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Advanced Guitar Lesson – Incredible Eric Johnson Style Pentatonics

In Advanced Guitar Lessons | on December, 12, 2009 | by | 12 Comments

This lesson is the first concentrating on a particular player’s style. I plan on doing many style lessons in the future and would love to hear from you what player you would like profiled.

We will start here today with Eric Johnson, who is one of my all-time favorite guitarist’s. He is perhaps best known for his fast and fluid pentatonic playing among other things.

This lesson gives a quick overview on how Eric Johnson approaches rapid pentatonics in his playing.

Pay close attention to the picking hand, because I feel that is probably the most overlooked part of his playing when people are trying to perform some of his licks.

He has a very economical style that is incredibly smooth and fluid.

So good luck!!

Here is the PDF download for this lesson.

Eric Johnson Style Pentatonics PDF

PLEASE VISIT THE DONATION PAGE TO FIND OUT ALL THE WAYS YOU CAN HELP THE SITE!! THANK YOU!!

Eric Johnson Style Pentatonics

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12 Responses

sludgedawg
12.12.09

Very nice lessons dude! Well taught…well demonstrated. Keep up the good work!

Carl Brown
12.12.09

Thanks a lot.. I plan on doing some more artist series lessons in the near future. Still trying to work out which players to cover. Any suggestions??? :D

David
12.12.09

CB – very nice…I just found your web site and now it’s at the top of my Faves!

Just wondering:
1) what amp(s) and pedal(s) are you using?
2) are you a full-time musician?
3) have you recorded?
4) what is your music background? (I’m trying to teach myself music/guitar/jazz theory – it seems llike you’ve had some great music education.)
5) I guess it’s just me but I find it incredibly difficult to figure out what EJ is doing…how do you do that?

Carl Brown
12.12.09

Hey David thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you around a lot in the future. Let me see if I can answer some of your questions.

1) For all of my videos I use a Line 6 POD X3 Live recording direct into Logic Pro.

2) I am a full-time musician through teaching, gigs and studio work.

3) I have recorded in many bands, but I don’t have any recordings for my solo stuff available yet. Probably a little later this year I will begin releasing solo instrumental guitar stuff through the site. :)

4) I have studied with some great instructors. I studied classical guitar a lot through my teens and twenties, and I studied jazz theory and musicianship with the late Dick Grove. I find his jazz theory and musicianship materials to be the holy grail of musical knowledge. Check it out if you get a chance, my jazz lessons for this site will be primarily based off of his teachings.

5) As for EJ, all I can say is he is my favorite player and I have just watched and studied and watched and studied him for so long that I feel that I can pick apart almost anything he does. The bad thing about EJ is that he isn’t a very good teacher so his instructional videos are more informative to just watch what he is doing and slowly dissect it than following along with the lesson. :P But after learning a bunch of his stuff and watching countles videos as well as seeing him live I feel I have slowly come to understand a lot of what he does, but he is such a consummate musician I don’t think anyone will every nail everything about him.

Hope that answers your questions, thanks again for taking the time to check out my site, I plan on trying to make it better and better as time goes by so stick around!! Cheers!! Carl..

Paul
12.12.09

Thanks for making this video lesson! I just have a request. Can you make a video lesson tackling about Guthrie Govan’s legato licks & fast runs?

Carl Brown
12.12.09

I will check into it. I am not too familiar with his style but hopefully I can come up with something. :D

Carl..

Ken
12.12.09

Great lesson Carl. I think the 3rd group of 5 notes in example 3 on the PDF is one of the keys to his fluid playing. I didn’t really get it the first time I watched the video and when I first looked at the PDF I thought the repeated A note was a typo. But I watched the video again and finally got it. The position shift to the A note with the 3rd finger gives the line that “sleight of hand” feel. That little move explains a lot, and if I’m not mistaken, EJ uses moves like this all over the place.

Thanks Carl. I’d love to see more EJ style lessons.

Manny K
12.12.09

Kudos on the great website and inspiring lessons! I’m thinking of getting new pickups and it looks like you are using DiMarzios. Would you please let me know which models they are? I love the sound you are getting from them, and it sounds like the line6 is emulating a fuzz face.

Carl Brown
12.12.09

Hey Manny, at the time I made this video lesson I was using a Dimarzio Fast Track 2, Pro Track and Chopper in my EJ strat. I have since gone back to the original EJ pickups.

Thanks for watching!! Carl.. :D

Zhiv
12.12.09

Great lessons, exemple for beginners, intermediares and advances players.

Thanks…

Mitch
12.12.09

Thanks for this lesson Carl! I love EJ and have tried to figure out his picking technique forever. EJ is my favorite as well and I’d love to see more lessons in his style. Thanks again…

Perry Robertson
12.12.09

Carl Thanks so much for the breakdowns, I’ve always played by ear and have finally realized i need the fundamentals, I catch on really fast so wow thanks so much my playing has already improved like in the last 15 minutes no BS…..My best to you I will be contributing to your site, Your a great teacher…God Bless Thanks Bro!!!

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