Who provides the best online guitar lessons? Lucky for you we’ve done the hard research to help you choose the best service that fits your needs perfectly.

Our Top 3 Picks:

Best Choice

VIEW

Most Diverse

VIEW

Premium Pick

VIEW

Who Offers the Best Online Lessons for Acoustic or Electric Guitar?

There are more guitar lesson providers than ever before, making the instrument hyper-accessible for students in the 21st century.

If you’re one of the thousands looking to learn guitar online, you may be wondering which website or subscription is the one for you. Which one is the best choice?

To help you make a good decision, we’ve compared all the major players side by side with thorough reviews to help you find which one is truly the best online guitar lesson site.

Note: This is a long article. For the TL;DR version, you might want to skip to the Final Summaries section, then navigate to any of the full reviews you may be interested in.

The most important questions;

• • How easy is the website to access/navigate?
  • How affordable are the lessons?
  • Are the lessons and instructors engaging?
  • And how diverse are the song or lesson video options in genre, style, or difficulty?

By pitting the top, most popular and well known sites against each other, we’ll analyze how well they stand up to these questions giving you a solid start on which lesson site is best for you.

Each site has been thoroughly reviewed by our Guitar Niche staff slowly working through beginner, song, and advanced technique lessons, as well as trying out some of the extra features like tuners, chord finders, ear training, and more.

We certainly hope you find this article helpful, informative and unbiased. Just so you know, we may receive compensation if you use the links on this page. If you do, thank you so much!

Top Guitar Lesson Websites Compared:

Service	Cost	Rating	Offer?
1. GuitarTricks	$19.99 per Month	(4.1 )	14 Day Free Trial
2. TrueFire	$29.00 per Month	(4.3)	30 Day Free Trial
3. ArtistWorks	$35.00 per Month	(4.1)	Free Samples
4. Justin Guitar	$0.00 per Month	(4.2)	Trial – N/A
5. Fender Play	$9.99 per Month	(4.0)	50% Discount on Annual Plan
6. JamPlay	$19.99 per Month	(3.9)	Free Trial
7. Guitareo	$10.58 per Month (billed annually)	(4.3)	30 Day Free Trial

Top Online Guitar Lesson Sites Reviewed

1. Guitar Tricks

Guitar Tricks is one of the most complete, and user friendly lesson sites on the market featuring a wide range of tools, lessons, and add-ons.

Boasting over 11,000 video lessons per their website, there is surely something for everyone on Guitar Tricks.

Before we dig in and walk through, some of the highlights include the vast number of lessons previously mentioned as well as the large volume of song lessons the site features.

EDITOR’S RATING:

(4.1 / 5)

Overview

At the most basic levels of review, Guitar Tricks checks a lot of boxes you should be looking for. It has an easy to navigate website and homepage in addition to one of the largest selections of diverse technique, genre, and song lessons databases online.

The linear and easy to follow “core lesson plan” starts all players off with a series of video levels split into multiple chapters.

Each level is taught by the same instructor throughout and lets you branch off into specific genres as you move up in skill.

While there are no famous, “rock star” instructors like some of the other sites boast, the instructors are nonetheless engaging and informative.

Product Services/Highlights

One of the best features of Guitar Tricks has to be how user friendly the website is while still retaining the highest quality video lessons.

The site doesn’t overcomplicate itself, and clearly labels where beginners should start while displaying the paths they will soon follow on their learning journey.

GuitarTricks’ video lessons are engaging, high definition videos featuring pop-up tablature and musical notation along with multiple screens displaying the strumming and fretting hands of the instructor.

Lessons can also be sped up or slowed down to help you follow along with the video at your own pace while the more advanced song lessons feature a more interactive set up with built in guitar tuner and recommendations for gear.

The ease of use and quality of lessons is really where the value of Guitar Tricks is fully on display.

In addition to the diverse lesson toolbox, the site has great add-ons such as a diverse list of song lessons available, a jam station for improvisation practice, and forums for chatting with other students.

The Good / What We Like

While many of these sites bombard you with too many features and tools to remember, Guitar Tricks focuses on offering easy guitar lessons for beginners are easy to access and keep up with.

This emphasis on making it easy to learn guitar is a more important but less glamorous selling point.

Guitar Tricks also has one of the largest and most diverse collections of song lessons, an important feature that keeps students engaged as they move past the beginner stage and begin to lose interest or the need for formal lessons.

Furthermore, these advanced song and technique lessons come with expanded tools like chord finders, scale finders, and jam stations that really increase the practice capabilities of students.

The Bad / What We Don’t Like

While it isn’t necessarily a negative, all these top notch features that make it one of the best guitar lesson sites come at a cost of $19.99 per month, in the mid to high range of the subscription options reviewed here.

For this price, some students may expect perfection, and the lack of some features like an “ask the teacher” button on video lessons or section for taking notes that other sites has been replaced by other add-ons like lyrics or external links.

However, this is generally nit picking and we feel the subscription cost is fair for the volume of lessons available to the student.

GuitarTricks Summary

View Guitar Tricks’ Free Trial Here >>

2. TrueFire

TrueFire is a bit unique when compared to other guitar lesson sites in the sense that it comes jam packed with great features, but also has many different subscription options.

Free to sign up for, you can pay for all-inclusive access, or buy and download individual lessons or lesson plans.

With over 600+ collaborating instructors, over 900 courses, multiple thousands of videos, and great reviews from students and critics alike, TrueFire is one of the most dense, complete lesson sites you can learn from.

EDITOR’S RATING:

(4.3 / 5)

Overview

With an easy to follow website and linear lesson plans, anyone should be able to navigate their way around and search through the site’s many, engaging lessons with ease.

For those looking to learn from the pros, you’ll be happy to know TrueFire also boasts several famous instructors such as Steve Vai, JD Simo, Robben Ford, Alex Skolnick, Jennifer Batten, and a host of other recognized personalities.

In addition to straight ahead lesson plans based on the genre or style you wish to learn, there is also a Channel section to help build community involvement.

For beginners, there is a Learning Paths section designed to take the edge off of having to read music and make the getting started process as easy as possible.

Basic subscription packages start at $29 per month for complete access to the site, players who sign up for free have access to a decent selection of free lessons or can pay per downloaded video lesson.

Product Services/Highlights

When compared to cheaper or free alternatives, you’re certainly getting access to a huge volume of lessons for the price.

And we were impressed with the number of free lessons available, over 6000+ according to the site at the time of writing.

But there were not many free online guitar lessons for beginners, so these are probably better suited for more advanced players.

One of the best services that comes with this site has to be the “In the Jam” function that lets you practice improvising over pre-recorded full band or guitar arrangements for different styles, scales, and genres.

TrueFire also have a somewhat limited number of song options to learn, but the selection is very diverse in artists and genres.

Furthermore, they have a request a song function that allows students to ask for lessons for their favorite songs, which could really help grow that list in the months to come.

The Good / What We Like

We really love the “In the Jam” function and think that the volume of options it has is a great tool for students.

Improvising and creating your own music can be one of the hardest things to practice or learn, especially if you’re a solo guitarist alone in your home.

The addition of famous instructors is always a cool way to learn techniques or playing styles from the people using them every single night on tour as well.

For more advanced students, access to a large number of free lessons makes this a very appealing option for those looking to continue their education, not begin it.

Another cool feature is their interactive video jam sessions with some of their top artists and instructors called “Trading Solos” which lets students learn directly from the source in an engaging manner.

The Bad / What We Don’t Like

As with some of the other sites, the $29 per month can be a financial roadblock for many students, especially younger, less independent ones.

From a value standpoint, while the site has thousands of video lessons, the limited song selection, and presence of free access to the “In the Jam” function, may not make it worth paying for.

Likely, this would be a great supplementary site to others or live, in person lessons.

TrueFire Summary

Special for GuitarNiche readers: use code “PARTNER10” and get 10% OFF TrueFire >>

3. ArtistWorks

ArtistWorks is another site that strays a bit away from the basic template of the others reviewed here.

ArtistWorks features lesson plans built around what style of guitar playing you wish to learn such as Electric Rock Guitar or Acoustic Classical guitar, with each being taught by one dedicated instructor who leads you through the whole series.

ArtistWorks is also home to video lessons for almost every instrument you can imagine, outside of the guitar, making it the most musically diverse site discussed.

EDITOR’S RATING:

(4.1 / 5)

Overview

ArtistWorks’ flagship lesson series may be the Electric Rock Guitar lessons taught by modern day icon Paul Gilbert, which are some of the best online rock guitar lessons.

Each series features its own unique teacher that guides you through lessons ranging from 2 to 15 minutes, keeping students engaged through various techniques, riffs, and songs.

Unlike all the other sites here, ArtistWorks doesn’t seem to have a dedicated page or database for song lessons.

Meaning you can’t just scroll through a list of options looking for your favorite Beatles or ACDC song.

What it may lack in songs or extra tools it makes up for diversity with woodwind, piano, mandolin, and many other instrument learning videos that can expand your musical skills.

Furthermore, the video exchange feature helps students connect, learn from each other, and stay engaged throughout their playing life.

Product Services/Highlights

The services here are a bit more straightforward than other lesson sites, you simply pick what style of music and instrument you want to play, and then you follow along from there.

There is also a menu that shows you all the instructors the site boasts, where you can choose which path or style to follow based on their description.

The biggest highlight has to be the Video Exchange Learning feature, which lets you post a live video of yourself playing and receive feedback from other students and a tailored video response from an instructor.

This helps make your online guitar learning experience much more personal than you may otherwise experience on rival websites.

This is site is really tailored towards beginners, and honestly doesn’t have many features meant to engage more advanced students such as a song database, gear demos, or musicianship training.

New From ArtistWorks

More recently, ArtistWorks has added a new Beginner Acoustic Guitar Course hosted by David Butler who is also the Chairman and Cofounder of ArtistWorks.

With a focus on comprehensive, step by step instruction, this fresh online guitar course is designed to help first time players avoid getting frustrated.

The Good / What We Like

The Video Learning Exchange feature is really something special, especially because you get that detailed video response from an instructor helping to critique your playing.

Having that personal interaction can really help keep some students engaged and motivated to improve, practice, or complete their whole lesson series.

Overall, the video lessons are great and the ones we had access to showed off the instructor’s enthusiasm for the material as well as an active community of students responding to the videos.

They most certainly are good guitar lessons for beginners, but lack upper levels of advancement.

The Bad / What We Don’t Like

ArtistWorks is overall the most expensive out of all the sites, with a yearly package coming in at $35 a month (3 month term), to as low as $23.25 a month for a twelve month term.

Personally, we think you may not get enough value for that price, especially without advanced musicianship training such as ear interval or songwriting lessons.

Although, their recent expansion of courses, especially their full Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lessons course from Chairman and Cofounder David Butler to their platform, have added exceptional value to their platform.

But with no song database, student’s may be inclined to go to YouTube or tablature websites to learn their favorite songs.

This may ultimately pull them away from the site as they advance and grow towards other guitar coaching online.

ArtistWorks in Review

View ArtistWorks’ Master Players >>

4. Justin Guitar

Justin Guitar is the brainchild of popular YouTube teacher Justin Sandercoe and features an interactive and modern website.

The site features all the same videos as his YouTube channel, in a more organized, user friendly package.

Justin Guitar is further unique in that he is the sole instructor and produces hundreds of videos, lessons, and content himself without the help of other instructors, famous or otherwise.

EDITOR’S RATING:

(4.2 / 5)

Overview

Justin Guitar is shockingly on par with all the other sites despite being a largely solo effort and has many of the same features you find elsewhere.

Song lessons, beginner lesson plans, and advanced techniques can all be found on Justin Guitar along with some interesting extras like podcasts and advanced theory lessons.

With engaging lessons for a variety of styles and genres, Justin Guitar has something for everyone and costs exactly zero dollars for full access. If you want to know how to learn guitar easily, this site may be the ticket.

Product Services/Highlights

For that incredibly tempting cost of $0, what do you get with Justin Guitar? The answer is a lot more than you might expect at that price point.

At the time of writing, the site boasts 940 lessons, 554 songs, musicianship lessons, and interval ear training.

