JENNA SAYS...

The timing and feel are challenging this month, but I know Paul has a good ear for those. There are a lot of staccato notes in Example 1, which need to be cut off early and separated from the next note. With a fretted note, you can do this by relaxing your pressure on the fingerboard.

With an open string, put a fretting hand finger on the string to silence it. If you’re going from a staccato open string to a fretted note, you can rest a finger on the fret you’re about to play. That will choke the open string and set you up for the next note.

The other challenge is the 16th note swing feel. It’s easiest to understand when you hear it. There are great 16th note shuffles in Stevie Wonder’s Sir Duke, Led Zeppelin’s Fool In The Rain, and Toto’s Rosanna. Every drummer does it slightly differently, so listen carefully to sync up.