TIP SHEET

Eric Johnson reveals his five guidelines to improve practice, technique and music knowledge.

- JOE BOSSO

ALTHOUGH HE'S RECOGNIZED as one of the most gifted guitarists of his generation, Eric Johnson considers himself a student of his instrument. "Playing guitar is being part of a journey that never ends," says the artist, whose latest albums, The Book of Making and Yesterday Meets Today were released in July. "That's what's so great about it. You can't just focus on a destination because there's so much to discover along the way."

One might assume Johnson was born with a guitar in his hands, but in fact he began his musical life as a child studying piano. By the time he picked up the guitar at age 11, he had already developed a musical ear. "I took a few months of guitar lessons, which I really enjoyed," he says, "but then I kind of started teaching myself. I would sit at the piano with the guitar, and as I played notes on the piano, I would find them on the guitar."

Growing up in a pre-instructional video and pre-internet age, Johnson learned many guitar basics from playing along to records. He credits a childhood friend, Jimmy Shade, with helping him along the way. "Jimmy had a great ear, and he could pick out anything off records," he says. "He'd teach me stuff and give me lots of tips, and before long I was able to pick stuff up on my own." Here, Johnson offers five tips learned the hard way.

START SLOW AND GRADUALLY BUILD SPEED

 "We all want instant gratification, and this is certainly true when it comes to guitar playing. You hear a piece of music with a lot of fast notes, and of course you want to play it at real-time speed right away. But if you jump in and try to play something fast, you're setting yourself up for trouble. You won't mute strings properly, you're not going to pick correctly, and you're basically going to sound sloppy. You'll just graze over everything without looking at all the incidentals that actually make it a well-groomed piece of music.