JamPlay Review

JamPlay is my number one ranked online guitar lesson site.

This site has surpassed Guitar Tricks and TrueFire as my go-to, number one guitar learning site. I have not been using this site for as long as TrueFire and Guitar Tricks. However, I have been pleased (surprised) with the site’s content, structure, and usability.

I have been recommending this site to my friends and students over the past few years, and it is receiving excellent reviews. The feedback has been very positive, so I have a lot of confidence in recommending this site as my overall number one for learning guitar.

JamPlay has recently been acquired by an equity group and is part of a portfolio that includes TrueFire and Artistworks. This online guitar training site has improved significantly over the last few years.

Once you’ve learned the basics of the guitar strings and notes, it’s a good time to start lessons. The lessons are high quality and can be streamed on any device. There is a wide range of online lessons for beginners, intermediate, and advanced guitar players.

JamPlay Review Features and Benefits

• Specific learning path. JamPlay has a learning system that allows you to choose what you want to learn based on your skill level.
• Extensive Jamtrack library. Playing along to backing tracks makes learning how to play guitar fun. This is one of the best ways to learn to play guitar, and JamPlay has an excellent library of backing tracks to play along with.
• Choose from over 20 genres of music ranging from Rock, Metal, and Blues to Flamengo, Classical, Celtic, and Reggae.

Intermediate and Advanced Online Guitar Lessons

• Explicit instruction from professional guitar players. The instructors on this site are professional musicians (Steve Stephens of Billy Idol!) and Berklee School of Music graduates.
• Master classes with professional musicians. These lessons are for intermediate and advanced guitar players. Many guitar players get stuck in a rut, so these are structured to build on different styles and techniques.
• Each lesson offers an interactive tab and learning material to aid your development as a guitarist. The tabs are downloadable, and the playback can be slowed down without pitch loss. This is one of the most advanced tab players available.
• Learn how to play songs. This is a big one! What differentiates JamPlay from other sites is how they approach learning to play songs. You don’t just learn the melody and chords; you learn how to play the music just like the original song.

• Additional tools and resources include a guitar and bass tuner, metronome, chord chart, and a chord finder.

Beginner Online Guitar Lessons

• Best beginner guitar lessons online.  There is a completely structured learning path for beginners to get you to the level of playing guitar quickly. You can choose acoustic guitar lessons, electric guitar lessons, or finger-picking guitar lessons.
• Lessons specifically for kids. If you have a child wanting to learn how to play guitar, this is a great place to build their skill and interest.
  • Young kids develop skills quickly, especially when they are interested in something. A guitar lesson plan designed specifically for them is crucial to their long-term interest in playing.
  • Many parents spend hundreds of dollars a month going through private lessons. So, this is a low-cost way to get started and gauge their interest.
  • The guitar instructors are clear and keep the lessons on point and simple.

JamPlay Pros and Cons

Proshttps://guitarchordsplayer.com/JamPlay

1. JamPlay is beginner friendly. The beginner lessons are structured and take you from first picking up the guitar to “filling in the gaps” with guitar chords and scales to simple music theory and practice techniques.
2. Jam tracks/backing tracks to play along with.
3. Huge song library of over 400 songs to learn from. Although not as large as other guitar learning sites, the focus is on a deeper understanding of the song and learning all the parts.
4. Downloadable tabs and music sheets.
5. Very reasonable starter subscription that starts at 7.99 a month to a monthly subscription of 19.99 a month. If you choose the annual plan (recommended for someone wanting to take this seriously), it is 14.99 a month with many extras included.
6. A 30-day money-back guarantee.
7. A downloadable app that you can use from your phone or tablet so you can practice and learn from anywhere!
8. Excellent professional instructors from over 20 different genres

Cons

1. The site is slightly more expensive than Guitar Tricks and has a shorter money-back guarantee than Guitar Tricks. However, this is not much of a Con unless you are not a serious guitar student.
2. They have limited private online guitar lesson opportunities. Other online guitar learning sites offer (for an additional fee) one on one private lessons. For example, JamPlay offers four one-on-one sessions with an annual membership, which is still pretty good.
3. Smaller song library for learning songs.

Summary – Is JamPlay worth it?

Yes, it is definitely worth the price of an annual subscription at $180 a year. It is one of the most feature-packed online guitar learning sites available.  Spending time and money building your skills has value for the rest of your life!  There is no better investment than learning to play guitar and using JamPlay!

