JamPlay is one of the Internet’s most popular online guitar lesson platforms, along with Guitar Tricks, TrueFire, and Justin Guitar. Since its launch in 2006, it has produced over 450 on-demand lessons, with over 6,500 lessons from more than 100 top guitar instructors.
In this JamPlay review, we will look at what lessons are offered on the platform, what to expect upon membership, how much it costs to join, how you can take advantage of the courses, and how well JamPlay compares with its competition. When learning guitar online, quality education matters. Read this JamPlay review first before enrolling in any online guitar class.
Contents
Format Overview
The JamPlay website makes it easy to navigate through lessons, live tutorials, tools, community, and other features. All you need can be accessed through a dropdown menu. These include lessons, songs, licks, tools, and the like.
The default theme of the dashboard is in red, maroon, black and white scheme. If you find this hard on the eyes, you can change the theme depending on your preference. The pages are laid out with a white background so you can pretty much see the content of each page with ease.
The video player for the lessons comes with helpful tools including speed adjustment to allow you to slow the video if you need to, and an A/B loop function for continuous playback of a specific portion of the video. Videos are professionally made in studio quality and HD format. Shots are taken from a variety of angles as well.
Below each lesson page, you can access supplemental tablature, comments/notes section, and “Ask A Teacher” option. You can download the tabs in PDF, GIF, or GPX formats. The tabs are interactive and can be played along with audio to aid you in studying specific songs.
Types of Lessons
There are hundreds of lessons available on the platform, but they are arranged specifically for different difficulty levels, styles, and type of guitar used. There are lessons for both beginners and advanced students, acoustic and electric guitars, and bass guitar. There are lessons for different types styles of music as well, including rock, blues, RnB, fingerstyle, classical, etc. There are also specific lessons for skill sets, including speed and technique, singing with guitar, reading music, lead techniques, improvisation, rhythm training, ear training, and more.
Beginner Lessons
JamPlay provides easy-to-follow lessons for beginners. The downside is, you have a variety of lessons from different teachers to choose from. Some teachers focus on acoustic guitar, others classical, electric, and bass. There is also an interesting beginner’s lessons tailor-made just for kids. The platform provides helpful information about the teacher, the number of lessons to complete, and the entire duration of the entire beginner course. Whoever you choose to follow as an instructor, you are definitely going to learn the foundations of guitar playing.
Advanced Lessons
Beginners have a lot of foundational lessons to choose from. However, there are also lessons that cater to more experienced guitarists. These lessons delve on specific styles like metal, blues, RnB, jazz, as well skill-based lessons on singing, songwriting, ear training, etc.
These lessons come in phases, progressing based on difficulty. In phase 3, you will encounter songs to help you master the techniques you developed in the earlier phases. In phase 4, you go deeper into song writing and the different theories and techniques used in writing the perfect song.
Acoustic Guitar Lessons
Not all interested guitar learners want the hardcore sound of electric guitar. Some want to focus on acoustic guitar playing, classical guitar playing, and fingerstyle guitar playing. Fans of classical music, flamenco, and of Sungha Jung’s fingerstyle playing are in for a treat.
Bass Guitar Lessons
Fortunately, JamPlay offers lessons on bass guitar. For aspiring bass players, you can learn directly from some of the best bass guitar players like Billy Sheehan, David Ellefson, Bryan Beller and Freebo. Note that there is a separate subscription for bass guitar lessons, though.
Electric Guitar Lessons
Of course, there are tons of lessons on electric guitar as well. Learn the fundamental skills and techniques in electric guitar playing, the different gadgets you need to create distinct sounds, picking exercises, and a lot more. You also have access lessons to play in different styles, including jazz, metal, rock, blues, and the like.
Artist Series and Live Courses
JamPlay is popular for its list of famous artists participating in the lessons. For instance, you can access the Artist Series, where you can watch teachers give lessons on how they play in their own respective styles. There is also a portion of the lessons that teaches you how to play in the style of famous guitarists like Joe Satriani, Tom Morello, Jimi Hendrix, etc.
If that is not enough, you get access to live courses, where you can watch instructors provide live lessons on cam. This provides you a chance to learn from top instructors in real time and participate with the community in perfecting the techniques taught in these live courses.
Instructors
There are now more than 100 instructors on the platform. They are composed of top guitar educators, as well as actual artists who are well known in the music industry. Some of these popular instructors include Robb Flynn, Nick Catanese, Glen Drover, Bumblefoot, Mike Mushok, Brent Mason, Tyler Grant, Mary Flower, and more.