Lessons and songs are color coded to indicate difficulty, and a helpful “beginners start here” path and welcome video make it easy for new students to navigate the web page and lesson plans.

At first glance, the song selection is also incredibly diverse with everything from Tracy Chapman to Ritchie Valens.

Justin’s musicianship lessons struck us as very impressive simply because they are featured or advertised so prominently on the site.

The drop down menu goes on to list really advanced lessons on production, songwriting, ear training, and transcribing, features that will surely keep students engaged long past their beginner days.

The Good / What We Like

Generally speaking, Justin Guitar has just about every major option, lesson, or section of all the other sites, but for free.

That’s a huge plus that could potentially make up for any of the limitations in lesson quantity or available tools that could be hampered by the site being a one man operation.

The familiarity of having the same teacher for all lessons is valuable as students who enjoy Justin’s style and lessons will be engaged time and time again while feeling comfortable with their learning.

Furthermore, the web site is beautiful built and offers super accessible guitar lessons for beginners by experts with clearly labeled options.

The Bad / What We Don’t Like

Justin Guitar does lack some of the features that are standard on other sites such as pop up tablature that follows along or is displayed next to the video.

Other in-lesson tools such as a tuner or notepad are also missing when compared to the diverse user interface of JamPlay or Guitar Tricks.

Otherwise, there is a lot to like and a ton of excess value thanks to the free membership.

Justin Guitar Summary

View Justin Guitar for Free Here >>

5. Fender Play

One of the newest additions to this best online guitar lessons review, Fender Play was launched by the legendary guitar company just within the past few years.

Fender Play has become an important part of Fender’s attempt to preserve their legacy of excellence in all things guitar while attracting new players from an ever changing student pool.

Using a wide variety of instructors in age, gender, and race, Fender hopes to appeal to the ever diversifying musical scene with a modern update on traditional guitar lessons.

EDITOR’S RATING:

(4 / 5)

Overview

Despite a much shorter history than competitors, Fender Play is another strong contender featuring an affordable monthly subscription cost of $9.99 per month.

Furthermore, the website has a wonderful, easy to navigate design that is integrated into Fender’s main website.

Boasting a number of instructors, interviews, and gear demos, Fender Play has something for everyone even if it lacks some of the famous instructors of other sites.

Fender Play lessons are engaging and are super accessible as every Squier and Fender guitar or bass sold comes with a free, 6 month subscription to the service.

Product Services/Highlights

The Fender Play lesson plan is designed around a linear progression called “My Path”, which makes it super easy for students to begin learning, get hooked, and make steady progress.

Each student chooses their path based on the genre they wish to learn and options include rock, blues, folk, country, and pop for electric guitar as well as other options for acoustic, bass, and ukulele.

Fender Play also features a diverse list of song lessons, many that they incorporate directly into your path, as well as gear demos, articles, guitar tuners, and support for their IOS app to help you learn guitar online fast.

All of this comes included free with your monthly subscription giving you plenty of value compared to many of the $20 per month options.

The Good / What We Like

Fender’s “My Path” lesson plan is one of the most easy to use and streamlined lesson plans on the market, and is paired with an exceptional user interface that is so easy to use.

Videos have great tools comparable to other sites like playback speed options and pop-up tablature along with the song or style lessons.

They also boast over 500 song lesson options which are all very diverse in style, difficulty, and range from classics to modern hits.

Get 50% Off Fender Play >> Use Code “learntoplay50“

Lastly, one of our favorite things is how they incorporate songs and riffs into the “My Path” lesson plans early on.

This puts an emphasis on how making music can be a part of learning the guitar, which is important for engaging students and motivating them to practice.

The Bad / What We Don’t Like

There isn’t much to complain about here, but while the $9.99 per month is on the cheap side, it can still create an extra monetary barrier to learning the guitar.

This is fairly mitigated by the 6 month subscription that comes with every new Squier or Fender guitar, making it more ideal for students planning on purchasing one of those specific products.

As with any new product, some people may be wary of the short history and lack of years of coverage in reviews for online guitar lessons.

Fender Play Summary

Try Fender Play Here >>

6. JamPlay

JamPlay is another veteran of the guitar lesson website world and has a long history of successful guitar coaching online.

While the site has a number of appealing features such as live lessons, famous instructors, and a plethora of tools, its song selection is widely focused on the rock and metal categories.

This makes it one of the best online rock guitar lessons even though it is structured around five, somewhat redundant genre based lesson plans.

EDITOR’S RATING:

(3.9 / 5)

Overview

Once again, JamPlay provides a lot of what beginner guitar students are looking for; quality instructors, song lessons, and a lot of diversity in the lesson options.

One nice touch is that the roster of instructors features a few high profile musicians, including Tosin Abasi, Steve Stevens, Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, and Kaki King.

However, the web page and lesson choices are a little harder to navigate, presenting many options as opposed to a one stop shop for beginners that then branches as you progress.

Product Services/Highlights

As stated before, many of the highlights of JamPlay are based around the sheer volume of video lessons for techniques, theory, and professional styles. Another great service is the diverse set of tools found with each video lesson.

Tabs for supplemental info (tablature, backing tracks, PDF documents), notes, comments, and ask a teacher functions are all easily accessed below the videos.

Furthermore, with your subscription of $19.99 per month, you get access to live lessons, their “jamchat” forum, interviews, and fun training games. Definitely a lot of bang for your buck in terms of extras.

The Good / What We Like

There are tons of awesome features packed into the subscription mentioned above, and there are so many lessons ranging from beginner to pro level options.

All these, along with access to lessons from famous musicians, make it one of the best guitar lesson sites, but again it comes at a decent monthly price.

From the step by step acoustic guitar lessons for beginners to the plethora of electric rock and metal songs, there is a lot to like about JamPlay.

JamPlay also features one of the best sets of in-lesson or in-video toolboxes that should allow you to maximize your learning experience with supplemental materials or follow-along tablature.

The Bad / What We Don’t Like

As engaging as the lessons are, there is one flaw in their beginner lesson plan in our opinion. Instead of one, streamlined beginner lesson plan that branches out as the guitarist learns, they lead students to a page with dozens of beginner lessons and ask them to choose their own.

Some people may enjoy digging through each lesson to find the best one, but it may also frustrate some students who struggle to find what they are looking for, or begin a lesson sequence only find out half way through it isn’t the one for them.

Furthermore, your song lesson options and famous instructors are mostly focused on hard rock and heavy metal, with very little diversity otherwise, which may make it one of the best online rock guitar lessons site, but not generally the best site overall.

Jamplay Summary

View JamPlay’s Free Trial Here >>

7. Guitareo

Guitareo, though relatively new, has actually been around for years in the form of GuitarLessons.com hosted by Nate Savage.

As part of the Musora Media Inc family of music education platforms, Guitareo essentially has a rocket attached to its future as a guitar lessons provider that must be taken seriously.

In a highly competitive remote learning market, you gotta be different – and good at what you do. In this respect, Guitareo is making huge gains.

EDITOR’S RATING:

(4.3 / 5)

Overview

Guitareo’s core offering is “The Method” which is designed to give players an easy and wholistic way to start enjoying the guitar.

Aimed primarily at beginners, the course walks you through each step of learning guitar starting with basic functions such as tuning, all the way through to the principles of complex soloing.

But there’s much more than that, Guitareo is packed with highly informative video-rich content.

From a user’s point of view, the video lessons are in bite-size lengths of around 15 minutes, but can be longer or shorter depending on how long it takes to fully illustrate the lesson.

This short-form video length format not only makes it very easy to digest individual topics and concepts, it gives you a real sense of progress and lets you manage your time more effectively.

Similar to GuitarTricks, Guitareo is not necessarily driven by leveraging historically recognizable guitar gods. Still, the instructors are extremely personable, engaging and knowledgable professionals.

Product Services/Highlights

If you’re oriented towards value, Guitareo has it in spades.

Compared to other platforms, their price point is extremely reasonable at $15.00 per month. Not quite Fender Play territory and certainly not free, but you do get the insights and benefits of multiple instructor insights versus a single individual.

As video becomes more of the standard in media used for teaching, the bar keeps getting set higher. And Guitareo is no slouch – instructional videos are well produced in terms of production value using multiple angles and split screens wherever appropriate.

As mentioned, beyond the Method, you’ll find multiple sections covering specific topics in detail. If there’s a particular topic, concept, chord, scale or technique, chances are Guitareo has a lesson for it.

Like any service, you should like the people you’re working with. Guitareo’s instructors make that very easy, but some players may find the presentations a little too gimmicky for their tastes.

As for the instructors, this area is a little thin, at least for the time being. If you’ve been actively seeking out guitar lessons online, there’s no doubt you’ve come across the “Guitareo girl” Ayla Tesler-Mabe – who is a featured instructor for many of the lessons.

As we pointed out previously, you’ll find a substantial amount of course material hosted by Nate Savage. It’s clear to see the majority of Nate’s previous educational guitar material has been incorporated under the Guitareo umbrella.

If you’re a fan of having materials to work with offline, you’ll appreciate the fact that many of the lessons have downloadable assets for handy reference later.

There are jam tracks, a quick tips section and lesson “packs” which are bundles of lessons that comprehensively cover top-level techniques and topics very thoroughly.

In the Student Focus section, you have the ability to get first-hand feedback from the instructors by submitting a video. There’s also a library of live Q&A lessons, each about an hour in length, packed with insights from the teachers and feedback from students in real-time.

Likewise, the forums section is a lively communications hub where members can interact with each other. It’s also a pipeline to the platform developers and folks behind the scenes who take feedback from users, and rightly so, very seriously.

Between the Student Focus and Forums sections, you get the impression Guitareo’s platform is highly geared towards interaction.

One interesting, and ambitious feature is 500 Songs in 5 Days. The underlying premise here lies in illustrating the basic skills that can be used to play hundreds of familiar songs.

While the 500 Songs concept is sound, it’s definitely more of a primer geared towards beginner students.

The Good / What We Like

What Guitareo lacks in current content, it makes up for in opportunity.

With the amount of work being put into the platform’s growth, compatibility and usefulness, there’s no doubt you’ll see a steady stream of new content and even more robust features in the very near future.

Well illustrated lesson videos feature close-ups and split screens of the skills being applied, topics are covered thoroughly, plus the accompanying diagrams, tabs or notation are downloadable.

Even though the platform is relatively new, there’s a robust forum and options to get real, meaningful feedback from the instructors.

The Bad / What We Don’t Like

Guitareo’s strength is also it’s weakness. Because it’s one of the newer players in the lessons market, it has relatively few instructors. Additionally, compared to other sites in the space that have been around for a long time, not nearly the same volume of instructional material.

Furthermore, while the vast majority of the site is well-populated, some sections are still in the process of being fleshed out.

While there is a section specifically for Chords, scales are mysteriously missing, though they are available as videos lessons in the Courses section or can be found using the site’s search field.

Guitareo Summary

View Guitareo’s Free Trial Here >>

Online Lessons Guide

When looking for online guitar lessons it’s important to remember what the end goal is; to learn the guitar.

You should always be looking for ease of use, helpful features and tools, quality instructors, and tons of lesson options to keep you engaged as you grow.

Let’s take a look at key factors you need to consider when trying to learn guitar online.

What to Look for

An Easy to Navigate Website

Regardless of your comfort with technology, you always want to easily find what you’re looking for when you’re on a lesson site.

Time wasted searching for beginner’s lessons or a song page is practice time wasted.

Websites that have well labeled “Beginner’s Start Here” functions on their homepage are some of the best online guitar training sites because they make it so easy for new students to get started.

Even better, helpful features like prominently displayed drop down menus or website introductions serve as awesome tutorials and introductions to the product you’re either trying or buying.

A Large Volume of Diverse Lessons

Whether you’re a beginner or more experienced player, one of the first things you should look for on a lesson site is how numerous and variable the lessons are.

Unless you’re going there to strictly learn punk rock and that’s it, explore the song options, techniques, genres, or musicianship offerings to see if there is enough, engaging content to keep you on the site.

• Are there lessons on the same topic with different skill lessons so you can grow in a linear manner?
• Can you learn a handful of genres or playing styles on the site?
• How many of your favorite songs are featured?

