JamPlay Review

UPDATE: I found a JamPlay coupon code for 25% OFF! Enter 86C6CC to save $5 on your 1st month at JamPlay.com!

JamPlay is a huge online community made for guitarists to hang out and learn how to become better guitar players.

Members get unlimited access to 1,000's of high-quality guitar lesson videos from professional guitarists, community support, chord and scale libraries, and live lessons, all for the cost of about one 1/2 hour lesson.

There are 34 awesome instructors at JamPlay, spanning genres from classical and country, to jazz and blues, to rock and heavy metal. Each teacher has been formally trained and has extensive experience with their specific style of guitar.

If you're interested in watching HD-quality video guitar lessons anytime you want from home, for about the price of a single 30-minute lesson from a private instructor, all with killer resources and support, JamPlay is my #1 choice:

Not sure if this is your best option? Watch my video JamPlay review (and see Pros & Cons) below to learn more...

Video Tour of JamPlay.com

Want a sneak peek inside the members' area, without having to pay?
Click the play button below to take a quick tour through my account to see if JamPlay is right for you:

JamPlay Review

OVERALL RATING: Lesson Quality: Value for Price: Support: Teaching Style: Lesson Variety: Ease of Use: Entertainment: Product Community: 1,000+ Videos Price: $19.95/month Delivery: Instant Guarantee: 7-Day, 100% JamPlay is my #1 Choice for Guitar Lessons JamPlay.com is an awesome community for aspiring guitarists to boost their skills from home. In fact, after trying & reviewing over 10 courses and communities, it is my #1 pick! Alright, so here's what you get when you join JamPlay: 34 professional instructors 1,000+ HD-quality video guitar lessons Tons of genres & styles covered (Country to Heavy Metal) 10,000's of members to learn from and talk to online (20,000+ guitarists have used JamPlay!) Well-organized, active forum Live webcast lessons from the pros Software: Guitar Tuner & Metronome Built-in backing tracks for perfecting your soloing skills Amazing Chord, Scale & Riff Libraries While some people believe that private lessons are the best way to go, that can be insanely expensive! An average 30-minute lesson costs about $16 (and can go up to over $50 or more), meaning just 2 lessons/week will cost you $128/month, which is $1,536/year! A monthly membership to JamPlay.com only costs $19.95, and you get access to 34 instructors instead of one. Plus, if you click the link and enter the coupon code below, you'll save 25% instantly... JamPlay Coupon Code: 86C6CC Click above and enter the code to save 25% ($4.99)! Also, it's important to say that even if you don't think it's worth $14.95 to get unlimited access to over 1,000 HD-quality video guitar lessons for 30 days straight, you can get your money back if you just send them an email within the first 7 days. So go ahead, check it out:

JamPlay Pros

Here are some of my favorite things about JamPlay:

• Incredible price! You'll save over $1,000/year compared to private lessons
• 34 cool guitar instructors, with a wide range of genre expertise
• Lots of guitarists (1,000's) to chat with and learn from on the forums
• Amazing website! I love their site design, which makes it more fun to be a member
• The libraries (chords, scales, riffs, solos & backing tracks) are amazing!
• The Tuner & Metronome have come in handy quite a few times...
• Structure: No random videos here! Each lesson is part of a series focusing on one topic/skill
• Song Lessons: Jamplay has licenses to teach us how to play over 150 popular songs

JamPlay Cons

Though it's my favorite way to learn guitar, there are some things I do NOT like about JamPlay too:

• It's $19.95/month (Though this is insanely cheap compared to lessons!)
• You won't get as much 1-on-1 time as with a private teacher (Your questions will get answered on the forum, through direct messages or chats, or even on live video web chats with instructors, so no worries...)
• Information overload: Jamplay has so much content, so many tools, and so many people to talk to, that it can be overwhelming, or even distracting. However, they do have everything organized really well.

