How To Do Eric Johnson’s Trademark Rolling Fives Guitar Lick

Hey, how’s it going this is Robert with Guitar Control, were going to be talking about getting that Eric Johnson “Five sound”, that reminds of rolling picking technique that he uses all over the place with some cool stuff.

Check the image above to follow the chords and tabs.

Let’s jump right into these Eric Johnson descending fives, now what we’re going to be doing is using our Minor Pentatonic Scale, he rolls these fives off all the time. It has a really cool sound, a lot of people do fours and six or sixes would be. I definitely use those lots, but Eric has these fives in it such a cool kind of sound fill roof.

Here’s what we’re going to be working on an E minor pentatonic scale and we’re going through it in fives so we’re going to  go 15, 12 on the high E, 15, 12 on the B, and 14 on the G, those are first group of five. Our picking is down, up, down, up, down, what’s important to know is the next group of five starts on a down, so we actually have two downs in a row so we’re going to go 15, 12 on the B, 14, 12 on G, 14 on the D, watch my hand how I do those two downs it’s like a little sweep some economy picking in here so right there you’re ending down and starting your next sequence of five on a down.

Now, I’m going to roll my ring finger on my left hand down to get  that 14 on the G and 12, 14, 12, on the D 14 on the A, and keep going with these five. Next one’s  is going to 14, 12 on the D, 14, 12 on the A, 15 on the low E, then you go back to 14, 12 on the A, 15, 12 on the low E, you get this white down to 10, and you end on the twelve low E, your home and the root note, so real slow watch what I’m rolling my fingers and you can see my picking hand, how I have those two downs each time so it goes like this real slow.

Thank you so much for tuning and I hope you enjoyed that lesson.