All important things to consider when searching for the best beginner guitar lessons.

Engaging, High Quality Guitar Instructors

Different sites offer different instructor options and you should carefully comb through to find which suits you best. Do you want to learn from only one instructor who you can build familiarity and trust with?

Or, would you rather have numerous, diverse teachers and maybe a few recognizable touring musicians?

When it comes to guitar coaching online you need to be careful to make sure your instructors have a history of good reviews, testimonials from pros, and guitar skills that align with what you want to learn.

Lastly, you have to like the instructors, maybe they crack jokes, maybe they know a ton about gear, whatever it is, make sure you want to be watching them for minutes or hours at a time.

The Cost of the Lessons Makes Sense to You

For those students on a tighter budget than others, it is always important to maximize the value of your guitar related purchases.

Similar to gear shopping, you always want to get the best quality without paying top prices.

If you’re looking strictly for free online guitar lessons that may limit your options. First off, you should decide which site you like best regardless of price, and hopefully it’s one you can afford.

If not, start going down your list or ranking of the sites, and think about all the things you absolutely need to learn guitar, this is different than what you want.

Also, consider how long you want lessons or access to the site, if it’s a short time it may be worth it to pay for access to a ton of lessons, even at premium prices.

Answers To Common Questions

Not sure where to start when looking for online guitar lessons? Feel like you have more questions than answers? We’ve collected some FAQs (frequently asked questions) and with our best answers to each one included below.

Be sure to check here for a definitive guide on how to learn guitar online thanks to our reviews, informative articles, answers, and other resources.

How much does a membership to each site cost?

Generally, the prices range from $0 per month to $35 per month based on subscription plans and site to site differences.

Justin Guitar is the only completely free offering we’ve reviewed here, while Fender Play comes in at an affordable $9.99 per month.

True Fire also features over 500+ free lessons but you will have to pay for access to the full beginner lesson plan.

A free six month Fender Play subscription also comes included with every new Squier or Fender guitar and bass purchased from licensed Fender dealers, meaning you can get a good package deal of free lessons with your first guitar.

How long does it take to get good at the guitar?

Check out our very own article on that topic! The short answer is that it is different for everyone and involves a combination of forming good habits.

These habits start to stick quickly over the first few months while also building physical muscle memory and calluses over the first few weeks.

Lastly, it also takes discipline and motivation by you, the student, to make time to pick up the guitar and practice scales, chords, and techniques.

Even if it isn’t always easy or as fun as playing along to your favorite song, practice makes perfect.

What makes a guitar instructor good?

Everyone will have a different answer to this question but usually you should be looking for two things: informative lessons and an engaging personality. You’re not likely to enjoy learning from an instructor you find annoying, boring, or out of touch with your playing goals.

That’s what makes shopping around these sites important, even if one option has all the specs or subscription package you may want, are the instructors a good fit for you?

On the other hand, an engaging personality may be fun to watch, but are they also providing the best teaching and instruction possible?

Can I just learn guitar on YouTube?

Technically yes, but YouTube has a less streamlined platform and does not monitor the quality of the teachers.

Essentially, you have to sift through lots of bad or amateur instructors, and even when you find the good ones you’ve likely wasted precious time.

What’s better to learn guitar on, YouTube or a lesson site?

In that everyone may have different preferences, lesson sites are generally better places to thoroughly learn guitar.

With thousands of lessons you can take in a linear fashion as well as built in tools, you just have access to more, quality information on lesson sites.

While many players learn through some combination of YouTube videos, forums, tablature websites, and lesson sits, the best guitar lessons for beginners can be found on these lesson sites.

When it comes to song lessons, lesson paths, tools like tuners or chord finders, and years of great ratings, these lesson sites have streamlined and improved on much of the info available on these other avenues.

While they may cost more money than the others, there is a reason you are paying, dedication and quality lessons don’t come cheaply – check out our article on the best way to learn guitar online to learn more!

Can I learn my favorite songs on these lesson sites?

For the most part you probably can, unless your favorite song is some obscure, underground single. Many of these sites feature 300+ song lessons and they’re adding more every week.

While tabs and chords can be found at a number of other free websites such as songsterr.com or ultimate-guitar.com, you get the best, most detailed lessons from lesson sites like these.

What sites features famous musicians and guitarists?

JamPlay.com and TrueFire.com feature lessons from guitar luminaries like Tosin Abasi, Steve Stevens, and JD Simo.

FenderPlay.com often features live videos, interviews, or gear demos with famous musicians as well.

What site has the best beginner guitar lessons course?

Each site has their individual benefits, but one will probably stand out as the best fit for you.

Read each review above to make sure you have all the information you need to make an educated decision based on your individual needs.

When you think you’ve found your winner, see below for a quick final comparison to confirm your choice.

Is it worth it to pay for online guitar lessons for beginners?

In the grand scheme of things, you’ll get so much more out of your guitar playing with the right lessons from the get-go.

Pay once to get the best lessons, and you’ll never have to pay again when you need to re-learn or break bad habits.

Wrapping It Up, Which Provider Is Best For You?

Throughout this article, we’ve focused on four main specs throughout this article: engaging lesson plans, diverse lesson choices, affordable monthly subscription cost, and easy to navigate web pages.

But there’s more than what we see on the surface.

Editor’s Personal Notes

The remote learning space in general has become extraordinarily competitive and will continue to do so as the bar keeps getting set higher.

For us users, this is a good thing. In terms of choice, variety and price-points, there’s literally something for everybody.

At the end of the day, there are a number of factors which influence your decision for a particular educational service. Beyond the most obvious – cost, the most important elements in my opinion can be summed up in two simple questions:

• Do you like the people you’re working with?
• And, are you getting what you need out of the lessons?

Considering what you can get out of YouTube, these questions find answers pretty quick. But for some things you have to fish for the exact information you want.

The ultimate irony is that all of the services listed here got their start or at the very least have a YouTube channel. Moreover, many successful services are the result of aggressive marketing with big budgets; some are more sizzle than steak.

If you do decide to subscribe to a paid service, they better be prepared to offer up something special you can’t find anywhere else – and that’s a tall order.

Every provider has their own “secret sauce”. Hopefully, we’ve provided enough insight to give you a taste of each one.

Final Summaries

GuitarTricks

GuitarTricks has been a fan favorite and for many years. In the online guitar lessons race, it’s the dominant force and one of the most well known websites out there.

The site features great options and an extraordinary amount of material to draw from, but to be frank, we’re not completely convinced they contain anything that strictly justifies the cost of a subscription membership.

However, GuitarTricks does have a long history of success, online reviews and customer testimonials for you to justify a decision.

Truefire

Looking for a runner up? TrueFire would be choice number two thanks to their incredibly useful “In the Jam” feature that should keep students engaged longer, even after they have their beginner phase.

While their lesson selections are engaging and competitive, the price of $29 per month really limits the value when compared to Justin Guitar specifically.

However, the ability for players to practice improvising or song writing with the large selection of pre-recorded “In the Jam” tracks is a huge addition that not all sites have.

ArtistWorks

Our premium pick ArtistWorks, while still good, unfortunately comes in last place for recommended paid programs. Reasons being it has no song database, a top-heavy subscription cost, and relatively limited styles.

Having said that, we still think ArtistWorks is great at teaching specific things in depth and the instrument variety is convenient, but it just doesn’t feel as suited for modern students compared to the other sites.

More recently, ArtistWorks, has raised the bar by aggressively expanding their lesson courses in an effort to become a more robust service for modern students.

They have fully realized the need for a broader range of options for all players, including multiple styles and catering to different experience levels.

JustinGuitar

If cost is your primary motivator, the overall winner in all four categories would have to be Justin Guitar.

Why? First off, lessons via Justin Sandercoe and his website are completely free, which just makes them more accessible and a greater value than any other site listed here.

Furthermore, there is little to no drop off in quality or quantity of lessons when comparing Justin Guitar’s free site to more costly $10 per month or more options.

He has the same or more song lessons, technique lessons, and a really great section dedicated to musicianship training.

But – he’s just one guy. If his personality doesn’t resonate with you, you either have to learn to like him or look elsewhere.

Still, with all these features, we just can’t justify spending more money per month for lessons of the similar or equal quality and diversity. Reddit users certainly seem to agree as he’s one of the guitar favorites with his own subreddit.

Fender Play

If you’re a beginner who is considering buying a Fender or Squier product to learn guitar or bass on, then Fender Play is the choice for you without a doubt.

The 6 month free trial that comes with each new instrument will save you money and give you plenty of time to get comfortable with the instrument and platform before deciding to subscribe or move on to another site.

Jamplay

If you’re more into the aggressive side of guitar (hard rock, metal etc), JamPlay’s your best option with a long list of celebrity instructors, tools, and a massive library of lessons.

Similar to GuitarTricks, Jamplay has shared a long history as a go-to site for guitar instruction. Will they continue to stand up over time? Only history will tell.

Their achilles heel may actually lie in their continuous focus on the heavier style of guitar. Not a bad thing at all, but when heavy music falls out of favor with the trends, it becomes a liability.

Guitareo

Our latest addition Guitareo has a hidden advantage. They get to draw on all the experience of the other competitors to create an educational platform that’s more in line with the what students are looking for – today.

With a modest, yet robust collection of well-produced lessons and courses geared mostly towards beginners, Guitareo is thoughtfully laid out which makes getting a grip on developing your first playing skills that much easier.

On the downside the platform has relatively few instructors and some sections are obviously still under development.

On the upside, Guitareo is constantly evolving: adding functionality, content, new features, additional tools and looks to have a very bright future.

Final Comparisons

Service	Cost	Rating	Offer?
	$19.99 per Month	4.1 / 5	Trial – Yes
	$29.00 per Month	4.3/ 5	Trial – Yes
	$35.00 per Month	4.1 / 5	Trial – Yes
	$0.00 per Month	4.2 / 5	Trial – N/A
	$9.99 per Month	4.0 / 5	Trial – Yes
	$19.95 per Month	3.9 / 5	Trial – Yes
	$10.58 per Month	4.3 / 5	Trial – Yes

The post The Best Online Guitar Lessons (Reviews with Comparisons) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

We certainly hope you benefit from the information we provide in this article! Just so you know, we may receive compensation if you use the links on this page. If you do, thank you so much!

Top 10 Guitar Apps for Beginners and Players Reviewed

For many, the guitar is not as easy as it could be, and apps for learning guitar are still relatively recent.

Up until just a couple short decades ago, guitarists didn’t have the benefit or availability of countless learning platforms that we have today.

Now with the mind-boggling number of guitar leaning apps available, where do you start?

To help you wade through a sea of options, we’ve filtered the top 10 best guitar learning apps that offer a wide array to choose from:

1. Fender Play App

Fender Play is pretty much a guitar app for beginners. An intermediate guitarist might find an interesting piece of advice and a tip here and there, but overall, Fender Play is a good app for learning guitar .

Known primarily as an electric guitar company, Fender is helping novice guitarists wrap their heads around this somewhat complicated instrument.

Though relatively recent to the world of online lessons, Fender’s historical knowledge of players from pros to beginner guitarists has been used to generate one of the best guitar apps launched in recent times.

How does the Fender Play App work?

Simplicity is the essence of this platform – the moment you sign up for Fender Play, you get to choose between five music “paths”: Rock, Folk, Blues, Country, and Pop.

This might seem a bit limiting, but offering more genres would only complicate things.

Your Custom Path To Learning Guitar

After choosing your “path,” you are offered a custom set of lessons, teaching you about all the guitar play basics – from the first couple of notes in a song to proper hand positions and guitar play dynamics.

Get 50% Off Fender Play Today! >> Use Code “learntoplay50“

Given the fact that Fender is a company that makes popular guitars and basses, but also ukuleles, the electric/acoustic guitar isn’t the only option on the platform.

The bass guitar and ukulele lessons are equally content-rich as those for the guitar. But keep in mind, all these lessons are for beginners.

The structure of every lesson is such that it’s short, sweet, and easy to understand. After each one, you move on to the next one.

Furthermore, the lessons gradually increase in difficulty, which is where progress comes from.

