul of funk is rooted deeply in the rhythmic groove that drives the entire band. Mastering the art of syncopated rhythm and dynamic strumming patterns is essential to laying down a solid, infectious funk backdrop on guitar. In this course, I’ll walk you through a straightforward yet transformative collection of 10 (verify total) funk rhythm approaches to elevate your groove and infuse your playing with that signature funk vibe. For each, I’ll first explain the technique or concept at hand, and then I’ll use it in a performance study over a backing track. Along the way we’ll explore techniques and approaches like 6th & 9th combos, Side Steppin', and a rhythm pattern I call the Funky Flutter. We'll master the bounce technique, explore the harmonic potential of dorian 3rds, cross over the bar line, and a lot more. Ok, you ready? Strap on your guitar and let’s get groovy!
26th - 9th Combo
The combination of the 6th and 9th chord is a crucial sound every funkateer must have in their bag. These chords are especially useful to use in dominant chord grooves and also to combine with dominant 7th chords. In this lesson you will learn the chord voicing shapes for this combo all over the neck. As you learn these shapes be sure to map out where the nearest root is, as this is essential when moving these to other keys.
36th - 9th Combo
Here I’ll demonstrate the 6th - 9th chord combo over a funky groove in A.
46th - 9th Combo
This performance will test your ability to use all the 6th - 9th combo voicings you just learned in the previous lesson.
This is also a great challenge to be able to move from strummed chords to a picked line and back.
56th - 9th Combo
In this breakdown I will point out a few of the details which give this rhythm a little bit more feel, such as sliding into the 6th chord and the very common 3rd - root - b7 note combination that is often used in muted lines over dominant chords. This is basically a 2 bar repeating form with just the 6th - 9th chord forms changing.
6Side Steppin'
“Side Steppin” is a technique in which we approach intervals within a chord voicing chromatically and/or slide back and forth between the interval and a half step below. In this lesson, you’ll learn where you can find several common double stops inside dominant chord shapes that you can extract from the larger chord shape and use in this side to side movement. You will also learn some examples of how you can combine these side steppin double stops with the larger chords to create more interesting grooves.
7Side Steppin'
Get ready to start to apply the side-steppin’ movements over a groovy track alternating between D7 & C7.
Hey folks, to whom it may concern! Yeah I think Rick's course definitely upgraded my funk repertoire! He's a great player, a great teacher, with very intelligent insight on this style! It's great to get some ideas of funk, to mix in with your own maybe bluesy style! Funk seems to work well in all genres! And I'll definitely be on the lookout for this gentleman's future works! So thank you Rick Stickney! And thank you Truefire for doing what you guys do best. . . . Give us these incredible instructors to make us better players, keep up the great work? And if I could put more stars up there I would!
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babashem
Verified buyer
04/06/26
i have some of his lesson content on You tube
now i can study his lessons on true fire. great teacher.
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Onthe2&4
Verified buyer
09/28/25
Filthy Funk Fantastic!
Rick is amazing teacher, that brings clear concepts to his video's to move you along your journey. Very please with my purchase.
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a1jack16
Verified buyer
06/26/25
Filthy funky Rhythm
Great Course. Rich Stickneys courses are always well put together
and informtive.
