30-DAY WORKOUT Lockdown Special!
Jon Bishop has 30, targeted and graded exercises, designed to be practiced one per day for a month. Follow them closely and in just 10 minutes a day your chops are guaranteed to improve.
Jon Bishop has a unique month-long lesson to hone your existing chops and build new ones. This ‘lesson-a-day’ regime will refine your picking, fretting, legato and tapping abilities.
DON’T LET YOURSELF GET AWAY WITH BAD POSTURE; STAND OR SIT WITH A STRAIGHT BACK, STRAP ADJUSTED SO YOU CAN PLAY AN F CHORD
For the time being at least, most of us are having to spend more time at home. So what better opportunity to knuckle down and get those chops in order; hone what you already can do, or perhaps try a technique you’ve shied away from in the past? To that end we’ve created a targeted, 30-day workout. So let’s head to the (virtual) guitar gym and pump those silver strings.
The programme has been designed to address common weaknesses in fretting and picking techniques. If you follow each day’s lesson carefully, we guarantee a noticeable boost to your abilities in just 30 days.
We have divided our studies into six sections, each with five increasingly difficult tasks totalling 30 mini-workouts that focus on: string bending, alternate picking, sweep picking, hybrid picking, hammer-ons and pull-offs, and two-handed tapping. While not pastiches as such, we do reference revered guitarists in the musical captions, since these techniques are of course employed by the great players in myriad styles and genres.
You will need to find 10 minutes per day to practise one exercise (which can of course be repeated so as to refine it - especially if it’s a new technique to you, like tapping, sweep or hybrid picking). All the exercises have audio examples and backing tracks to practice over, and these are of course fully tabbed. To check your progress and give musical context to the exercises, we’ve also provided a funky blues-rock jam track, and a tabbed solo that incorporates the techniques in a real-world situation.
Before working on your chops it’s always important to warm up. This will help to boost performance and reduce the risk of injury. Start with some light stretching of the upper body, forearms and shoulders, to get everything nice and loose and ready to play.
Also, don’t let yourself get away with bad posture; stand or sit with a straight back and use a strap adjusted so you can play an F barre chord at the 1st fret with ease. Angling the neck slightly upwards will help.
If you don’t have a metronome, order one online now, as this will help in checking your progress. It’s good practice to start super slow and then build the tempo up over the course of the session and over time. You will find that implementing some of the less exciting, but vital core concepts will provide the biggest gains in the long run.
These are strange times indeed, but good luck and do let us know how you get on!