Jared James Nichols: Are you playing behind, ahead of or "on" the beat? This concept can be broken up into three approaches: playing behind the beat, playing ahead of the beat or playing squarely on the beat. You can also play “on top of the beat,” which means playing either squarely on the beat or a little bit ahead of it (“early”), which will give your playing a sense of urgency. The feeling is that the band is a little bit ahead of the beat and Clapton is pulling back against the groove. In Figure 6, I start by playing on the beat then switch to playing way ahead of it in bars 2-3 then pull the phrases back behind the beat for dramatic effect.