Even though we’re talking about a beginner-centric platform, you’ll still get access to plenty of theory, tone, chord, and scale basics.

Naturally, skipping lessons is always an option, but we wouldn’t recommend it, especially if you’re a beginner.

Finally, in terms of sheer video quality, you can expect a lot here. We aren’t only talking about the resolution.

Each lesson is approached from various angles so that you can study and learn as you observe.

• Innovative “paths” allow you to progress in the direction of your favorite genre
• Learn slowly, at your own pace
• Track your progress
• Videos short and easily digestible

Fender Play is available on iOS and Android.

2. Guitar Tricks

Learning guitar online has never been easier. Beginners and intermediate players can hugely benefit from the Guitar Tricks platform.

How does the Guitar Tricks App work?

The Guitar Tricks App gives you access to a wide variety of video lessons that you can download and use offline.

If you are a complete beginner, Guitar Tricks will cater to your needs.

Their core learning system video lessons will hold your hand as they take you on a guitar learning journey.

With these easy guitar learning apps you’ll get access to simple chord changes, easy songs, basic melodies, and other beginner’s essentials.

Not all videos are for beginners, though. Some content is focused on helping intermediate players progress toward guitar mastery.

The intermediate lessons are all about niche topics and tackling them in great detail.

Whereas websites that offer free guitar lessons have a ton of content you can learn from, they are usually unorganized.

With Guitar Tricks, you get a well-structured core learning system that won’t leave you lost in a world of video lessons, like on YouTube.

Guitar Tricks is Constantly Updated

Well known for being among the best guitar lesson apps, each week Guitar Tricks adds a new song lesson to its extensive library.

To help you constantly improve and organize your guitar skills, each song lesson is sorted by artist, genre, date, popularity, and technical difficulty.

The focus here, however, is on more straightforward guitar songs that work with your skill level.

As a useful learning tool, Guitar Tricks lessons are very impressive and easy-to-process.

Though we do consider it one of the best guitar apps, Guitar Tricks’ downside is that it may not impress an advanced player – their concepts of online guitar lessons tend to range from basic to intermediate.

• More than 600 licensed songs from popular artists that range from The Beatles to Jimi Hendrix
• From scales and chords to modes and intermediate guitar concepts, you’ll find it all at Guitar Tricks
• 50-100% fast learning guaranteed
• All this is available through an affordable subscription

Guitar Tricks is available on iOS and Android.

3. TrueFire

Online guitar lessons giant TrueFire has a robust suite of apps covering just about any device you can imagine.

How does the TrueFire App work?

The latest TrueFire 3 desktop app works with Windows, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, and Android.

Once installed, you can download purchased courses and then play them offline whenever you like.

For truly mobile use, you might find some of the compatible apps tend to favor iPhone or iPad.

If you do tend to be out and about regularly, these apps let you conveniently take advantage of the TrueFire lessons platform wherever you happen to be.

Apps for Learning Guitar On The Go

For jamming anywhere, In the Jam and JamBox apps help get your ya-yas out. You can customize the mix and play along with the pros on your iPhone or tablet.

Eye and Ear Exam for Guitarists is an innovative app that challenges your chord recognition abilities.

Much like a gaming experience, you achieve ranks and scores posted to a leaderboard.

Overall, it’s essentially an ear, and eye, training tool that helps motivate learning through new techniques.

With Notes on Call, you can relive the days of audio lessons by phone, which is how TrueFire began back in 1991.

Much like an audiobook experience, you can listen to any of over 1,200 guitar lessons while you’re driving or riding in the car.

The Lictionary app opens up hundreds of free guitar licks lessons on your device.

There’s also an app for Private Guitar Lessons that makes it easy to interact privately with your instructor.

With so many years behind them, it’s no wonder TrueFire offers up an impressive list of features:

• Access to over 45,000 video guitar lessons
• TrueFire’s entire library of over 900+ courses
• Learn from the best educators in the business: Larry Carlton, Robben Ford, Tommy Emmanuel, Steve Vai, Pat Martino, Stu Hamm, Jennifer Batten, Dweezil Zappa, Johnny Hiland, and many more
• Covers all levels, techniques and styles

TrueFire 3 for desktop can be found here, other mobile apps are available on iOS and Android.

4. Justin Guitar by Four Chords

Justin Guitar is a YouTube channel by one of the world’s most popular online guitar teachers.

Justin Sandercoe takes a slow, patient approach to guitar teaching, which is very effective, educative, and enjoyable.

How do guitar lessons work with the Justin Guitar App?

Well, he released an app as a beginner’s course. The course comes in three different lesson levels: the Beginners Guitar Course, the Intermediate Method, and the Style Modules.

The Beginners Guitar Course level is free. Each of these is split into stages.

Similarly, the Style Modules feature both free video lessons and instructional videos and courses. Go through these modules and see if anything sparks your interest.

Free for Novices

Although Justin encourages donations, if you are a novice guitarist who doesn’t have enough money for lessons or other guitar learning app options, we recommend trying Justin’s app.

If you’re an intermediate player, you’re going to have to cash out if you want to learn.

Of course, you can always visit Justin’s YouTube channel, which offers a wide variety of interesting lessons to help you learn guitar at all skill levels.

However, the app option emphasizes structured learning, and this is definitely something you’ll want to check out.

Overall, the main thing with the in-app lessons (and Justin’s YouTube channel) is its gradual, perfectly-paced approach. This teacher takes his time to explain everything down to the tiniest detail.

• The best guitar teaching app from a beginner’s guitar YouTuber, Justin Sandercoe
• Great slow-paced courses for various skill levels and ages
• Available subtitles include Croatian, Finnish, French, Spanish, and Romanian
• Lesson organization is fantastic

The Justin Guitar Beginner’s app is available on IOS and Android

5. Amped Guitar

Amped Guitar developed in association with Gibson, is a different kind of guitar learning platform.

By making use of augmented reality (AR), it helps you have more fun while learning while amplifying your overall feel and knowledge.

How does the Amped Guitar App work?

Well, it’s relatively simple. If you’ve ever played one of the Guitar Hero games, you’ll be very familiar with the whole vibe.

On your iOS or Android device, the Amped Guitar app will confirm the notes when you hit them (precisely like on Guitar Hero, only with a real guitar instrument).

This is possible by using the microphone on your phone/tablet. So, you put on earbuds and connect them to your phone.

Then, a backing track is played. The app listens to what you’re playing and plays those notes back in your ear.

Amped Guitar is not only an immersive experience but also helps you learn how to play along to other instruments while you can hear your actual playing.

This is much better than merely jamming to songs, making it the best guitar practice app out there.

Besides this, you get a full curriculum for learning the guitar, which tackles everything from the most basic guitar techniques to some advanced skills.

Don’t worry, this guitar app for beginners wasn’t built by some amateur.

It was developed by some guitar teachers who wanted to offer their students an immersive yet remote guitar learning experience.

• AR learning method based on Guitar Hero games
• Developed by seasoned guitar teachers
• Full curriculum for learning
• Fun jamming to AR music

Amped Guitar is available on iOS and Android

6. JamPlay Apps

JamPlay is one of the largest guitar learning apps on the market. This platform offers about 5,000 varied lessons from over 200 courses.

With JamPlay, you get access to different lessons, including live video lessons, for all guitar-centric music genres across all skill levels.

How do the JamPlay Apps work?

The platform features more than 450 songs to jam to and practice with.

About guitar 1,000 lessons out of the 5,000 focus on building up technical skills on the road to guitar mastery.

When it comes to chords (advanced and basic), riffs, licks, and scales, you won’t be disappointed here.

But for those looking learn guitar with a more immersive experience, JamPlay has included a wide variety of cool features.

Progress reports, training games, and tracks to play along to are extremely useful and encourage you, as a player, to make progress while having fun.

The most basic course types on JamPlay are Foundational Courses. These are focused on helping novice players get a firm grip on guitar playing basics.

Foundational Courses

There are three types of Foundational Courses – “Never Played Before,” “Self-Taught Guitarists,” and “The ‘Forever’ Beginner”- All of which are relatively self-explanatory.

The Genre Courses focus on giving you basic and advanced knowledge according to one of the 20 available genres.

The Skill Building Courses focus on understanding how you can improve your conceptual and technical playing abilities.

If you want to simply learn songs in a fun, interactive way, the Song-Learning Courses are the perfect match for you.

This is the smallest set of the bunch but definitely the most interactive.

The Master Classes feature unique content from guitar legends such as Emil Wrestler, Bumblefoot, Tosin Abasi, and many others.

Alternatively, if a fully creative experience using multiple instruments is more of what you’re after, GarageBand may be what you’re looking for.

Finally, the Live Courses and Sessions option enables you, the learner, to directly interact with your instructors.

• A library for scales with dozens of varied patterns all across the fretboard
• A chord library for a wide variety of different chord voicings
• A customizable metronome for timing and accuracy improvement
• Mic-based tuner
• Backing tracks for jams

JamPlay is available via iOS and Android apps.

7. Ultimate Guitar Tabs HD

If you’ve ever looked for a guitar tab on Google, you’ve seen that there are countless tabs available out there.

They are usually user-curated and textual. Ultimate Guitar has always been a website focused on tabs in textual form, as well.

How do Ultimate Guitar Tabs HD work?

Ultimate Guitar Tabs boasts an interactive option, which essentially allows you to play them back as if they were Guitar Pro files.

In other words, their method of learning guitar online provides you with a MIDI tablature that you can play, stop, and slow down at any time you want.

Ultimate Guitar Tabs HD also allows you to turn off any of the instruments that you hear, which typically include guitars, bass, and drums.

In some tabs, you may also find vocal lines and other instruments.

Over 1,000,000 Tabs & Chords

Although downloading the Ultimate Guitar app itself and installing it is entirely free, you won’t be able to get any access to tabs unless you opt for a subscription.

There’s a one-week trial, though, after which you’ll be charged for the following year of using Ultimate Guitar Tabs HD.

Under the Tools tab, however, you get access to the chromatic and brain tuners, metronome, and libraries of chords and chord progressions.

You also get a Beginners course and various other Video tutorials that can help boost your guitar playing.

Under the Shots tab, you’ll see a TikTok-like list of performances by various Ultimate Guitar Tabs HD users. You can also add your own shot and join in.

• This app features more than one million tabs
• You get access to more than 600,000 tabs with lyrics
• Full control over the tab playback
• Video tutorials and the Beginners course
• Join in on the network of musicians who share their playing via the Shots option

Ultimate Guitar Tabs HD is available on iOS and Android

8. Yousician

Yousician is not just a guitar learning app, but much more than that. It’s used for bass, ukulele, piano, and voice training, in addition to guitar.

This app is beginner-centric, although anyone can learn a thing or two from it.

How does the Yousician App work?

While many guitar apps focus on what the market demands – learning things quickly, Yousician takes an entirely different approach.

This platform exercises repetition and exposure to create a foundation for your guitar playing knowledge.

Don’t expect too much tutorial-type instruction – Yousician uses more interactive methods.

Guitar Missions and Workouts

Once you start the app, you’ll see the Learn tab at the top. Navigate to it, and two options will be displayed: Missions and Workouts.

Missions offer a video game-like experience with interaction for learning guitar while going through the content (kind of like Guitar Hero).

On the other hand, workouts are more typical videos, courses, and other interactive material forms.

The Yousician web app uses your device’s microphone to pick up on the played chords.

As you play through a backing track, guitar chords will be displayed (in various colors).

Your job is to hit the appropriate chord at the right time. The interactive part here is done rather brilliantly, and it responds very quickly.

The interactive solo parts are displayed in the form of the guitar neck and strings.

As the indicator hits each note, you play it on your guitar. Notes are designated by numbers rather than by chord letters.

The interface can be adjusted in a few ways, including a combination of the “solo interactive part” mentioned above and actual music notation.

Of course, you can make various other necessary adjustments like, for instance, tempo.

• Brilliantly interactive Guitar Hero-like experience that will help you memorize the patterns, chords, and songs
• Some video game-type features help make the learning experience much more fun
• The app slowly guides you through the entire setup process
• Progress through repetition and exposure creates a fantastic foundation for guitar playing skills

Yousician is available on IOS and Android

Yousician and GuitarTuna

Of course, reviewing Yousician wouldn’t be complete without mentioning its premiere, and extremely popular guitar tuning app: GuitarTuna.