I have ranked this the highest among all the guitar learning sites. The feedback I have received from students and friends has been great, and I have seen the growth in the output – that is, their guitar playing.

When you select the annual plan, you can download over 150 courses you own for your lifetime – (which is what I do). You can’t go wrong with this site. A guitar student will improve and have fun learning using the online guitar lessons on JamPlay.

Note – Guitar Chords Player receives commissions for recommendations through this website.  It helps to support the website and our guitar habits!

Guitar Tricks Review

Guitar Tricks is my number two ranked online guitar lesson site behind JamPlay. Although it ranks second, it has been one of my go-to guitar lesson sites for a long time and is still one of my favorite learning sites.  Get Guitar Tricks Here

Guitar Tricks is one of the oldest and most popular sites for online guitar lessons. Whether you’re learning the basic guitar strings or working on challenging songs, there are plenty of lessons for beginners, intermediate, and advanced guitar players. It is hard to believe, but it has been around since 1998.

This is the first site I used when I wanted to learn something new on the guitar. When my son was learning to play guitar, he also used the instructors and lessons from Guitar Tricks to build his skills. (He is a good guitar player!)

You can choose to work with specific online instructors based on the style that you enjoy, or you can select a defined learning system such as the Core Learning System that takes you from the fundamentals of playing guitar to playing guitar at an advanced level.

One of the biggest reasons I like Guitar Tricks is the online sessions focus on learning to play songs, which makes a big difference in learning to play guitar.

Guitar Tricks Features and Benefits 

• Over 11,000 lessons and over 30 very skilled guitar teachers. You can pick a style (i.e., rock, blues, country) and learn from the instructors that teach that style of guitar. Some of the lessons are very basic, and other classes are more advanced.

• Guitar styles taught include Rock, Metal, Country, Acoustic, Acoustic Fingerpicking, Funk, Blues, Classical, Bluegrass, and even surf.
• Intermediate and advanced online guitar lessons can take your guitar playing to a professional level.
• Huge song library to learn how to play just about any song. Learning how to play songs is essential to building skills as a guitar player. Most guitar players progress rapidly when they learn to play songs! They are one of the few websites that offer an extensive (licensed) song library. I have not counted, but the claim is that there are over 1000 songs (and counting) from every type of genre.
• Excellent tools, including a metronome, scale finder, Tuner, Fretboard trainer, and a Jam Station. Extensive library of lessons that teach you how to play songs!
• Structured learning program for beginners called the Core Learning System. This system covers the fundamentals of playing guitar and is structured to make it easy to learn for the beginner.
• As the student advances through this program, they will be shown what songs they can work on and the skills they have acquired. Lesson progress is tracked, and students can easily pick up where they left off.

Guitar Tricks Pros and Cons

Pros

1. Online guitar lessons for beginners. With Guitar Tricks, you can go from picking up the guitar as a beginner to playing songs in a very short time. There are plenty of beginner lessons and songs to learn from.
2. Intermediate and advanced guitar lessons. Once you have the beginning fundamentals of chords and strumming, there are lessons for more advanced techniques.
3. Extensive song library. You can find almost any song you want to learn on this site.
4. Excellent instructors. I was surprised that they had Ry Kihn (son of Greg Kihn)
5. Learn scales, arpeggios, sweep picking, finger-picking, classical guitar, rock, and metal guitar.
6. A downloadable app that you can use from your phone or tablet.
7. Very reasonable at 19.95 a month, or even less with an annual membership (recommended).
8. Free trial for 30 days and a 60-day money-back guarantee. I believe this is the best guarantee of all the online guitar learning sites.

Try Guitar Tricks

Cons

1. You cannot download the tab and music. Instead, you must view the tablature and music from the website.
   • This can be slightly cumbersome when viewing the music from a phone. If you are viewing the tab and music from a computer, then this is not much of a problem. However, some of my students have complained about this shortcoming.
2. The site appears slightly outdated. I know the content, and the training is updated regularly, but the look and feel may need a “facelift.”
   • I have never found that to be much of a problem when learning the guitar, but it is one of the common complaints.
3. Not many backing tracks to work with. Playing along with backing tracks helps tremendously with learning to play guitar. Guitar Tricks is very light on backing tracks.

