GuitaroJam Learning Centre > Guitar Lesson Reviews

Guitar Lesson Reviews

There's certainly no shortage of guitar learning materials available on the internet - the hard part is knowing which is the right website, or which techniques and learning methods will work for your guitar playing.

The internet and your computer are a great means of learning to play guitar in the privacy of your home. You should consider your preferred learning style - most people can benefit from both written and audio material. Some others progress best with solely written material. Whatever your preference, each of the sites presented has something to offer.

The lessons reviewed below outline some of the features and advantages of the guitar learning material available through this website. We hope they will assist with your decision. Here's to your success!

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Guitar Made Simple

Guitar Made Simple’ is an extremely well thought out and well constructed beginners program for guitarists developed by acclaimed music educator and recording artist, Chris Standing. Featuring a thorough and personal approach, this CD ROM is the perfect instructional tool for both beginning guitar players and those who want to freshen up their skills.

The direct teaching style and layout of the CD is excellent, allowing guitar students to move forward, while at the same time customizing the course to their own level of experience and personal learning style. Simplicity is key. Presented in an easy-to-navigate browser, the program has a powerful “search facility” and glossary of terms. Students can go straight to the page they were working on, then "arrow" through to the next relevant segment with ease.

In addition, Standring makes the course fun through song examples and plenty of interactive videos. For every image, diagram, example and exercise, students can click on a file and hear how it sounds on the guitar. This serves to make the learning very personal, and emphasizes each guitar technique being taught. The audio quality is extremely high, which further adds to the feeling of receiving private ‘one-on-one’ instruction, and the videos which feature throughout are of super high quality.

The ‘selective’ interactive audio feature lets students click on an audio example performed on the guitar by Chris Standring. They can then hear the example with either the melody omitted or the rhythm omitted, allowing practice play along for either the melody or rhythm part. This feature is educational, lots of fun and certain to accelerate the pace of learning the guitar.

Both guitar TAB charts and traditional music notation are included for each song, sample and exercise. Another nifty feature allows the student to click a photo (available for every chord diagram) and show that chord shape from the student’s perspective. Students can also click on any chord symbol anywhere in the course and see 3 versions of that chord.

Guitar Made Simple is a pretty serious course, and it assumes students want to know how to learn guitar the right way. Standring doesn’t advocate not learning theory, or avoiding 'pointless' exercises. On the contrary, he demonstrates theory and exercises to learners in their most simple form, explaining exactly why they are fundamental to making great musicians. His unique presentation style ensures that despite the practice and commitment required, learning guitar can also be fun and fascinating.

It’s difficult to find a downside to this package. Those who like instant download products might find waiting for a CD to arrive in the mail an inconvenience. But even here, Chris Standring and his team have ensured a very speedy order response time, with CD’s arriving to most addresses in double quick time.

Overall, a brilliant guitar instruction package for beginning guitar players and those with gaps in their skills what want to improve.

Click here to find out more.

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Guitar Tips

"Guitar Secrets Revealed" (Guitar Tips) is an online guitar educational website run by Chris Elmore. It is a comprehensive educational program that works well for beginners starting out with their guitar playing as well as improving the skill level of the advanced player.

Guitar Tips employs a very direct style of teaching. Divided into seven sections, the lesson plan is clear and works well to build on each previous topic. This means that players of all levels can start where they feel the most comfortable and work through each section at their own pace. In order to learn at the optimum, the program recommends that students work through the stages in the order that is presented.

Each lesson plan provides charts, text, and sound to help students get a clear grasp of the concepts being taught. Diagrams are clear and easy to understand, while the text works well to complement the lesson and help reduce confusion. The sound bites are of reasonable quality, but really help in reinforcing each lesson.

The once-only fee includes a lifetime membership, so students benefit from being able to return to GuitarTips.com at anytime to practice and progress. In addition, "Guitar Secrets Revealed" is continually updating the site, and adds instruction of new popular songs to an ever-growing list. Click here to find out more.

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Guitar Alliance

Guitar Alliance has fast become one of the top educational sites. Their program has a wide range of topics with an easy to understand explanation of concepts, and caters for both the beginning player as well as advanced guitarists.

As a beginner myself, I have found Guitar Alliance offers plenty of information for the brand new player. Topics such as how to properly hold the guitar, basic strumming techniques, simple chord instruction and basic scales are all covered. So too is the simple maintenance of the instrument, including tuning, string changes, and even cleaning your instrument. In addition to this valuable "newbie" information, there is an extensive section called "Guitar 101" that advanced guitarists can find very helpful. It is here that even the most practiced and experienced players can appreciate new drills that will improve speed, theory and technical skill.

