Eric Johnson - Cliffs Of Dover Pt.1 - Intro - Guitar Lesson

About Cliffs Of Dover Pt.1 - Intro

Few guitar instrumentals demand as much right-hand clarity as the intro to "Cliffs of Dover." Eric Johnson built his reputation on an almost obsessive attention to pick attack and tone, and that comes through immediately in this opening passage. Written in G major and sitting at 120 BPM, the intro feels deceptively relaxed, but nailing the clean, bell-like articulation of each note is where most players struggle. Johnson's picking technique here is precise and economic, so sloppy alternate picking will expose itself fast. The flowing, melodic lines ask you to move smoothly across strings without any note bleeding into the next, which takes real control of both hands. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop just the trickiest string-crossing phrases at a reduced speed, building the muscle memory before bringing it back up to tempo. This is Progressive Rock guitar at its most refined: no distortion to hide behind, just touch and intention.

• The intro sits in G major at 120 BPM in standard E tuning, so no retuning is needed, but clean fretting hand muting is essential throughout.
• Johnson's signature tone here relies on a very clean amp setting, meaning any fret buzz or pick noise will be clearly audible in the mix.
• The main challenge is synchronising both hands precisely across fast string changes, so isolate short two-bar phrases and loop them slowed down to build accuracy.