Guitar Tricks Review Summary

Is Guitar Tricks worth it? Is it worth the price? Yes, if you are even moderately serious about playing guitar or improving your guitar playing, Guitar Tricks is worth the price of an annual membership.  If you are spending money and time on anything, then learning to play guitar using Guitar Tricks is worth every minute and every penny.

In summary, this site gives you everything you need to learn to play guitar. From beginning guitar player to intermediate and advanced, you will grow your skills and have fun playing from this online guitar learning site. However, like all guitar lessons, you will need to practice and work on building your skills.

However, you cannot lose by using this site for guitar lessons.

In addition, the price is low, and there is a 60-day money-back guarantee. For that reason, it receives my second highest recommendation.

Disclosure – Guitar Chords Player receives commissions for recommendations through this website.  It helps to support the website and our guitar habits!

TrueFire Online Guitar Lessons Review

While JamPlay and Guitar Tricks have my highest (and second highest) recommendations, TrueFire is one of my favorites. I spend more time using TrueFire than I do Guitar Tricks and JamPlay. The main reason is that TrueFire has excellent backing and Jam Tracks to simulate playing along with a band.  Enroll in TrueFire

(Although JamPlay is very good too.)

TrueFire has been around since 1991. It started as a DVD site and transitioned into an online learning platform. With over 50,000 lessons available, students can find any guitar course they want.

Many of the courses offered can be purchased individually and downloaded onto your computer or device, which I do a lot!

TrueFire has exceptional teachers, including one of my all-time favorites – Andy Timmons. He is not only an amazing guitar player, but he is also an outstanding teacher as well.

TrueFire Features and Benefits

• TrueFire is not really for beginners just learning the basic guitar string notes for the first time. It’s a series of learning paths to different genres, instrument types, and learning to play with actual bands. Students can select from specific learning paths of Blues, Jazz, Rock, Acoustic, Country, or Bass guitar. These learning paths are designed to be more structured and are helpful to those who need more discipline.
• TrueFire’s Song Learning System. The Song Learning System is not just about learning how to play songs. Instead, this hands-on music-making experience simulates playing with a full band. So, for example, a student can take a rhythm or lead guitar part that sounds great in a full band context.
• Over 1,100 courses from Rock Guitar, Blues, Jazz, and Country to Classical, Fingerpicking, R&B, and Flamenco. You will find anything you want to learn about the guitar on this site.
• Jam packs and Multi-Track audio jams. These are excellent for jamming along with a live band. These are high-quality live recorded tracks created by professional session musicians. Each jam includes a lead sheet chart showing the jam’s chord changes and general structure.
  • As a student learns more on the guitar, these Jam Tracks or backing tracks are excellent (essential) for building on newfound skills.
• Beginning, intermediate, and advanced online guitar lessons.

• Over 300 instructors, including Grammy award-winning musicians.
• Private guitar lessons online. TrueFire has a membership level that offers private one-on-one lessons. These one-on-one lessons carry an additional cost. However, for some students that need extra attention and instruction, this may be well worth the price as some of these instructors are very high quality.

TrueFire Pros and Cons

Pros

1. TrueFire is Beginner Friendly. TrueFire has online learning paths for beginning guitar players or students who want to pick up a different style, such as finger-picking. The learning path takes you from no knowledge to an intermediate guitar player. (There is a catch here)
2. Intermediate and advanced lessons. TrueFire is strong in this area as many of the lessons are for intermediate and advanced guitar students.
3. Innovative ways to learn to play along with songs with the Song Learning system. As a guitar teacher, learning to play along with songs has been the best way to teach students how to play. This Song Learning System is excellent for students to learn and have fun playing the guitar.

1. Jam play and backing tracks to jam along with a live band. Again, playing along with music makes learning fun and speeds up the learning process.
2. High-quality instructors from almost every genre of music.
3. A downloadable app that you can use from your phone or tablet.
4. Additional resources include a chord chart, tuner, scale chart, and metronome.
5. Downloadable tabs and music from the website so you can print out and use them anytime.

