Stab

A single, short, sharply accented chord placed on a specific beat and immediately cut off.

The stab is the rhythmic unit of funk, soul and reggae guitar: a chord is struck hard and killed instantly, so it functions as a percussive hit rather than as harmony. Its placement is everything, and stabs are often played on the off-beats or on the last sixteenth of a bar to push the groove forward. Because the chord lasts such a short time, the voicing matters less than the timing and the character of the attack.

Example: A funk part where the chord is heard as a short, hard chop in the gaps between the bass line is a series of stabs.

Stab

See also