Out of the hundreds of tuning apps freely available for download to your device, GuitarTuna, self-described as “the #1 tuning app worldwide“, is a favorite among musicians around the globe.

GuitarTuna is available on IOS and Android

9. Chordify

Chordify is based on helping you figure out exactly which chords you need to play that fit a particular song.

How does the Chordify App work?

Essentially, the app plays a song from YouTube using the embed function, and the chord recognition software displays the guitar chords that you need to play.

The app’s web version shows the chord name and the chord fingering below, as the song plays back in real-time.

On mobile/tablet apps, you get to switch between these two views. For the most part, you’ll be looking at the letters, but reminding yourself of how a chord is played is necessary at times.

Learning Chords Has Never Been Easier

Now, there’s a cool feature here called the Overview view. Essentially, it displays all the chords in the song in order.

As the song plays, there’s a black square that moves across the fields. If a field has a chord name in it, that means that a chord change is in order.

Impressive as this sounds, chord recognition here is limited. More complex chords might take some further looking into or using another tool.

Still, for a beginner guitarist, being able to play along to a song with an app like this is pretty amazing.

Unfortunately, only the Play, Rewind, and Simplify Chords buttons are available on the app’s free version.

You’ll note that every other option is grayed-out. These are all premium features.

The premium features include Transpose, Capo, Chord volume, Song volume, Tempo, Loop, MIDI, and Print.

Most of these options are relatively straightforward. The Chord volume feature allows you to adjust the volume of a particular chord when played back.

And the MIDI option enables you to use a MIDI device for extra features.

• A unique app that makes playing to songs very straightforward
• Basic features are more than enough for most songs and tunings
• Premium features include some excellent tools to help you simplify the song learning process
• Overview view is probably the easiest method of reading chords while the song is played back

Chordify is available on iOS and Android

10. FaChords Interactive Apps

The guitar is all about finding your way around the fretboard, memorizing scale patterns, intervals, chord shapes, and so on.

Basic as this may sound to a seasoned guitar player, this has been known to turn away many beginners. These shapes can get too overwhelming.

In fact, even some intermediate players still struggle with learning the logic behind scales and chords.

They often turn to their ear, which is fine in its own respect. But knowing your way around the fretboard is of huge importance.

How does the FaChords App work?

FaChords is an app conceptualized with interactive fretboard learning in mind.

This guitar app can help you memorize every single note on the fretboard, improve your music theory knowledge, teach you about intervals and fretboard navigation, as well as help you memorize all the essential scale and arpeggio shapes.

Browser Friendly

Another cool thing about FaChords is that the app allows you to use custom tunings.

It can be adjusted for 7-string guitars and covers the mandolin, bass, and ukulele. Oh, and it can be used to accommodate left-handed players, as well.

If you come up with a cool-sounding chord but have no idea how to get to the bottom of its actual name, FaChord allows you to input the fretboard fingering (very simple) and find out about the chord’s exact name.

The app also helps you better understand how to use modes while playing over solos and allows you to actually solo over chords.

• Unlock the mystery that is the guitar fretboard once and for all
• Find out all about chord names
• Understand scales, modes, arpeggios, intervals, and chord progressions
• Work on your pitch recognition

FaChords interactive guitar apps are available only via the browser.

Beginner’s Guide To The Best Guitar Learning Apps

Before you subscribe to any guitar lesson app, there are a few more things that we want to go through. Think of this as a sort of a FAQ section.

What is the Best App for Learning to Play Guitar?

The question of what’s the best app to learn to play guitar isn’t a simple one to answer. You can rest assured that every app on this list is fantastic in its own right.

The guitar apps in this article are listed according to user ratings.

Keep in mind that guitar apps with subscriptions offer a better experience and are constantly updated.

Your Best Options for Learning Guitar

During our research, we found the top three best guitar apps were from Fender Play, Guitar Tricks and TrueFire.

But the choice boils down to your own preferences, resources and skill level.

If you are a complete novice, learning guitar is about the approach.

Do you want to sit down, study, and put in a lot of effort? Go with a guitar learning app that reinforces this teaching style.

If you want to create a solid foundation for your guitar playing skills and don’t mind taking things slowly, then use one of the guitar apps from our recommended online guitar lessons providers.

Fender Play, Guitar Ticks and TrueFire all offer a free trial to help you find the best guitar teaching app for you.

Alternatively, you can always start with a free guitar learning app if spending money is a major consideration.

However, if you are an intermediate-level player, expect that you’re going to have to pay for it.

The alternative here is going on YouTube and browsing for the perfect lesson style for you.

The YouTube lessons, though, tend to be all over the place. If you want learn guitar with structure, go with a quality learning tool.

What is the Best Free Guitar Lesson App?

Chordify is probably the best guitar chord app option for learning some basic guitar playing.

This is because it uses a unique system to give you karaoke-style chord hints that help you play through any song available on YouTube.

Additionally, thanks to its YouTube integration (via embed), Chordify can give you the audio quality you get off of the world’s most popular video streaming app.

Therefore, you don’t have to pay up for access to certain songs and videos.

Is Free Everything it Can Be?

The premium subscription actually gives you some extra controls for playback, such as Transpose, Capo, Chord volume, Song volume, Tempo, Loop, MIDI, and Print.

These are all very useful (especially the tempo control). Still, as long as you’re just starting out and are practicing relatively simple songs, you’re going to be satisfied with the free version.

If you are a beginner who isn’t looking for an interactive experience but just want some structured beginner’s lessons, go with the free app from Justin Guitar by Four Chords.

He is a brilliant teacher with perfect teaching pacing.

What is the Quickest Way to Learn Guitar?

Do not misunderstand; every app that we’ve mentioned can teach you a lot and even develop a sense for future learning.

But counter-intuitive as it sounds, the quickest way of learning guitar is by ear.

With all the technology available these days, you can get your hands on audio slow-downer apps that will help you discern the notes of even the most complex solos.

But the by-ear method requires patience. The “quickness” here doesn’t lie in learning the basics in a few days.

In the beginning, it will take a while.

But with each new by-ear learned song, segment, or solo, you’ll gain motivation.

Plus the better guitar apps from well known brands such as Fender Play, Guitar Tricks and TrueFire all offer quick-start methods to help beginner guitarists build their skills.

After your ear has been trained, you’ll start absorbing every new lesson more and more quickly.

The by-ear method is definitely the best way to learn guitar, and the quickest, in the long run.

If all you want from your guitar skills is to play easy songs for your friends, the best guitar app for beginners is any from the list that helps you get to this level fairly quickly.

Is Yousician or Fender Play Better?

Yousician and Fender Play are vastly different guitar apps. Whereas the former focuses on the karaoke-style chord hints, the latter takes you down a “path” and holds your hand.

Choosing between the two apps boils down to personal preference.

If you want to play more obscure genres and songs, you’re better off with Yousician, as it has every song available on YouTube.

However, if you want structured learning, the Fender App will definitely show you around the basics of your preferred genre, or, shall we say, “path.”

There’s something that you should keep in mind, though; Fender Play is a paid app that offers a free trial. The payments are subscription-based.

If forking out the money is not up your alley, Yousician is the better guitar learning app of choice here.

What is the Best Way to Learn Guitar Online?

Again, the answer isn’t that simple. And still, it boils down to your personal preference.

If you are more of a DIY kind of person, digging through YouTube, learning stuff by ear, and creating your own technical exercises is probably the way to go.

On the other hand, if you don’t know where to start and feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of guitar lesson content available out there, dedicate yourself to one of the guitar apps from the list and see where it takes you.

What are My Choices?

The best way to learn guitar and any other instrument is a combination of everything.

The vast majority of teachers, courses, tools, and apps are taking the correct teaching method. Notice that we wrote “a correct” here. That’s because there is no correct way to go about things.

Likewise, the best guitar lesson app will be the one that resonates with your thinking.

Sign up for a course and give that a shot. Or just try going around the web and looking for useful information. Exploration is the key to progress.

Final Thoughts On Guitar Lesson Apps And Modern Learning Methods

Which one of these is the best guitar learning app? We’ll have to disappoint you with the answer.

We can’t choose a single one that’s objectively the best option. We’ve already explained the reasoning behind this – to each their own.

Fortunately for you, every single guitar app from this list has a free trial period, at the very least. Our recommendation would be to give each a try.

You have everything to gain if you try a new one each week and write down its pros and cons.

Ultimately, you’ll be able to tell which is the best guitar app for you.

Love Guitars? Check Out Our Awesome Tees!

Aged Classic Les Paul Burst Guitar Shirt

Can’t afford the real thing? Wear it on a great quality guitar shirt for a fraction of the price!

Order Yours Today!

---

Rated 5 out of 5

$25.97 USD Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page

I Love It When My Wife Lets Me Buy Another Guitar T-shirt

Do you love your wife? Of course you do, especially when she gives you the go-ahead to buy another guitar! Show her how much you really care with this guitar tee created just for her.

A great gift for your significant other who really understands their priorities.

Order Yours Today!

---

not rated $25.97 USD Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page

More Cowbell! Unisex T-shirt

From deep in the heart of Sunshine Studios, Gene Frenkele attempted to channel his best performance on the most important instrument in any band. Knowing the track was on the verge of coming off the rails, rock legend Bruce Dickinson came to the rescue with a single burning plea: “I GOT A FEVER!! and the only prescription… is MORE COWBELL!!”

Makes an excellent gift for any fan of Classic Rock!!

Order Yours Today!

---

not rated $23.97 USD Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page

The post Top 10 Best Guitar Learning Apps (Tools To Play Better And Faster) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

We certainly hope you benefit from the information we provide in this article! Just so you know, we may receive compensation if you use the links on this page. If you do, thank you so much!

JamPlay vs Justin Guitar: Who’s Offers Better Lessons?

JamPlay and Justin Guitar are no doubt two of the best online guitar lesson sites available to both beginners and experienced players.

Both sites offer a wide range of lessons for both beginners and experienced players alike. While JamPlay has a wide range of instructors, some famous and some not, Justin Guitar is the work of just guitar player and teacher Justin Sandercoe of YouTube fame.

Even though both sites are great options for online guitar lessons, we here at Guitar Niche pit Justin Guitar vs JamPlay to find out which is truly the best option for you.

JamPlay vs Justin Guitar Quick Comparison:

JamPlay and Justin Guitar In Detail: Breaking Them Down

Before we get started, let’s go over how we’re going to compare and judge the two sites against each other. We’ll be comparing both the features and appearance of the websites as how we imagine a beginner and an experienced player will view them.

For example, an experienced guitar player is more likely to be impressed by number of songs or technical lessons available while a beginner will be looking for an easy to follow set of introductory steps or lessons.

The major criteria, as with all good online guitar lessons, will be how easy it is to navigate each page, how many features and lessons are available, and how easy each video is to follow.

Guitar Teachers and Basic Lesson Plans

No matter how easy the user interface is, the site will ultimately only be as good as the teachers who are teaching the lessons.

The teacher’s ability to communicate the importance of each technique or lesson and how it pertains to the overall lesson plan is vital.

Without being able to see progress on the instrument and through each site’s student path, beginners are likely to get frustrated, or lose interest.

JAMPLAY

Our first impression of the site for this JamPlay review section was that the instructor list features a lot of big-name guitar players who teach either techniques or their own songs.

While it can be really inspiring and motivational to players to learn from their heroes, we feel this feature has more marketing value than teaching value.

The basic lesson play is split into 4 phases:

1. Beginner
2. Genres & Skills
3. Songs, and
4. Songwriting

We really like the flow of this order and think it makes it easy for the student to accumulate skills while constantly using them.

You’re earning them in a new context such as “here is a country riff, now let’s play it in a popular country song, finally, let’s write a song featuring this riff”.

Furthermore, the instructors in the beginner series videos we watched spoke slowly and clearly, demonstrating years of experience teaching the guitar.

However, there are multiple options and pathways for each phase and level which can be confusing or redundant.

