In this Jamplay review, we’ll evaluate their guitar lessons, instruction features, and songs to see if this is the right guitar training course for you.
Jamplay is available to guitar students all over the world since 2006. The thing that makes this site one of the best for learning guitar is the fact that it has content for every kind of player – beginners, intermediate, and experienced are all welcomed.
At Jamplay, you will find a huge list of instructors (more than one hundred at the moment), and yeah there are people that teach up there that you’ve heard their names already – this really makes this site stand out from the others.
Worth mentioning in the intro for Jamplay is also the fact that not only it has tons and tons of study materials for playing classical, acoustic, and electric guitar, Jamplay also has courses and lessons for other instruments, like dobro, lap-steel, electric bass, upright bass, mandolin, vocals, cello, etc…
Website Format
Contents
We can all agree that when it comes to learning guitar, online platforms should be easy-to-use and intuitive as they can be, so we can concentrate on our guitar playing, without wasting time on learning how the site works – well, this is where Jamplay shines. On this platform, there is one Top Menu from which all the site’s insides can be reached within seconds, and to do so, you just have to hover your mouse over the tabs: ( My Jamplay, Lessons, Tools, Live, Extras, and Community ), and you’ll see all of their contents.
Also, the lessons and the courses are designed so you can focus on your playing. The site is a very easy-to-use one, and it has all of the materials that will help you become a guitar hero in the fastest possible time.
JamPlay Guitar Courses
To take you to the next levels, Jamplay has created four phases that you need to follow, and if you do, you’ll become a guitar player with an ability to improvise, play on stage, learn songs by ear, etc…
Here are the four phases:
Phase 1 – teaches you all the basic techniques that a beginner should know;
Phase 2 – once you have finished phase 1 (beginner) you are now an intermediate player. Phase 2 teaches you different styles of playing and genres;
Phase 3 – will teach you how to play songs note-for-note. This is the point where you should start building your repertoire (your set-list);
Phase 4 – is the phase where you start learning composing and songwriting techniques;
All of the courses are designed with the student in mind – they’ll walk you step by step into the material, so you can accomplish the techniques in the right way.
At Jamplay, there is also the “Artist Series”- these are lessons where popular guitar players show their techniques, and how to do them. Also, you can use the “Live Courses” where an instructor teaches students in real-time, while they can ask questions in the chat – you can watch them in real-time, or watch them later in the library archive.
In the intro, we also mentioned that there are courses and guitar lessons for other instruments too, and they are pretty good too – however if you want to take courses for some other instrument, and not for guitar, be sure to select that exact plan when you are subscribing for the program.
Types of Guitar Lessons
We strongly recommend to every beginner, and intermediate player to walk through all the four phases that we mentioned earlier.
Advanced (experienced) players can jump right on to the courses that they find interesting. As for song lessons, there are hundreds of them, and there are many covered artists – all of them consist of several videos and a Tablature.
Style lessons are present on Jamplay in the form of “Learn Genres”, where they have tons of different lessons on popular guitar playing styles and genres, and in the form of “Master Classes”, where you can watch many legends of guitar playing (people like Bumblefoot, Steve Stevens, Glen Drover, Nick Catanese) showing and teaching their own skills and techniques of playing.
Video Guitar Lessons
All of the videos at Jamplay are recorded in a pro studio, in high-resolution with multiple cameras. The video player up there is really slick – it has an option for looping parts and an option for slowing down the video playback, so you can see what they are doing.
Jamplay conveniently puts the other videos from the lesson you are taking on the right, so you can easily navigate through them while you are in video mode.
Underneath every video, they put the Notation and the Tablature with downloadable sheets. Below that, there’s some other lesson from the same guitar instructor, so you can watch more of his or her videos if you like them.
JamPlay Guitar Instructors
Jamplay has a big list of instructors – in fact, at this very moment, there are more than a hundred people on the site that actively work on courses and lessons. Of course, like every human on the planet has its temperament and character, all of the instructors on Jamplay have their distinctive style of playing and teaching, but they all appear to be friendly and hard-working people.
All of the guitar instructors at Jamplay have a long history of playing, performing, and teaching and some of them have names that you’ve heard before (like Bumblefoot for example).
Songs, Backing Tracks, & Guitar Genres
At jamplay.com you’ll find a song lesson list that’s not too big, but in there, you’ll surely find a bunch of songs that every guitar player should and want to know how to play.
Songs from The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jimi Hendrix, Judas Priest, ZZ Top, Megadeth, Pantera, and many others can be learned on Jamplay!
And although the list is not as big as the one at Guitar Tricks, it is a pretty good one, plus finishing the four phases will teach you how to learn songs by ear!
Backing Tracks, however, are a thing that Jamplay can be really proud of – there are more than seven hundred “Jamtracks” in the “Jamtrack Library” on Jamplay, and all of them are downloadable, plus you get suggestions on what scales to use, the chords that are used in the “jamtrack”, and tabs.
As for genres, at Jamplay all of the popular guitar playing genres can be learned:
- Blues
- Metal
- Rock
- Jazz
- Funk
- Flamenco
- R&B & Soul
- Reggae
- Pop
- Acoustic Rock
- Fingerstyle
- Hawaiian Slack Key
- Bluegrass
- Celtic
- Classical
- Country
- Surf
- Folk
- Brazilian
- Gospel
JamPlay Costs
The monthly plan at Jamplay will set you back $19.95, while the annual plan will set you back $159.95.
The annual plan will save you 33% in the long run, plus you’ll get one Guitarist Toolkit for free (Guitarist Toolkits are special bundles packed with courses and extras).
From time to time, Jamplay has special offers – like the “Plus Plan” and the “Pro Plan” that are a bit more expensive but offer more extras (like more Guitarist Toolkits).
At Jamplay, if you want to test the waters, there is the seven-day free trial.
JamPlay Platform Features
On jamplay.com there are all the things that you as a guitarist will need, stuff like a Guitar Tuner, Scale Library (all the scales in every key and position), Chords Charts (with photo, diagram, and tablature for every chord), Jamtrack library (with downloadable backing tracks), Lick and Riff Library, Community Forum, and even Interactive Games (with which you can improve your theory and stuff like that in a fun way), etc.
Jamplay is also iOS and Android friendly (iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Android compatible) – this will certainly help those that travel a lot and don’t want to miss their lessons.
Recommendation
We recommend Jamplay as one of the best guitar learning platforms online, perfect for intermediate and experienced players. Oh, we did not mention the beginners? – Well, beginners can also take advantage of Jamplay, but we think some other platforms are better for that job.
Still, if you decided that you want to learn guitar online, we kindly suggest that you should try all of the free trials that these platforms give, so you can decide on your own which suits you the best. Good luck!