Songs
JamPlay contains many songs from different artists, genres and styles for acoustic and electric guitar. Some of these songs come from The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Slipknot, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Goo Goo Dolls. Nickelback, etc. Some instructors actually teach their own songs, like guitarists from Black Label Society, Megadeth and Machine Head. The song list is still quite limited, but more are added on a regular basis.
Free Lessons
JamPlay provides free lessons on their platform as well. If you are not yet committed to join as a premium member, you can have access to lessons such as rock concepts, sweeping techniques, barre chords, evolution of blues, modern country shred, fingerstyle, classical guitar, and more. You can also access more free lessons on their YouTube channel.
Apps
Unlike other guitar lesson sites online, JamPlay offers apps for iOS, Android and Kindle. This allows you to continue with your lessons on the go. This way, you do not have to bring your laptop with you in order to access the lessons on the platform. You can use your smartphone or tablet for convenience.
Community
Having an online community of like-minded music enthusiasts is great for motivation. JamPlay provides a chat room inside the platform called JamChat. You can interact with fellow guitar players and maybe even meet up for gigs or practice. In addition, you have the option to ask questions from instructors during live Q&A sessions.
Cost to Join
This JamPlay review is not complete without information on the pricing. The pricing for JamPlay membership is simple and competitive. You can access the lessons for a monthly subscription of $19.95 or a yearly subscription of $159.95. If you are lucky, you may even get a 50% discount on the yearly subscription when it is available. For in-person tutorials you pay a fee of $30-50 per session.
Coupon Codes
Everyone loves coupons and discounts. Of course, this JamPlay review also offers discounts for those who want to join the community. You can use the following codes:
A7ECB81ADC to get 10% off any JamPlay membership
7A508817CB to get 25% off the 1st month if you choose monthly membership
Free Trials
In this JamPlay review, you now know how much education you can get from the platform. However, using the platform firsthand provides an even better experience. If you want to see what you can get on the inside, you can sign up for a free trial. You get one week free access to all the lessons and other perks on the site with no strings attached and no credit card required.
How to Use the Course
Upon signing up with JamPlay, you will be presented a quick form to complete your profile and input your goals in guitar learning. You can set up a profile picture and join the community. If you are newbie, it is best to check out the beginner’s section of the platform. If you are more advanced, check out the succeeding phases. If you have any questions or are having a hard time choosing lessons, ask around and members of the community will be willing to lend a hand.
Jamplay vs the Competition
This JamPlay review is not enough if we do not compare some of the competition. So let us dive into how JamPlay compares with other online guitar lessons out there.
JamPlay vs Guitar Tricks
Guitar Tricks is definitely JamPlay’s biggest competitor. However, there are many ways JamPlay is better in comparison. First of all, beginners will find both platforms equally matched. However, when it comes to advanced lessons, JamPlay focuses on genre specific lessons, which is definitely a good deal for guitar players who want to improve their playing performance based on their chosen genres.
Jamplay vs TrueFire
TrueFire is the oldest online site for guitar lessons and is definitely a worthy competitor. With more years in the industry, TrueFire offers more lessons. However, more does not mean best. With too much content, you will oftentimes find yourself confused on which lessons to focus on. While JamPlay is a newer player in the field, you have a better chance of learning fresh content from the instructors, especially during live courses. In addition, JamPlay has more songs to teach you.
JamPlay vs Justinguitar
Justinguitar offers free lessons, but so does JamPlay. If you are a beginner, you may be tempted to choose Justinguitar. However, if you really want to master guitar playing, JamPlay offers more diverse lessons, actual lessons from the masters, and a whole lot more. Although JamPlay is a subscription-based guitar tutorial site, you are definitely going to treasure your lessons and give them more value because you paid for it.
Jamplay PROs and CONs
In a nutshell, this JamPlay review can be summarized with the platform’s pros and cons.
The Verdict
So let us now give a verdict in this JamPlay review. Although there are worthy competitors to JamPlay online, this specific platform definitely provides value for money. Of course, not all interested guitar students are happy to pay a monthly or yearly subscription. However, when you compute the cost of paying an online site monthly/annually versus playing an instructor at least $25 for a 30-minute guitar lesson, you definitely have a clear winner.
For only $19.95 a month or $159.95 a year, you get access to 6,500 lessons, live lessons, and a helpful community of guitar students and instructors. You get access to lessons from famous guitar players. You get studio and HD quality video lessons taken from different angles. You also get genre-specific lessons and skill-specific lessons to enhance your musical ability.
JamPlay review verdict? Five out of five (5/5) star rating. What are you waiting for? Sign up for a free trial and get access to JamPlay’s impressive collection of lessons and other special features.