In the end, JamPlay is a great way to improve your skills with guitar, and it's what I recommend as my #1 pick. I hope my review has helped, but I'm sure you'd like to hear what other Jam Play members have to say, too...

Screenshots of JamPlay.com

Click the images below to see exclusive screenshots of the JamPlay.com members area, lessons, games and more:

More Reviews from JamPlay.com Members

"I've learned an amazing amount and made friends"
By "Sylvia" - Beginner Guitarist. JamPlay Member since February 2008.

"My experience with guitar prior to Jamplay was basically self-instruction with song chord books, a small amount of musical knowledge, and a set of DVDs that frankly didn’t help much. I knew the basic chords and I knew how to count a time signature. Frankly I was failing miserably despite the time I was putting into guitar practice. I was certain I was doomed to be a basic open chord strummer with little skill. At age 20 out of utter frustration, I quit. I returned to guitar after some 22 years when my husband bought me a guitar for my Valentine’s present. Some of the chords came back right away. However, barre chords, the 12 bar blues, and scales eluded me.

I’ve been at Jamplay since February 2008. I came to Jamplay out of frustration with my local live instructor. I needed someone who would work with my schedule. That just was not going to happen with my local instructor. And it was clear to me that I was paying $60 an hour to be inconvenienced and with 3 lessons a week I was paying $720 a month! Well, it was a NO BRAINER to pay $139.99 a year for Jamplay that would allow me to take lessons as my schedule allowed. And I can rewind my instructor as often as I would like!

I’ve learned an amazing amount and have made some fast friends. I have learned more about chords and the theory behind how they are formed. I have finally learned to play the 12 bar blues with the help of some amazing blues teachers. Currently I am working on finger style and Celtic techniques. I plan to learn more about scales and lead phrasing later this year.

I love how Jamplay has grown in the past two years. They are constantly adding lessons every week to keep the content fresh. Since I’ve been there they have gone from about 1200 minutes of lessons to well over 30,000 minutes of video lessons. Not only that, they have provided the member with tools to supplement the video content. Among these tools my favorites are:

• Chord Library: This tool is great because it lists every chord you could possibly come across.
• Lick Library: Has helped me to get better at phrasing and lead.
• Theory Games: Tough games that reinforce musical notation knowledge and are not for the faint of heart.
• Live Instructor Sessions in JamChat: Nothing better than getting to know your instructor and being able to ask questions and get a live explanation.
• A Discussion Forum: Jamplay has a great group of members with ages from 9 to 80 years. If you are struggling, need encouragement or just need an opinion on your latest gear acquisition. Members , instructors and staff are always willing to help on the forum.
• Downloadable backing tracks: I practice to these tracks and because they are downloadable I can load them to my portable music player and take them with me.
• Tabs for all video lessons: What can you say about tabs except they are a visual reference for the video lessons? By being printable the tabs can be practiced away from the computer. I have built a paper library of tabs that is mine to keep.

If someone were to ask me about the cons of being a Jamplay member I would promptly say. “Absolutely nothing! I plan on being a member for a good long time.“

"Jamplay is the best guitar site on the net"
By "Daniel" - Intermediate Guitarist. JamPlay member since January 2009.

"As a high school student from Czech Republic, I am very careful about how I invest my money in my guitar education. Since I couldn't afford regular lessons with a real teacher (although they are almost half the price compared to what you’d pay in UK or US), I decided to look what the internet has to offer.

After spending months learning from the famous Justin Sandercoe, who is, without any doubt, providing the best free guitar resources on the net, I’ve been pointed to free week trial on a site called Jamplay. I’ve tried Jamplay and to be honest, my first thought was “people are paying for this, when there’s Justin providing even better service for free?” No, this is not a story of how I changed my opinion after discovering the site properly. At least not just yet.

I’ve spent several more months learning from Justin, completely happy with what I was getting. But we can’t miss what we’ve never experienced and that is exactly what happened at my second arrival to Jamplay.