For more info their site, check out our complete JamPlay Review >>

JUSTIN GUITAR

To kick off our Justin Guitar review, let’s take a look at the lessons and learning structure. All Justin Guitar lessons are taught by the main man himself, Justin Sandercoe.

While some people may be discouraged by the lack of famous, guitar hero instructors, the familiarity and consistency of having the same instructor can be very comforting to new players.

The lesson plans are well laid out with a nice, descriptive “welcome” page explaining a little bit about the site and module structure.

With labeled beginner and topic options, we found it easy to navigate but somewhat “busy” with the number of options.

The color-coded difficulties are also helpful as it works to break up the wide number of options into smaller, more manageable sub-categories.

The lessons are also further split up under the labels of “beginner”, “intermediate”, “advanced”, and “spectrum”.

For more info on this service, check out our comprehensive Justin Guitar Review >>

Winner: JUSTIN GUITAR

User Interface

When learning guitar, there are enough small things to frustrate and discourage you enough to quite altogether. One thing that can easily make it worse on a student is a hard to navigate website or lesson plan.

Even for experienced players, you don’t want to have to spend too much time trying to figure out to how to find your way around the song lesson pages or figuring out how to slow down the video or where the tabs load from.

JAMPLAY

Overall, the user interface is not difficult to navigate whatsoever, but we wish there was more of an emphasis on getting started with lessons.

Once you scroll down a little bit, the viewer is bombarded with course options that don’t seem to tie in together at all based on genre, style, or difficulty.

Once you get to the lessons tab on top of the site, the four phases are easily laid out and you are directed to the homepage for each phase.

However, as we mentioned before, it can be a little bit overwhelming to a new student as there are about two dozen options, split between acoustic and electric guitar.

This site puts the onus on the student to find out which path is best suited for them and the page layout further emphasizes that.

JUSTIN GUITAR

The home page on Justin Guitar is set up with a much more user-friendly appearance in our opinion with the first thing you see being a 1-minute introduction video and a “beginner’s start here” page with links.

As you scroll down, a screen pops up with interesting stats and numbers representing the site such as the number of songs and lessons available as well as users, subscribers, and facebook likes.

From a strictly aesthetic perspective, the Justin Guitar site is much more modern, interactive, and appealing than the JamPlay web page.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for on the front page, there are helpful drop-down menus along the top page to help guide you towards tools, lessons, and more.

Winner: JUSTIN GUITAR

Lessons Toolbox

Along with all the videos and great teachers that makes these sites great, the real value lies within the tools they offer via the website.

Things like tabs that pop up next to the video, the ability to slow down/speed up the pace, built in tuners, or chord finders are all invaluable to students.

JAMPLAY

JamPlay has a very easy to use toolbox that is located right below the video screen of each lesson. It’s simple to find and shouldn’t be too confusing for students as it has helpful labels and links to multiple features.

Students can hit the clearly labeled “Ask A Teacher” button for additional help, take their own notes in “notes”, and control playback speed with an adjustable clicker among many others.

While we have not been thrilled with their home screen and lesson selection user interface, this is clearly a top-notch video lesson webpage.

JUSTIN GUITAR

For those of you familiar with YouTube video formatting, you may enjoy the Justin Guitar video lessons and toolbox, or lack of a toolbox.

Basically, his site is just YouTube videos with a few additional comments and tabs you can access under the video.

While the video content is no doubt fantastic, many helpful tools like video speed control, note taking, or separate published tabs are not available on the same screen as with JamPlay or Guitar Tricks.

For some, they may appreciate this streamlined platform and with no subscription cost, you are certainly not getting ripped off or losing value. But if cost is not problem, it may be best to opt for a more complete learning package.

Winner: JAMPLAY

Available Song Lessons

Last but not least, if you’re going to be shelling out your hard-earned money to learn your favorite songs, you expect at least some of those songs to be available on the platform.

JAMPLAY

While licensing and tablature rights can get legally tricky, JamPlay still appears to have a questionably low number of songs available for its students to learn; somewhere in the range of 200-300 by our hand count.

Hard rock and heavy metal are well represented, as are The Beatles but overall the selection is lot on many classic and modern rock hits such as guitar lesson staples “Wonderwall” or “Good Riddance”.

Blues and Country are similarly understaffed as a dozen or more of the instructor’s original pieces take up valuable space.

JUSTIN GUITAR

Justin Guitar’s free online guitar tutorials lists over 550 song lessons available, while JamPlay doesn’t list a number, our hand count suggested they had only 300 or so. In addition to having more than JamPlay,

it also has a more diverse selection of genres such as alternative, funk, and reggae.

The same color coding from the general step by step guitar lessons is used here to help users filter songs based on difficulty.

What’s more impressive is how many of these lessons are available with only one instructor, while sites like JamPlay have dozens of teachers and less lessons.

Winner: JUSTIN GUITAR

Final Recount:

(3 / 4)

JUSTINGUITAR WINS 3 OUT OF 4 CATEGORIES

PROS

• • • Free
    • More available song and genre lessons
    • One teacher simplifies things
    • Easy to navigate
    • Live Lessons

CONS

• • • No famous instructors
    • Few in-lesson tools available

(1 / 4)

JAMPLAY WINS 1 OUT OF 4 CATEGORIES

PROS

• • • Familiar, famous instructors
    • Awesome in-lesson tools
    • Live Lessons

CONS

• • • Little diversification in song/genre lessons
    • Lack of streamlined lesson plans
    • $19.99/month
    • No clear “beginners start here” button

In Summary, Which Is The Best Online Guitar Lessons Service For You Personally – JamPlay or Justin Guitar?

Justin Guitar won three out of the four categories, making it incredibly impressive considering it costs $0 per month compared to the $19.95 per month that a JamPlay membership costs – though they do offer a free access trial.

While you can’t go wrong with either, Justin Guitar definitely offers more value and is less risky considering it is free and accessible to all.

While JamPlay packs in more features and instructors, Justin Guitar is a step above in usability and quality.

The post JamPlay vs Justin Guitar [Who’s Better?] first appeared on GuitarNiche.

TrueFire Lessons Review: Key Features

We certainly hope you benefit from the information we provide in this article! Just so you know, we may receive compensation if you use the links on this page. If you do, thank you so much!

Try TrueFire Free Here >>

TrueFire is a video-based guitar lessons website that also offers limited lessons for bass, ukulele, and harmonica.

Started in 1991 and boasting contributions from 600+ instructors, TrueFire boasts that over 2 million students have learned through their system.

Many competitors brag about their wide selection and diversity of song lessons, but TrueFire specifically focuses on detailed technical instruction videos with learning paths guided by the genre of music you wish to play.

Furthermore, the site has many spectacular instructors including top session players and GRAMMY award winners as well as an awesome feature, “In the Jam”, which lets students play alongside pre-recorded rhythm sections.

For a full comparison of available the best online teaching services, check out our complete review of online guitar lessons providers here.

Let’s dig into the site for a thorough TrueFire review.

How Much Do TrueFire Lessons Cost?

TrueFire has multiple options to access their massive catalogue of lesson resources – from one-time downloads to traditional membership structures:

• Free Membership: Unlimited
• Full Access Membership: Free for 30 days
• One-time purchases and single courses between $10 and $60
• Monthly Plan: $29 per month
• Yearly Plan: $149 per year
• Lifetime Plan: $1,499 one-time fee

Who Is TrueFire For?

Some of you may be asking, what is TrueFire and what separates it from the other lesson sites?

Well, the true strength of the TrueFire guitar courses lies in its offerings for beginner and intermediate players.

With over 900 courses to offer and more being added constantly, TrueFire lessons thoroughly explain basic musical theory, or related terms alongside guitar fundamentals.

Also, the site has so many video lessons because many of them are short, only minutes long, opposed to some of the 10 or 20-minute lessons featured on other sites.

From the Creators: LEARN. PRACTICE. PLAY.

Shorter videos help keep the attention of new students who would otherwise get fatigued or frustrated should they struggled.

The video feature is further enforced by the lack of song lessons for newer music, a trait that usually helps engage more experienced players to access other established lesson sites.

While many non-students may turn to these sites for accurate tabs or advanced technique lessons, it would appear TrueFire guitar courses use song lessons as more of a teaching tool for beginners than a specific learning resource.

What’s Included With a TrueFire Subscription?

TrueFire is free to sign up for your first 30 days and when you do, you get plenty of coupons of future lesson downloads.

After that 30 days, you must begin paying to download lessons or features such as the “In the Jam” sessions.

If you’re looking for their All-Access package, similar to what other subscription sites offer, the regular price is $29 per month. But, when on sale at $19 per month, is more comparable to competitors like Guitar Tricks or JamPlay.

With the All Access pass you’re entitled to, like it says, access to all of the website’s lessons and features.

In addition to the lesson plans and song videos, the site boasts an impressive number of complementary lessons meant to add additional skills from top artists such as Jimi Hendrix or Bo Diddley.

Interested in a TrueFire subscription?

Use the code “PARTNER10” and get 10% Off Today! >>

Overview of Features

The TrueFire website itself is broken down into easy to navigate sections;

• Courses
• Learning Paths
• Jams
• Sales (Special Offers)
• Live
• Channels
• Educators
• More (Apps, Private Lessons etc.)

When comparing TrueFire vs Artistworks or TrueFire vs JamPlay, it is important to look at the distinct features of each site.

The Learning Paths section is designed to help you accelerate your playing through focused study plans – without the need to read music, and without “boring” exercises.

One of the coolest features we’ve seen on a lesson website is TrueFire’s “In The Jam” section which features 10 minute, multi-track video sessions, some featuring famous musicians, that allows players to play along with a pre-recorded band.

Featuring a large variety of options including jams like “Modern Groove” and “Soul Jazz”, this is truly a one of a kind option for students to begin practicing improvisation.

Inspiring creativity, songwriting, and improvisation is key, especially has students begin to progress out of the most basic level, to keeping them engaged with the instrument.

The song lessons that are included are on par in quality and useable tools with all other major sites.

Though they’re continually adding new material, generally the songs are limited to mostly older classic rock, jazz, and pop songs which may turn off some younger players.

“Big” Little Extras

TrueFire Channels is a rich community-centric section where you can engage with your favorite artists and educators.

Featuring exclusive self-produced video lessons, the TrueFire Channels section hosts performances, vlogs, video discussion threads, and even private and group instruction.

Lastly, the beginner lessons are built in a linear fashion based on what genre or style of music you want to play such as rock or blues.

Even better, the video lessons have awesome tools like speed up/slow down and discussion forums for the students to chat about the video.

New: Free Lessons Section

While a relatively small fraction of what the entire TrueFire site has to offer, the new Free Lessons feature packs a heck of a lot of value.

With over 6,000 lessons, the free lesson section serves as a great cross section of what could be available should you decide to dive into a complete course.

This means that you get bits and pieces of the same high quality content, but not the full picture.

Truefire Tutorials & How To Access

TrueFire’s extensive video lesson selection can be accessed at TrueFire.com where you will find easy direction to log in or create your own account to access your 30 day free trial.

They even have desktop application, plus a full suite of TrueFire apps for ios and Android so you can take your lessons on the go via your mobile phone or tablet.

For a great introduction to the site and how it works, hit the “About TrueFire” button option on the top right of the website.

TrueFire Lessons Review – Key Points

Top Lesson Site Alternatives

As you’ll find in our other reviews of GuitarTricks, FenderPlay, and JamPlay, there are many different options out there for guitar students looking to learn online.

TrueFire is another awesome choice with its diverse lesson options, streamlined website, and strong toolbox.

A Fan Favorite for Decades: Get GuitarTricks Today >>

A Fresh Approach for Newbies: Get Fender Play Here >>

If You Rock, This Is The Site: Try JamPlay Free Today >>

JamPlay has drawn raves reviews for the number of famous musicians who have recorded lessons on how to play their own songs or techniques, something Truefire has begun to compete with.

Furthermore, TrueFire has the history and student testimonials to go against any of those sites. Ultimately, the choice will come down to what instructors or lesson plans you are looking for.

In The End, Are TrueFire Lessons Worth It?

Ultimately, we believe TrueFire is the most technically impressive of all online offerings. The web page is easy to navigate, which is certainly valuable for attracting and maintaining a base of beginner students.

