Eric Johnson Style Lesson.docx

ERIC JOHNSON GUITAR EXAMPLE 1 – CHORD Eric Johnson is a master of interval skipping. This chord progression shows how he would take a normal progression in F#m and add flavour with both string skipping, and hybrid picking. As mentioned in the video, try using two downstrokes , then a pluck with your middle finger on this progression.

ERIC JOHNSON GUITAR EXAMPLE 2 – TECHNIQUE Odd note pentatonic groupings are one of Eric Johnson’s specialities. ‘Quintuplets’ or five note groupings are a firm favourite. This guitar lick uses positions 1 ‘E shape’, position 5 ‘G shape’, and position 4 ‘ A Shape’ of the F#m pentatonic. I use the word ‘un-i-ver-si-ty’ to help me count each five note group. Eric also loves wide intervals, and shows this with three F# root notes, and a wide vibrato’d bend.

ERIC JOHNSON GUITAR EXAMPLE 3 – GUITAR LICK In this guitar lick, we are using the F# Hindu pentatonic. Despite its fancy sounding name, it is very similar to the normal minor pentatonic. The only difference being that the minor 3rd’s (of the minor pentatonic) are raised up to become major thirds (from A – A# here). I recommend taking your normal minor pentatonic blues licks, and adapting them to fit perfectly over dominant 7th chords, using the scale shown below.

ERIC JOHNSON GUITAR EXAMPLE 4 – THE HINDU PENTATONIC SCALE Here is the scale used for the example above. It works perfectly over F#7.