The Guitar Alliance emphasis on practice techniques helps members focus on what is important to a guitar player, and gives practical tips and ideas for practicing that can push a player for further levels of improvement.

I found that Guitar Alliance prides itself in making sure that ideas and concepts are explained in a clear, easy to understand manner. There are sound bits easily available throughout the site, which allows the player to hear the lesson being taught. Diagrams are well explained so that those reading them can easily understand what is being drawn.

For an additional charge you can get another program called Riff O Matic where you can hear and learn the main riffs of some of the most popular songs of the last 25-30 years. The program is very simple, with one click required to learn songs from all your favourite guitarists.

I have already personally taken advantage of the wide range of the Guitar Alliance information, and look forward to using it over and over as my guitar playing improves. I would highly recommend Guitar Alliance to anyone that is interested in progressing with their musical abilities. Click here to find out more.

Jean Littman

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Review: "Play Jazz Guitar" Home Study CD

Music Gear Review By Chris Bereznay

I can offer one unique perspective in my experience with the Play Jazz Guitar home study course by Chris Standring. I've been playing guitar for close to 20 years. My interest started with, like probably many folks my age, wanting to play "Stairway to Heaven". Once I could fret a few notes and finger a few chords, though, my tastes leaned toward the popular music of the time - glam metal. I know, you might be laughing, but I'm being honest and I'm driving towards a point here.

As you mature as a guitarist, you might go through many different phases. You might actually put down that guitar for a few months or years, especially when you feel you've reached a plateau and you're either not willing, nor feel you're able to commit the time and energy it takes to get to the next level.

Eventually you'll go through a phase when you start enjoying the more subtle nuances of a fine acoustic guitar or a Fender Strat through a clean tube amp. You start exploring more chord voicings and progressions. Your tastes are changing, and although it might make you feel older, you somehow manage to explain it as "more sophisticated" taste in music. If this sounds like you, shoot me an e-mail, I'd love to have someone tell me I'm not crazy.

Don't get me wrong, though. The love of jazz guitar, the chords, the melodies and the progressions comes to some at an early age. For a lot of us, though, it comes with maturity. You've been playing for a while and you're thankful that you made the decision at an early age to take up the guitar. Now you're looking to improve your skill. Whether it's for relaxation, performance or recording's sake - you're interested in learning Jazz Guitar.

Enter "Play What You Hear" from Chris Standring. Chris has been an internationally acclaimed hit recording guitarist and now, an incredible teacher. Play Jazz Guitar is a 2 CD-ROM home study course that will take you on an incredible journey of the theory and composition of jazz guitar. Imagine being able to get 15 years worth of professional instruction, for around fifty bucks! That's what you'll get - and more with this course from Chris Standring.

The two books (CD's) cover:

Book One
In this first book you will learn about:

Melody * The major scale and its use * Variations on the major scale/simple melodic patterns * The diatonic scale - analysis * Diatonic sounds and their relative chords * Seeing is conceiving (visualizing harmony) * More melodic patterns * Diatonic sounds through moving key centers

Harmony * Embellishing chordal accompaniment * Voice leading and chordal accompaniment

Book Two
In this second book you will learn about:

Playing over changes * The linear method and changes * Step-wise resolution: be-bop * b9 resolutions * The diminished scale and linear exercises * Diminished patterns for dominant b9 chords * More b9 resolutions * The back-cycling turnaround * b9 resolutions for back-cycling * The relative minor turnaround * The melodic minor scale and b5 resolutions * Melodic minor patterns for dominant b5 chords * b5 resolutions * #5#9 resolutions * The blues scale * Recognizing triads

Phrase development * Motifs, themes and variations * Sequential 2, 5 resolutions * Tritone substitution * Sequential tritone resolutions * And now to the music - example jazz standard sequences

Bottom Line:

For under $50, you get a wealth of information here designed to enlighten and train you on the methods and theories surrounding Jazz Guitar. I'm currently enjoying this fresh approach and Chris has done an incredible job of presenting the materials in an easy to use and professional format.

There are a few things to keep in mind here, though. For those of you that have never learned to read music, this approach may be a little challenging. Chris does not make use of guitar tablature in this package. Fortunately my first instrument was the piano, so reading the notation has not been a problem. If you're someone who has grown up with the guitar magazines, though, you're going to have to be a little more studious in your approach. This might, however, be the perfect reason for you to learn how to read standard notation. If you're really interested in taking your abilities to the next level - you simply must. Click here to find out more.

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