After all those months, I’ve received an email from Jamplay giving me a coupon code halving the price to $10 for the first month. I’ve decided to try Jamplay again. I loved it. The reason why I loved it (and still love it) wasn’t any sudden realisation. This reason is the very same reason why Jamplay is the best guitar site on the net, even though it might not be the biggest just yet.

But before I get to this final point, let me describe what you get if you become a Jamplay member. There are three main areas – pre-recorded guitar video lessons, live sessions and the extras. Video lessons cover a wide area of topics – from the very basics of guitar (which are, by the way, very well covered on both acoustic and electric guitar), continuing with study of genres, techniques and artist styles, to a wide range of lessons showing how to play single songs. This alone makes Jamplay worth the money.

The extras are very helpful. There is a fairly large library of backing tracks, little games which make practicing theory fun and much more. However, the most important part of this site are the live sessions.

I’ll be quick on this. Do the math yourself – for twenty bucks a month, you get live sessions with a dozen of guitar experts which last more than 12 hours every day. Anything you ask will be explained in a hour or two hour session. This single feature allows Jamplay to fully substitute a real teacher, unlike most of the other sites.

I don’t want to be overly positive though. Jamplay lacks resources on more heavy-on-theory areas, as for example Jazz. At the same time, you can ask anything in the live sessions (and boy, do they know their theory) and – without overstating – become a jazz musician thanks to these sessions.

Live sessions create another positive feature, perhaps a little side-effect. They create a community. If you join Jamplay, you will soon start to recognize familiar faces (well, nicknames) and the instructors will remember you and ask you about your progress. This gives you even more reasons to really dive into guitar and practice.

However the main reason why Jamplay is unique are the staff members, more importantly the amount of work they put in Jamplay. This is a living site – every day, there is a new lesson, new backing tracks – you can really see they are working hard on making the site bigger and better.

In conclusion, although it is probably possible to find a site with wider range of lessons, especially in topics as Jazz, Jamplay completely beats that by the live sessions, sense of community, and hard-working staff always doing everything in order to let you develop your musical potential to the maximum."

$25 JamPlay Rebate Already a member of JamPlay? Not sure if it's right for you? Click play below to watch a video and learn how you can get $25 just for writing a review! To sum it up, this is how the rebate works: Sign up for JamPlay (Current members also qualify!) Take lessons for at least 30 days (2nd billing cycle) Write a detailed review to help other guitarists (At least 300 words) I'll approve and upload the review to this page You'll get a $25 rebate by email (See video for details) Update: An extra $100 will go to the writer of the best review Thanks for helping your fellow guitarists, and I look forward to reading your JamPlay review! Name: * E-mail: * Experience Beginner Intermediate Advanced Guitar Course: * JamPlay.com Learn & Master Guitar Guitar Tricks Jamorama Overall Rating: Picture (Optional) Payment * Paypal iTunes Amazon Review Details: *   Note: Your email address will NOT be published or used for anything other than sending your $25!

Comparison of the Most Popular Ways to Learn Guitar:

Want to see how JamPlay stacks up against other common ways to learn guitar like taking lessons from a private teacher, or buying home study courses with books or DVD's? Check this out to help you decide if a JamPlay membership is the best way for you to learn guitar:

Cost:
While it's awesome to take lessons with a private 1-on-1 instructor, you get what you pay for: the average cost of a single half-hour guitar lesson ranges from $12 - $28+ (depending on your location), meaning you will have to spend $96-$224/month this way! Books and DVD's can work well at a much lower price, ranging from $20-$60, with some packages selling for $300 or $400. Having a JamPlay.com membership, you'll get access to 1,000's of high-quality video lessons, with more being added every day by their 34 instructors, for $19.95/month.

Lessons:
I'm a big believer that quality is a lot more important than quantity when it comes to lessons, it's still nice to know how far along you'll get when investing money into your guitar education. If you buy a book or DVD, you'll be lucky to get more than a few hours worth of lessons out of it. With private instructors, it's technically unlimited, but you pay for every single one, whether you learn anything or not (no rewind button when you're paying $40+ per hour). JamPlay has literally over 1,000 lessons (300+ hours, which works out to almost 3 years worth of two 30-minute sessions per week!

