Jamplay Review

Jamplay

Launched in February of 2007, Jamplay has quickly grown to be one of the largest video guitar lesson sites worldwide. The site is huge as it currently contains over 430 hours of high-definition video guitar lessons, with more being added every week. Jamplay also employs 28 different guitar instructors that each specialize in teaching different styles of guitar. This is a huge improvement over traditional lessons where you learn from only one individual with a limited amount of stylistic exposure and experience.

This guitar program is a great option for guitarist of all skill levels and interests, from a complete beginner to the advanced guitarist. It also doesn’t matter whether you’re into acoustic, jazz, rock, or blues since all of these genres are taught at Jamplay.com.

To get an idea of the quality of lessons that Jamplay produces we suggest that you take a look at a few of the free guitar lessons that they have available on their site.

Features

How the Course is Organized:

With over 375 hours of video lessons currently on Jamplay, you might think you would have a difficult time finding the lessons you want to take. Fortunately, this is not the case, as Jamplay’s member’s area is easy to navitage, simple to use, and free of clutter.

The course is divided into 3 phases: Beginners, Genre Teaching, and Learning Songs.

In phase 1, you will learn all you need to know about the basics of playing guitar such as how the guitar functions, hand positions, strumming techniques, your first chords, barre & power chords, and other essential guitar topics.

Phase 2 allows you to focus on learning music in your preferred genre. Some of the genres that are currently available on Jamplay include: Classic rock, blues, finger style, metal, Hawaiian slack key, bluegrass, rock, jazz, and Celtic guitar. Phase 2 also has a section where you can learn specialized guitar techniques such as how to read music, how to play lead guitar, and how to sing while playing guitar. Update: Jamplay just recently started doing an “Artist Series” where you can learn music in the style of specific musicians.

Phase 3 is one of the most enjoyable parts of the course. In this phase you can learn some of your favorite songs taught by various Jamplay instructors. They currently have over 120+ songs in their library and add more every week by member request. Songs include hits from Greenday, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Led Zeppelin, Coldplay, John Mayer, the Beatles and more. All songs are given a difficulty rating so you can see at a glance what songs you should try

Lesson Format

Jamplay’s video lessons are produced in flash video format. Each video lesson, which ranges from 15 -60 minutes is filmed in high-definition with multiple cameras so that you can see what each hand is doing. Some videos on the site even allow you to switch full screen camera views in mid-video.  One of the only drawbacks of Jamplay’s video lessons is that the videos aren’t downloadable. This understandable of course, since when you make videos downloadable there are inevitably piracy issues that spring up.

All of Jamplay’s lessons have supplemental content that’s available right from within the lesson page, such as tablature and notation. If you wish, you can print these supplemental lesson materials. Other tools available within the lessons include the ability to comment and direct questions to the teacher and other students, track your progress, and the ability to write down your own notes.

To address the difficulties that users with slower internet connections will face when viewing the video lessons, Jamplay has recorded the videos in 3-4 different resolutions (Low-Quality, Medium-Quality, High-Quality, and Super High-Quality). Another smart move was to break lessons down into chapters since a single 1 hour-long video may have problems downloading on some computers. Despite these measures, we don’t recommend Jamplay to slow-speed (read: Dial Up) internet users. If you have a basic internet connection, a much better choice would be to get the Learn and Master Guitar DVD course.

Community

One of the neat surprises we discovered about Jamplay is their vibrant and active community of guitar student from all over the world. We were able to create our own online profile, upload pictures, interact with other Jamplay members, make friends, and chat live with other Jamplay members 24/7. The forums are also quite busy with plenty of discussion going on there at all times.

Extra Tools and Features

With your Jamplay membership, you will also have access to some professionally developed online tools to aid you in playing guitar. You’ll get a fully-customizable online metronome, guitar tuner, access to high-quality backing tracks, a lick and riff library, a gigantic chord library, and a scale library with plenty of video demonstrations. These tools have to be seen to be fully appreciated, and blew us away with how well they worked and were presented.

Support

If you ever need to talk to a live person at Jamplay, you have numerous options available to you. You can contact Jamplay via more traditional methods using their phone number or email support information. You can also private message a staff member in the forums, or drop into JamChat (Jamplay’s chat feature), where you’ll typically find at least one site admin that can assist you with whatever problems you’re having. We can personally attest that Jamplay’s customer service is first-class.

Jamplay’s support goes a step further than most with an exclusive feature called “Video Q&A” where Jamplay members can ask guitar questions and get a video lesson in response. This personalized support raises the bar in terms of online student-teacher interaction to a whole new level.

Ordering Information

Jamplay comes with a 7-Day 100% money-back guarantee. If you aren’t completely satisfied with your membership you can just contact customer service within 7 days of ordering your membership, and you’ll get a full refund.

For a limited time, a Jamplay membership is selling for $19.95/mo. If you purchase a longer subscription the price drops significantly. Payment plans currently available are monthly at $19.95/mo., quarterly at $16.67/mo., and a yearly plan at only $11.66/mo. Definitely check out if there are any discounts or coupons that Jamplay.com has available before purchasing. (If there are, they will be listed higher up on the right hand side of this page.)

Our recommendation is that you purchase a 1-month subscription to see what you think. Then if you like what you see, you can upgrade to a longer subscription at a reduced price using our coupon. Jamplay accepts all major credit cards as well as PayPal. With Jamplay, there is no commitment and you are free to cancel at any time.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a web-based online guitar lesson program, you simply won’t find a better one out there than Jamplay. Period. Highly Recommended!

Official Jamplay Website