If this video has been posted before tell me and I’ll have this post deleted, but this is the best clip of Eric Johnson’s picking hand I have seen.
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I’ve found a video of Eric playing Cliffs of Dover where you can see his arm and his wrist. I think this is a first. It’s best to watch the video in YouTube but not maximised. I don’t know why it sometimes swivels. I see no forearm rotation.
I think he’s mostly wrist, with some finger and thumb motion in there too.
I don’t recall seeing any sort of forearm wrist blend, but it’s been a very long time since I watched his instructional vhs tapes haha
I’ve always heard Troy making best guesses that he is a wrist player. Very similar Mike Stern’s movement. The reason for the ‘guess’ is he never shows us his forearm…until now! 
Thanks for sharing the video!
This is the Troy post I was thinking about when I saw the video.
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I’m not sure why I didn’t respond to @Troy in the linked thread above, I must have been busy and forgot to get back to it.
I have a lot of observations and thoughts regarding Eric’s picking. I’ve spent a lot of time studying his playing.
I promise that I’ll write something up on Monday when I have some time.
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I want to preface this by saying that Eric Johnson’s music and his guitar playing have had a profound on me and my life. His music connects with me on the deepest of levels. I love his music and his guitar playing, and I will forever be grateful for it.
I spent a lot of time when I was younger trying to analyse and imitate Eric’s playing. This was initially very difficult as there really wasn’t very much footage of his playing available. The G3 DVD was all I could find for a long time, the VHS casettes of his Hot Licks lessons were out of print and there really wasn’t much video available on line back then either. It was only later when the 88’ Austin City Limits performance was released on DVD and the Hot Licks lessons were reisssued on DVD that I was able to really begin to understand his playing. Eric’s playing is highly idiosyncratic to him.
I had already derived the ideas of one-way and double escape picking movements geometrically, and I was able to understand what Eric was trying to communicate when he said his upstrokes “come away from the guitar” and that he follows them with “side to side” downstrokes. Has I not previously had previous insights, I think it would have gone right over my head.
I came to many of the same conclusions as @Troy regarding Eric’s picking. His fast picking is an upstroke escape movement with a clearly visible downward slant. His position is clearly supinated.
There are some major red herrings in his Hot Licks videos. The “bounce” is absolutely integral to Eric’s playing and his slow to medium speed picking, however is completely disappears from his fast picking movements, despite saying that the bounce “comesin when playing fast”. Also, Eric discusses “circle picking” with thumb and index finger movement, and says it’s important when playing fast. While there is certainly a component of finger movement in Eric’s picking, this seems to lessen in his faster picking. Eric’s fast picking appears to be an almost flat, linear movement from the wrist, which suggests deviation.
Eric usually plays in long sleeves, and it can be difficult to analyze the exact movements he performs, however there are examples of him playing with rolled up sleeves and there is more to be said.
Let’s consider the one thing that Eric always emphasises when discussing his picking technique – tone. Eric likes to pick in a fashion where the string slides along the edge of the pick as it releases, which gives a subtle “bowing” effect and changes the timbre of the note to have a “blooming” quality. He discusses the idea in these videos:
I hear a difference, but others have told me they can’t. However, Eric has famously soft attack and the “bloom” is a celebrated aspect of his sound. Even if you feel the difference is negligible, Eric certainly feel this is important to him. The attack of the pick “breaking through” the string is something Eric tries to avoid.
We can ask then how this “bowing” effect can be generated. Two possibilities are wrist extension and finger movement. Forearm rotation can also generate the effect, but it’s limited to one direction and maximizing the effect involves holding the pick in a asymmetrical fashion; the more we “bow” on one side, the more we “break through” on the other.
Other critical elements of picking for tone production are pick depth and degree of edge picking. Eric discusses the importance of a loose, relaxed grip.
Another aspect that Eric often stresses when discussing picking is string dampening. I would argue that Eric’s picking technique and his dampening technique are inseperable. With his supinated form, Eric damps strings with the base of the palm and the ulnar side. With his supinated position, it is possible to achieve USX via deviation, rotation or through finger movement. Interestingly, the finger movement pushes the pick through it’s own plane, which has a similar effect to an increases degree of edge picking.
I feel then that the purpose of Eric’s highly idiosyncratic finger movement is multi-faceted. The finger movements allow subconscious control over edge picking and pick depth. The thumb and forefinger allow for some shock absorption, reducing the hardness of attack. The finger movement helps to create the bowing effect where possible. The slight thumb/finger driven picking movement which is sometimes evident is compatible with his escape mechanics, and using it in conjunction with his other movements creates a compounding effect and mimics greater a higher edge picking. The finger movement can also provide a helper movement to assist in changing strings after a downstroke, or assist in tracking. Since Eric prefers a looser grip, some movement is occasionally necessary to recover control of the pick in the grip. My belief is that the finger movement serves all of these purposes situationally, and intuitively.
