Riff Rundown

Difficulty: Intermediate

While the main riff to "Another One Bites The Dust" is quite easy to learn and master, the pre-chorus is whole different animal. Not that it's technically hard to play, but the timing needed to play the riff on cue may take a little work. It's easy to play this one wrong if you're not paying attention.

Here's what it's supposed to sound like:

Let's do a little recap:

A note with a little dot underneath as in the example below is called a staccato note. Staccato means "cut short crisply, detached".

There should also be silence in between notes. This is indicated by rests.

An 8th rest looks like this: . An 8th rest means you must "rest" for half a beat. In other words 1/8th of the measure, hence the name 8th rest. That means during the duration of the rest no sound should come from your instrument.

A 16th rest looks like this: . A 16th rest means you must "rest for 1/4 of a beat.

Remember, I said that timing was everything. Below is the riff played incorrectly.

It almost sounds the same, but....

What went wrong? Well, in the first and 3rd measure, no "space" is given between the last two notes. The 8th rest before the last note in these measures is omitted. Listen to the correct way and then the incorrect way and compare the two. Can you hear the difference?