Cons

1. TrueFire price. At $29/month, the price for TrueFire is higher than other online guitar lesson sites. However, the price is much lower than in-house private lessons (150-200/month).
   • You can also download individual courses at $30 to $40. Some of these courses provide more than enough training and instruction. I have done this with some of the advanced lead guitar-playing courses, which are excellent.
2. More intermediate and advanced guitar skill friendly. Although I said, TrueFire is beginner-friendly, beginning students need to be more disciplined and self-motivated to use this site.  The beginning guitar student will learn to play guitar on this site!
3. The Song library is small. Therefore, if you want to learn to play specific songs, there are not as many songs to choose from on this site.

TrueFire Review Summary

Is TrueFire worth the cost?  Yes, you cannot go wrong with this site for the backing tracks, the structured learning path, and the intermediate and advanced lessons.  Enroll in TrueFire

It is a close call between Guitar Tricks and TrueFire as my second choice. However, TrueFire is slightly more expensive than Guitar Tricks. In addition, TrueFire does not have an extensive song library, so I rank them marginally lower than Guitar Tricks.

I like the backing tracks of TrueFire, but my students like the song library to learn how to play songs with Guitar Tricks.

Note – Guitar Chords Player receives commissions for recommendations through this website.  It helps to support the website and our guitar habits!

Tom Hess is another online site that I use and love. Tom is a monster guitar player AND teacher! He is one of the best guitar teachers my son and I have ever had. His approach to learning guitar is the best I have seen.

This site is not designed for every type of guitar player or learning the basic guitar strings notes – but rather only serious guitar players seeking direct personalized instruction.  That is why I have Tom as my number four ranked online guitar learning site.  It is not meant for someone who is not serious.

Tom Hess is as close as you get to private one-on-one lessons. His lessons are personal. They are developed based on where you are at in your guitar playing. He is a coach and mentor and is always willing to provide feedback on your playing.

If you are serious about playing guitar professionally, you will want to consider online guitar lessons with Tom Hess. He focuses on learning the correct fundamentals of playing guitar and understanding the music theory. He does not miss much.

However, these lessons are not for you if you are a beginner guitar player just learning to play. You will need to have at least six months of learning under your belt before you take on these lessons.

Tom Hess Guitar Lessons Features and Benefits

• You have personalized guitar lessons. First, Tom gets to know you and who you are. Then, you will fill out a questionnaire, identify your strengths and weaknesses, challenges and frustrations, and place your goals.
• Tom builds out a complete custom strategy for your learning path. He develops the lesson plans and specific instructions for practicing each day.
• Guitar lessons combine video, audio, text, and tabular and music sheets.

Weekly live training classes. You will get live training classes with Tom or one of his expert teachers. The great part about this is you get great feedback and motivation. You also get the recording of the session.

Lead Guitar Shredding

• Master guitar speed. With Tom, you will learn how to master your guitar soloing speed. As a result, you will (at a minimum) double your soloing speed.
• Master guitar theory. Learning guitar theory is essential to becoming an expert/professional guitar player, and you will master music theory with these online guitar lessons. In addition, guitar theory will provide the foundation for your growth in all areas of playing guitar.

Tom Hess Guitar Lessons Pros and Cons

Pros

1. Customized guitar lessons tailored to your specific level and style of play. This site is as close as you get to private online one-on-one guitar lessons, but in many ways – better!
2. Very active user forum. Users in the training forum are very active and encouraging.
3. Learn how to shred on the guitar in a relatively short time. The focus of these lessons is the technique, where you learn how to gain speed in your soloing in a short time.
4. Learn guitar improvisation not only soloing but with rhythm guitar as well.
5. Direct feedback. You can receive private instruction and direct feedback on your progress every week. This is not only helpful for growth; it is inspiring and provides a level of accountability.
6. You will get better at playing guitar!
7. Lessons have enough variety and structure that you do not get bored and fall into a rut. Guitar ruts are a massive problem with guitar players. Tom keeps the lessons flowing and the progress moving so that you do not (quickly) fall into a rut.

Cons

1. 1. 1. The price point starts at $69/month, with options at $177/month. This is not expensive if you are a serious guitar student.  It is also cheaper than private one-on-one lessons! However, these prices will be too high if you are not a serious student.
      2. Limited styles of learning guitar. You will not learn acoustic guitar, finger-picking, country, jazz, classical guitar, bass guitar, or banjo. Instead, Tom focuses on rock, metal, blues, and progressive guitar styles. You will learn to shred!
      3. As a note, everything you learn carries over to other play styles. Tom is a very thorough teacher.
      4. No song library. You will not learn to play songs. Instead, you will learn to listen to music, pick it up and play along. This is truly about being a professional guitar player.
      5. No price guarantees. There are no trial periods or guarantees. Tom Hess’s online guitar learning site is not meant for “tire kickers.” You can cancel your membership at any time.