Teachers:
When I took Alto Saxophone lessons, I found myself getting a little tired of the style my teacher enjoyed playing, and even though he was a really nice guy, he just couldn't seem to get away from it in the way he was teaching me. This is one of the many downfalls to having only one instructor, which is typically the case, even with books and DVD's. That's precisely why JamPlay.com employs 34 professional guitar teachers, which was a big factor in my review.

Interaction:
When's the last time you bought a book or DVD, had a question, and emailed or called the creator for an answer? Taking lessons means you can get feedback and answers, which is sweet, but belonging to an online guitar community means you can ask 100's of guitarists, and get really quick responses.

Updated Lessons:
While I do like one DVD guitar course, I've found that most of them aren't worth the money because they're geared toward beginners, and I find myself blazing through the majority of the lessons. Then, I realize that there are no new lessons added, so the money I've invested is gone. With private lessons or an online membership, there is never a shortage of new stuff to work on to improve your skills.

Money-Back Guarantee:
"Joe, I'd like to thank you for the last 2 lessons you gave me, but I just don't think they were worth my $42. Can I have my money back?" Yeah right! No instructor in the World is going to do this...This is an advantage to buying a course or subscription with a money-back guarantee for sure.

Time Commitment:
Speaking of scheduling your lessons, do you have a ton of free time? Is it easy for you to drive or get a ride to a couple lessons every week? I'm guessing not. But, if you could learn guitar as little or as much as you wanted, whether it's 7:41pm or 2:27am, would that make things a little easier on your schedule? It did for me...

Styles:
Taking private lessons (or learning from books and DVD's), you'll quickly realize that the teacher or author is going to have a style they're most comfortable with, which you might not like at all. Being able to choose from a diverse group of 34 instructors (ranging from classical to heavy metal) makes sure you can learn the style you like most.

Pace:
Alright, this one is huge: No matter how good an instructor is at helping you understand the concepts, he/she is going to go at a pace you'll have to adjust to (or you'll end up paying WAY more than you expected to learn the basics). So, wouldn't it be nice to hit the rewind button if something happens too fast? Until someone invents a human remote, we'll just have to stick with video guitar lessons, I guess. =)

Convenience:
Would you rather schedule a time you have to be somewhere, pack up your guitar, and drive to a lesson (all for just 25-30 minutes of actual learning time), or be able to watch video lessons at home, whenever you feel like it? As for convenience, you can't beat video guitar lessons!

Not positive about JamPlay? Here's how it stacks up to 3 other popular courses:

JamPlay Learn and Master Guitar Guitar Tricks Jamorama Overall Rating 9.8/10 9.2/10 8.7/10 7.4/10 Lesson Quality Value for Price Support Teaching Style Lesson Variety Ease of Use Entertainment Learn More Read Review Read Review Read Review Product Online Community & 1,000+ Videos DVD's, Book, CD's & Forum Online Community & Videos PDF's, Videos & Software Delivery Instant (Online) 3-14 Days Instant (Online) Instant (Online) Guarantee 7-Day, 100% Money-Back 60-Day, 100% Money-Back 60-Day 100% Money-Back 60-Day, 100% Money-Back Instructors 34 1 45 1 Beginner Intermediate Advanced Song Lessons Lowest Price $19.95/month* $249 $119 $14.95/month $49.95 Check it out:

*UPDATE: Get $4.99 off of your first month at JamPlay.com:

Disclosure: The review above is based on my personal in-depth evaluation of JamPlay.com. If you signup for a membership through a link on this page, I will receive a commission for referring a friend, which helps fund this website (and my music collection). This does NOT affect my opinion of the website in any way, or the price you pay. In fact, you'll save $4.99 with the above JamPlay coupon code.