These two factors, in addition to the diverse toolbox that comes with each video lesson, make it an excellent option for students looking to dive right into the guitar head first.

The lack of present-day song demos and lessons makes the site feel somewhat dated and limited to pure skill learning, but the “In the Jam” feature helps make up for it by inspiring improvisation and creativity in students.

For the sale price of $29 a month, you get a lot of value with the sheer volume of lessons, especially after the first 30 days are free giving you a great introductory period to see if TrueFire is the lesson site for you.

Try TrueFire for Free Here >>

The post TrueFire Lessons Review (Are They The Best Out There?) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

JamPlay Key Features:

We certainly hope you benefit from the information we provide in this article! Just so you know, we may receive compensation if you use the links on this page. If you do, thank you so much!

Try JamPlay.com Free Here >>

JamPlay Guitar Lessons Review: Do They Really Deliver Great Value?

JamPlay is home to one of the largest lists of guitar instructors on the web, including popular performing and studio musicians.

For a full understanding of some of the highest rated providers available to you, check out our complete guide to online guitar lessons.

JamPlay Overview

In addition to the impressive teaching array, JamPlay offers great features like live lessons, chat forums, and a wide variety of technique lessons as well.

A JamPlay membership will set you back about $19.99 per month, but with the huge selection of lessons, it should be easy of guitarists at any level to extract value from their membership.

Let’s take a more detailed look at the song options, lesson plans, and instructors you’re paying for with an extensive JamPlay review.

Who Is JamPlay For?

If you’re asking what is JamPlay?, or is JamPlay worth it?, the answer comes down to your familiarity with the guitar. With an incredibly extensive selection of lessons, JamPlay is a great way to continue your guitar education but has some flaws that make it not necessarily the best option for beginners.

As we’ll discuss in later sections, a limited song selection and busy lesson plan makes it more optimal for student guitarists who have already advanced passed the beginner stages.

Despite some of these shortcomings, the video lesson quality is still top notch, and if you can find the lessons you need, you’ll learn from some the best instructors online.

What’s Included?

For the JamPlay membership cost of $19.99/month, you are certainly getting a lot of value when you consider all that’s included.

Quality concerns aside, there are four phases of learning that includes beginner lessons, skill lessons, song demos, and songwriting help.

While each phase has a somewhat overwhelming number of paths to follow, some students may be grateful for all the options. The song selections are also limited in both number and genres when considering JamPlay vs Fender Play or other competitors.

Specifically, the hard rock and metal categories feature heavily with some lessons being instructed by the musicians and songwriters who made the songs famous.

Furthermore, there is a huge variety of instructors in playing style, musical genre, and instruments (acoustic, electric, bass lessons all included).

If that’s not enough there are free live lessons available with your subscription and an IOS app available so you can take your lessons with you, however the app doesn’t have great JamPlay user ratings on the app store.

Jamplay Features

One of the best features on the JamPlay website is the video lesson portals. With the biggest toolbox of all lesson sites featuring tabs, supplemental notes about the lessons, speed controls, and “ask a teacher” help functions, you can truly find everything you need once you start each video.

Lessons like “classical guitar for the modern guitarist” and “modern grooves and retro rhythms” show off the strength of the site, diverse and educational options spanning multiple styles, but only somewhat covers up for the more lacking features.

As stated before, I hand counted somewhere between 300 and 400 song options, much less than some competitors which can influence song-hungry students when picking to subscribe to JamPlay or Guitartricks.

While modern rock and metal are certainly popular, many of today’s guitarists and music fans play and listen to a wide variety of genres and styles, many of which aren’t featured in JamPlay’s song selections.

Online Tutorials & How To Access

JamPlay is easily accessible via their website, www.jamplay.com, or by searching for JamPlay in your web browser. As stated before, there is also an IOS app which is great for guitarists who want to practice at work, school, or while travelling away from their computer.

All the videos I watched and followed along with, also featured great introductory or beginner sections that introduced the instructor, lesson material, and tools featured along with the video.

JamPlay Lessons Review – Key Points

Alternative Lessons Programs

As you’ll find in our other reviews of GuitarTricks, TrueFire, and ArtistWorks, there are many different options out there for guitar students looking to learn online.

JamPlay is one of many great choices with its diverse lesson options, quality instructors and great lesson toolbox to help you get the most out of each video.

JamPlay has drawn raves reviews for the number of famous musicians who have recorded lessons on how to play their own songs or techniques, something other sites have begun to compete with.

Furthermore, JamPlay has the history and student testimonials to go against any of those sites. Ultimately, the choice will come down to what instructors or lesson plans you are looking for and how easily you feel you can navigate the website.

Conclusion: Is JamPlay the Right Guitar Lessons Program for You?

As we researched this JamPlay lessons review, there’s a lot to like about the service, but in comparison to some of its competitors, it just doesn’t stack up.

One of the most engaging features of these sites is their song lessons and tabs, which can engage even more experienced players.

This helps keep subscribers after they have learned the instrument, or attracting players who aren’t strictly beginners or amateurs.

Compared to other services like TrueFire, the low quantity and limited genre options really hold JamPlay back, as does the difficult to navigate beginner lesson plan.

Personally, we just don’t think it is smart to let the beginner students choose for themselves which path to follow out of a handful of similarly labeled options.

The more traditional, linear options on other sites may be more limited in variability but help give students a quick and easy intro before allowing them to branch out.

You certainly can’t go wrong with JamPlay and its high quality video lessons, but be sure to make sure it is the one for you by taking advantage of a free trial when possible.

Check Out JamPlay Here >>

The post JamPlay Lessons Review (Are They Still Good Value?) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

Key features at a glance:

We hope you find this article helpful and unbiased. By using links on this page we may receive compensation at no extra cost. If you do, thank you so much!

ArtistWorks Guitar Lessons in Review: Is The Service Worth It?

Get ArtistWorks Here! >>

ArtistWorks Overview

Boasting lessons for over 15 different instruments besides the electric and acoustic guitar, ArtistWorks has thousands of published video lessons.

Featuring famous musicians who teach each genre or style of guitar playing that made them famous, ArtistWorks also has one of the most interactive student bodies of any online music lesson site.

Started in 2008 after the founder couldn’t find any suitable Jazz guitar teachers in their area, ArtistWorks does have one of the longer histories of successful online guitar lessons. Let’s take a look at all the site has to offer in this GuitarNiche ArtistWorks review.

Who Is ArtistWorks For?

If you’re looking for the best guitar course, ArtistWorks is certainly worth considering. ArtistWorks is best suited for beginner students who are looking to learn specific genres or styles from the basics to advanced levels.

Guitar fans may rejoice when they see that each step by step set of lessons is taught by a genre specific professional musician.

Rock guitar is taught by Paul Gilbert, country by Guthrie Trapp, and Keith Wyatt handles blues guitar.

However, with no designated metal or hard rock teachers, players hoping to learn jazz, rock, blues, or acoustic should make up the primary student group here.

Additionally, each genre-based course selection features the lesson’s page, a Video Exchange Learning® platform, study materials, and links to forums where you can discuss music topics with other students.

Paul Gilbert ArtistWorks Review

If you’re a serious fan of electric guitar. particularly from the 80′ and 90’s, you’ll have heard of Paul Gilbert.

Paul Gilbert is simply a monster rock guitarist world-renowned for his intense shredding ability and musicality.

Not only is he rated by Guitar World as one of 50 fastest guitarists of all time. He’s also an accomplished and very experienced guitar teacher.

Early on in his career Paul graduated from the Guitar Institute of Technology, which is enough to give any guitar player serious credibility.

Throughout his career, both in collective efforts and as a solo artist, Paul has been known as a player that can shred guitar like no one else.

His incredible skill combined with a very personable presence and guitar teaching ability made him a natural fit for ArtistWorks.

From ArtistWorks:

He’s known for his enthusiastic and approachable guitar lessons, which are founded on decades of experience.

Gilbert has been the guitar teacher of an impressive list of players including Buckethead, Joey Tafolla, “Satchel” from Steel Panther (Russ Parrish) and Nicole Couch of Phantom Blue among many others.

Other notable accomplishments include writing articles for the prestigious Premier Guitar magazine.

In May, 2012 he launched the Online Rock Guitar School with Paul Gilbert as a part ArtistWorks’ offerings and has since been sharing his extraordinary talents under the category of “Rock Lessons with Paul Gilbert“.

Paul Gilbert Jamming with Online Students

In terms of what ArtistWorks has to offer for edgier guitar lessons, Paul Gilbert is a pleasant surprise. Whether you’re a beginner, intermediate or highly advanced guitar player, he has something to bring to the table.

Paul Gilbert’s video lesson lengths run from roughly five minutes to a half hour with the built-in option to play them at slower speeds or in a loop.

As mentioned, the Video Exchange feature allows students to submit their own videos of themselves rocking out, or just asking Paul a question.

Consequently, Paul goes through each student’s video and in exchange, as the name implies, records a video offering support and answers in response to the questions.

Although this could seem intimidating for some, students in Paul’s community are nothing short of supportive and respective. The channel is held accountable as a judgment-free zone and in turn, is friendly, collaborative and highly interactive.

Alternatively, if you want to observe more than interact, you can still draw inspiration from the hundreds of archived exchange videos. You’ll find tons of useful hints you can interpret and then apply to improve your own technique.

ArtistWorks Rock Guitar Lessons with Paul Gilbert: Highlights

• Students get a music theory workshop from an A-List pro
• Access the Video Exchange Library at any time
• Subscribed students get up to 5 submissions
• Affordable guitar lessons from a world recognized personality
• Communication through a mini chatroom.
• Community spirit fostered by the video exchange platform
• Easy navigation

Check out Paul Gilbert’s Rock Guitar Course here >>

For those who prefer a less intense style of playing, Paul Gilbert may be a bit much. And for you we have other choices mentioned in this article.

But if you gravitate to online lessons with Paul Gilbert, your guitar abilities are sure to improve. With regular practice and instruction, your guitar technique, repertoire, and confidence will all reach new levels.

As mentioned, the real value here is in the the video exchanges. This is what sets Paul Gilbert’s ArtistWorks lessons apart from all the others. If you take advantage of it, you’ll realize the true value of the service and can’t go wrong.

ArtistWorks Adult Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lessons

In answering the call for more diversity, and the demand for those who are looking for a creative pastime during a pandemic, ArtistWorks has added a full Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lessons course to their platform.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the course is its instructor: David Butler who is the Chairman and Cofounder of ArtistWorks.

As a lifelong acoustic guitarist and one of the original engineers at AOL, he developing an industry-unique approach to online music instruction only available at ArtistWorks. Moreover, he has been awarded three US patents in the process.

Geared more towards adult beginners, the course features familiar songs and focuses on developing core skills.

With a focus on comprehensive, step by step instruction, the online guitar course is designed to help first time players avoid getting frustrated.

Access the ArtistWorks Beginner Guitar Lessons Course Here >>

ArtistWorks Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lessons Highlights:

• introductory monthly price of $35 (discounts available)
• Beginner Guitar Chords
• Guitar Tab
• Basic Music Concepts
• 100s of guitar lessons at your own pace
• Specifically geared to adult beginners
• Easy Guitar Lessons & Tunes

What’s Included with the Service?

When figuring out if ArtistWorks lessons are the best option for you, it ‘s important to consider all that’s included in your subscription.

It seems, at the moment at least, there are no ArtistWorks free trial options, making some people hesitant to purchase a subscription without a test run.

Still, there is quite a bit included in your subscription fee, which can be anywhere from $23 a month for 12 months or $35 a month for 3 months.

Most notably, the huge diversity in lessons is a huge plus, you can learn multiple guitar styles, both electric and acoustic, as well as multiple electric bass styles.

If your musical thirst still isn’t quenched, you can peruse the piano, mandolin, voice, or woodwind instrument options.

That’s a lot of musical opportunities laid out in front of you if you so choose. If diversity is of value to you, ArtistWorks may be the best guitar course for you.

While the lessons are engaging and feature quality content, one of the most endearing inclusions has to be Video Exchange which allows students to upload videos of themselves playing.