   Tom Hess Online Guitar Lessons – Summary

   This site is one of my highest recommendations if you are a serious guitar student wanting to learn rock, metal, and progressive music styles. But, of course, you must also have some experience already playing guitar.

   Learning from Tom Hess is like going to guitar school. His students go on to become professional guitar players and instructors. After going through Tom’s lessons, I have seen some of my students go from “challenged” guitar players to master-level shredders in a short time (six months).

   If you take Tom’s lessons seriously, you can make a good living with the guitar! However, this may not be the site for you if you are a beginner or just trying to learn some songs so you can jam with friends.

On the opposite end of the learning spectrum is Fender Play. Fender Play is new to online guitar lessons. The Fender name is recognizable because of their great guitars, but they are the new kids in the block in guitar lessons.

Fender Play gets high reviews as a site for beginning guitar students, even if you’re just learning the basic guitar string notes. It is an excellent tool for teaching the fundamentals of guitar playing. The lessons are easy to follow and well-paced so that a beginner can move forward in a way that suits their style.

A new student can choose their instrument, choose their music genre preference, and select the lessons and practice plan that works for them.

I ranked this as my number five because I did not find it as strong in the intermediate to advanced lessons. Some more advanced song lessons were modified to accommodate a beginning guitar player. I did not learn as much from the songs in the library as I did on other sites.

Overall, I was pleased with the lesson’s layout and structure. I used the site specifically for some finger-picking guitar lessons, which were good. However, the same type of lessons is also available on other sites.

Fender Play Review -Features and Benefits 

• Over 3000 online lessons for guitar, bass, and ukulele. A beginning guitar player can jump on most of these lessons and build their skills.
• Choose to learn guitar in genres of Rock, Blues, Pop, Country, or Folk.
• An extensive song library where a beginning guitar player can learn songs from their favorite genre.
• Self-paced learning system makes it easy for the beginning guitar player to practice for 10 -15 minutes each day but still progress without being bored or overwhelmed.
• Learn chords and scales. The program starts with easy chords and scales. First, the program teaches basic chords, and then you can learn easy songs with the basic chords. This is a great way to learn the guitar and is a method I teach with my students and on my site. Additionally, you can learn to play scales in specific keys.
• Backing tracks. There are a decent number of backing tracks to work with, and they are pretty good. This helps learn to play guitar, and it makes learning fun.
• Stream lessons from your phone or tablet with the Fender Play app.
• A Facebook community where you can interact with other students.

Fender Play Pros and Cons

Pros

1. Excellent for beginning guitar students.  Fender Play is an excellent site if you are starting and want to learn the basics.
2. Fender Pay price a very reasonable price at $9.99 a month, or $89.00 for the annual plan. I highly recommend the annual plan here – it is a great price. There is also a 7-day free trial period.
3. Very user-friendly. Very easy to navigate and one of the industry’s more user-friendly guitar lesson sites.
4. High-quality audio and videos.
5. Over 1000 songs in the song library with a nice variety. Many of the songs in the library are for the beginning guitar player.
6. Downloadable App for Apple and Google Play so you can learn on the go.
7. Weekly giveaways for Fender gear. Give away incentives for great Fender gear based on how much you practice.

Cons

1. The lesson material is lacking for intermediate and advanced guitar players. You will not learn to shred on this site.
2. The Song library is oversimplified and not suited for learning every part of a song.
3. No downloadable tab and music.

Fender Play Review Summary

I like Fender Play. If I were just starting to learn how to play the guitar, I would give this site a hard look. The problem is that you will advance past the materials quickly if you are a serious student.

I teach the basics on my site (for free), and you can probably find much of the material offered by Fender Play on the internet.   However, the beginner lessons have an easy-to-follow structure with clear instructions on what to practice that you will not find for free.

I would rate this as a 1 or 2 for any older adult that wants to learn guitar for the first time and wants to learn (very) basic songs quickly. Then, I would look at one of my top four online guitar learning sites for the more serious guitar student.