Interestingly, and something which doesn’t get talked about much, is that Eric has a functional medium speed crosspicking movement which he uses when playing chords. This can be seen in Total Electric Guitar, Fig.3. It’s basically a supinated wrist based crosspicking form with just a touch of EJ’s idiosyncratic finger movement. I doubt it’s the most robust crosspicking form, but it really doesn’t look like string hopping to me. It works for what he uses it for, but he doesn’t use it very much.
As for the question of the primary movement mechanic for his fast playing, I’m certain it’s a combination of wrist deviation with a small degree of rotation. There are some close up shots of his picking hand in the intro to Total Electric Guitar where the movement of the radius is visible because Eric’s sleeves are slightly rolled up.
The exact path of Eric’s wrist during his fast picking is difficult to pin down. I think it
has a very slight extension on downstrokes by default, but not enough to effectively escape the strings. On the contrary, sometimes the wrist path seems to have extension on the upstroke (dart-thrower) and with less rotation. Also, Eric has often expressed a preference for the tone of upstrokes and will often pick slow to medium speed phrases with all upstrokes. When playing in this way, there is clearly an extension component on upstrokes.
This might give the impression that Eric’s picking mechanics are kind of a hodge-podge of movements which work situationally which he links together intuitively, and honestly, that’s kinda sorta the case. It might seem like this shouldn’t work, but we need to consider Eric’s phrasing and vocabularly.
Eric rarely plays many notes on a single string before changing strings. The fast pentatonic picking patterns are woven into lines, and his lines are rarely all picked. The gaps are connected with the occasional well placed slide, hammer or pull-off.
His lines are largely constructed around 2 note per string pentatonic scale shapes, his fretting sequence are typically involve rapid alternating of the 1st and 3rd fingers, with a lot of finger rolling and the 2nd finger being used where appropriate in those shapes or to play the middle note in the whole-half shape. There are the occasional short appearances of rapid (1 2 3) or (3 2 1) cycles, usually in repeating patterns involving a hammer-on or a 2-string sweep or as a quick embellishment.
The point is that his lines and his vocabularly really can’t be played any faster because of limitations on the fretting hand. While Eric is certainly a fast player (and often sounds faster than he actually is), these fretting sequences can only be taken so far and his fretting posture only allows so much. He played his lines and patterns about as fast as they can possibly be played.
I very much doubt that Eric developed his picking by tremolo picking on a single string. He rarely plays many notes on one string before changing. I would imagine his picking speed on a single string is likely not particularly impressive to most. He may not even be able to pick fast continuously on a single string; I’ve literally never seen him do it.
Eric’s blend of picking movements is the blend that best facilitates his vocabulary and tone. His vocabulary is so optimized around his mechanics and vice versa that it’s frighteningly difficult to replicate some lines if you don’t directly imitate his form, and almost eerily easy if you do. Understanding his technique is essential to understanding his tone and phrasing.
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Thanks for the response, Tom.
I’ve read Troy say he has not heard Eric play tremolo on a single string too. In his live album Alien Love Child the second song, Last House on the Block, has his extended solo and at 4:17 he plays a single string tremolo on the high E with various notes being played on the same string for 45 notes palm muted at semi quaver speed bpm 122 according to my tab book of the album.
Here also is a solo by Robben Ford where he is really getting the plectrum to lift up from the string on the downstroke, which you would have thought easier for Eric than all upstrokes.
Eric looks to me like he tracks strings in both directions with his elbow rather than his wrist, and you can also see his fingers narrow when he’s playing at top speed. I think I’m right is saying he is always picking down then up, playing always on the floor side of a string for his quick runs. Perhaps he is set up to play on the ceiling side of the string with his wrist and his elbow tracking takes him to the floor side of the string. This is a real guess.
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I love that song, really strong Cream vibe and some great lines. I know the lick you’re describing. I don’t really think 16ths at 122 bpm is particularly fast on a single string. It’s actually markedly slower than some of his pentatonic patterns where he can cruise around at 180 bpm plus and burst at over 200 bpm. He could easily pick sextuplets at 122 bpm on his pentatonic patterns for reps easily enough. I’ve no idea if he could do that speed continuously on a single string.
I’m not sure I follow what you’re describing here do you mean the neutral position of his wrist relative to the string being played?
I wouldn’t take this last bit too seriously, I’m not a wrist player. 180 bpm would be 12 notes a second.
Yes, 16ths at 180 bpm or sextuplets at 120 bpm comes to 12 notes per second.
As a tremolo picking speed on a single string, that’s not particularly impressive. For two note per string pentatonic sequences it’s fast.
For the tremolo picking, I’ve always thought of tremolo as anything repetitious without moving string using a different motion than one for slow playing.
What I should have thought is Eric uses a very steep pick angle for his quick playing, so playing with upstrokes at slower speeds will see him become much more vertical with his plectrum. The finger and thumb can sweep as well as lift, so at medium speeds I could see a wrist player finding it useful. For me, as a rotational player, I will often use all upstrokes with finger movement at slow speeds because it’s easier for me.