Having the ability to learn from other students while also getting or giving constructive feedback, can improve your playing, musicianship, and music communication in no time.

Features

No review of ArtistWorks online would be complete without a detailed look into what makes these included features so great. The backbone of ArtistWorks learning experience is the instructors.

Each course, aka the series of lessons for each genre, features the same instructor throughout, giving you the chance to build familiarity with the learning experience.

The lessons are typically short, ranging from a few minutes to tens of minutes, allowing even the shortest of attention spans to follow along lesson by lesson.

One thing that struck us about the lessons was the lack of follow along tablature, We don’t see any option to have it pop up while you watch a video.

Easy to follow tabs or musical notation can be a huge help for young musicians looking to follow along at their own pace and learn where the notes and frets are up and down the neck.

Access, Tutorials & How To

ArtistWorks can easily be accessed via its webpage, artistworks.com, or by googling “ArtistWorks”. Unfortunately, there is no app currently available so that you can take ArtistWorks on the go with your guitar.

Between having no app and no ArtistWorks free trial, it makes the site’s lessons somewhat inaccessible. If someone asked “what is ArtistWorks?”

I’d happily reply that it is a great online community of teachers and students but is strictly computer based, and one of the more expensive online guitar lesson options when compared to alternatives.

Overall, any type of expansion into the IOS world would likely draw in a few more users as the world moves towards more and more mobile entertainment and learning.

Alternative Sites to ArtistWorks

As you’ll find in our other reviews of TrueFire, JamPlay, Guitar Tricks, and Fender Play, there are many different options out there for guitar students looking to learn online.

For your convenience, we’ve put together a complete review of the best online guitar lessons for beginners.

JamPlay is one of many great choices with its diverse lesson options, quality instructors and great lesson toolbox to help you get the most out of each video.

JamPlay has drawn rave reviews for the number of famous musicians who have recorded lessons on how to play their own songs or techniques, something other sites, like Truefire, have begun to compete with.

Furthermore, JamPlay has the history and student testimonials to go against any of those sites. Ultimately, the choice will come down to what instructors or lesson plans you are looking for and how easily you feel you can navigate the website.

If you’re debating Fender Play or Guitar Tricks, or any of the other sites, try a 14 day Guitar Tricks free trial before investing. For those significantly worried about their budget,

Justin Guitar is one of the only completely free guitar lesson sites and should be given careful review as well.

It’s important to remember that for $23 a month, you need to make sure you are getting that much more than you do with free/cheaper sites like Justin Guitar or Fender Play.

ArtistWorks Lessons – Key Points

In Closing, Are ArtistWorks Guitar Lessons A Good Choice?

While doing the research for this ArtistWorks lessons review, we found the service to definitely be one of the most diverse and in-depth musical lesson sites we’ve discussed to date.

But in our opinion, you may have better choices depending on your preferences.

For the price, we feel you are missing too many features like follow along tablature, dedicated song lesson databases, or live lessons.

If you are or are aspiring to be a multi-instrumentalist, then this is no doubt the lesson site for you.

With many guitar, bass, woodwind, and piano lessons available, even mandolin options, you can learn a wide variety of styles and instruments that could further inspire your aspiring music career.

Without the free trial, it may make more sense for some comparison shoppers to take advantage of other sites free trials and then circle back to ArtistWorks if they don’t have what you’re looking for.

Overall, it’s still a great option, just like all the others we’ve reviewed, and especially if you want to become proficient on more than one instrument.

View the Latest ArtistWorks Deal Here! >>

The post ArtistWorks Guitar Lessons (How To Leverage Talent) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

Key features at a glance:

We certainly hope you benefit from the information we provide in this article! Just so you know, we may receive compensation if you use the links on this page. If you do, thank you so much!

Try GuitarTricks Free >>

Guitar Tricks Review – Are Their Lessons Really Worth It?

Overview

Guitar Tricks is one of the largest, and most well known online guitar lesson sites with 20+ years of guitar teaching experience. In this Guitar Tricks review we’ll go over their various video lesson selections including beginner, song, and advanced guides.

Quick Stats:

• Price: $19.95 a month, or $179 per year
• Free Trial: 14 days
• Lessons: Over 11,000
• Refund: 60 days guaranteed
• Song Tutorials: 1,000+

We’ll also look at some of the extra features that make the site so popular such as the forums, blogs, and informative videos they offer all the for the Guitar Tricks price of $19.99 per month.

With over 8000 lessons and guided programs, students should have no trouble combing through the easy to use website to find something that interests them.

Interested In Improving Your Guitar Skills?

If you’re looking for the best guitar teaching website, Guitar Tricks is certainly one of the top options. Guitar Tricks is best suited for beginners with a variety of linear learning paths aimed at teaching students the genre of their choice.

Though the paths seem limited to three major genres, the linear, step by step features make it easy to navigate the site and follow along as a student.

Some interesting features that will keep students engaged passed the beginner stage include a diverse song list and guitar style lessons.

Once you’ve progressed through the beginner stages, which takes about 4-8 weeks to finish according to Guitar Tricks, you’ll find many, interesting video lessons on a wide variety of topics on their “channel” page.

Lessons ranging from artist-specific lessons, to technical information, to in-depth jazz chord discussions should help push students forward as musicians and players.

What’s Included with Guitar Tricks?

When asking “is guitar tricks worth the money?” it’s important to first understand everything that is included in the subscription deal. In addition to linear beginner lessons for country, blues, and rock guitar, there are a wide variety of extra features.

Guitar styles lessons to expand your horizon after completing the beginner phases include world, funk, classical, and bluegrass just to name a few. And the song list features 500+ lessons for all of those same genres and styles.

Beginner Fingerpicking Lesson

When comparing Guitar Tricks vs JamPlay or Justin Guitar vs Guitar Tricks, Guitar Tricks contains more variety and quantity. If you’re pitting TrueFire vs Guitar Tricks, you’ll be happy to know Guitar Tricks features its own “In the Jam”-style tool called “Jam Station” albeit with more limited options.

Lastly, Guitar Tricks includes a diverse toolbox with scale and chord finders among other features and a helpful chat forum for students to interact, discuss, and learn from one another.

Guitar Tricks Features Overview

One of Guitar Trick’s best features is the engaging instructors and lessons. Take for example this lesson for modern alternative rock hit “Trouble” by Cage the Elephant.

Along with the video lesson you’ll find tablature, lyrics, a description of the lesson, and even gear and tone recommendations by the instructor.

All of Guitar Tricks lessons are similarly detailed and should be explored by you via a Guitar Tricks free trial before you settle on subscribing to a site.

While Guitar Tricks has an overall less diverse toolbox and no famous instructors like JamPlay and TrueFire, it has an incredibly easy to navigate web page that should make it easy for students to jump right in and begin learning guitar.

As mentioned before the Guitar Tricks “Channel” page has access to even more interesting, lessons for a variety of topics meant to enhance your experience. So how much does Guitar Tricks cost? You get access to all these lovely features for $19.99/month.

Online Tutorials & How To Access

Guitar Tricks can be easily accessed via their website, www.guitartricks.com and even has an ios application so you can take lessons on the go.

With a 4.3 rating out of 5 stars on the google play platform, it seems the app may be a reliable additional option for students interested in it.

Guitar Tricks also features a “Beginner Lessons” option right in the middle of their front page that should lead eager newcomers right to the first guitar and website tutorials available.

Even better, once you click on that selection, you’re brought to a page with a “beginners start here” option making it so easy for students to access the correct lessons.

Eddie Van Halen Artist Study

GuitarTricks: The Good and The Bad

Guitar Tricks Review – Key Points

Alternative Guitar Lessons Sites

As you’ll find in our other reviews of TrueFire, ArtistWorks, and JamPlay, there are many different options out there for guitar students looking to learn online.

JamPlay is one of many great choices with its diverse lesson options, quality instructors and great lesson toolbox to help you get the most out of each video.

JamPlay has drawn rave reviews for the number of famous musicians who have recorded lessons on how to play their own songs or techniques, something other sites, like Truefire, have begun to compete with.

Furthermore, JamPlay has the history and student testimonials to go against any of those sites. Ultimately, the choice will come down to what instructors or lesson plans you are looking for and how easily you feel you can navigate the website.

If you’re debating Fender Play or Guitar Tricks, or any of the other sites, try a 14 day Guitar Tricks free trial before investing.

For those significantly worried about their budget, Justin Guitar is one of the only completely free guitar lesson sites and should be given careful review as well.

Final Thoughts: Is Guitar Tricks the Right Lessons Site for You?

You definitely can’t go wrong if you choose Guitar Tricks for your online lesson needs and it rates as one of the best guitar teaching websites.

Thanks to diverse lessons and song options there should be something for every guitar student on Guitar Tricks. The only issue is that the cost of a Guitar Tricks subscription, about $20 per month, may create a financial barrier for some students.

With cheaper options like the free Justin Guitar or $10 per month Fender Play sites, Guitar Tricks certainly has to continue to add bells and whistles to its Jam Station, channel, and blog features.

While the lessons don’t have as complete a toolbox or interface as JamPlay, we think Guitar Tricks features more diversity in its lessons and content.

If you’re still not convinced, take the 14 day free trial to sift through all the information and see why Guitar Tricks prioritizes its students making music on day one.

Overall, Guitar Tricks is an awesome choice for you or the guitar student in your life as long as you’re willing to pay the price.

Check Out GuitarTricks.com Free >>

The post Guitar Tricks Review (Can Their Lessons Make You “Almost Famous”?) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

JamPlay vs Guitar Tricks: Which Guitar Lessons Website is Right for You?

While both make excellent options, let’s pit JamPlay vs Guitar Tricks and compare them side by side to see which one is best for learning guitar or bass.

Both sites offer technique, song, and genre-specific lessons taught via videos including tabs, musical notation, and close ups of the finger positioning.

Both sites also feature good guitar lessons for beginners and guides from famous guitarists alongside dedicated, professional guitar teachers.

But which is the better choice?

We certainly hope you benefit from the information we provide in this article! Just so you know, we may receive compensation if you use the links on this page. If you do, thank you so much!

JamPlay vs GuitarTricks Quick Comparison:

Breaking Down The Details of JamPlay and Guitar Tricks Lessons

Before we get started, let’s go over how we’re going to compare and judge the two sites against each other.

We’ll be comparing both the features and appearance of the websites as how we imagine a beginner and an experienced player will view them.

Furthermore, you want to make sure you’re getting a good value for your Guitar Tricks subscription or JamPlay membership cost, so we’ll be sure to pick the winner that offers the best features for the price.

For example, an experienced guitar player is more likely to be impressed by number of songs or technical lessons available while a beginner will be looking for an easy to follow set of introductory steps or lessons.

The major criteria will be how easy it is to navigate each page, how many features and lessons are available, and how easy each video is to follow. Without further ado, let’s dig into this Guitar Tricks vs JamPlay review.

Guitar Teachers and Basic Lesson Plans

No matter how easy the user interface is, the site will ultimately only be as good as the teachers who are teaching the lessons.

The teacher’s ability to communicate the importance of each technique or lesson and how it pertains to the overall lesson plan is vital.

Without being able to see progress on the instrument and through each site’s student path, beginners are likely to get frustrated, or lose interest. So, let’s see who has the better teachers and lesson plans: JamPlay vs Guitar Tricks.

JAMPLAY

JamPlay Beginner Lessons

Our first impression while doing this JamPlay review was that the instructor list features a lot of big-name guitar players who teach either techniques or their own songs.

While it can be really inspiring and motivational to players to learn from their heroes, We feel this feature has more marketing value than teaching value. The basic lesson play is split into 4 phases, 1-Beginner, 2-Genres & Skills, 3-Songs, and 4-Songwriting.

We really like the flow of this order and think it makes it easy for the student to accumulate skills while constantly using them or learning them in a new context such as “here is a country riff, now let’s play it in a popular country song, finally, let’s write a song featuring this riff”.

Furthermore, the instructors in the beginner series videos we reviewed spoke slowly and clearly, demonstrating years of experience teaching the guitar. However, there are multiple options and pathways for each phase and level which can be confusing or redundant.

For further insight into lessons providers, check out our article comparing JamPlay and Justin Guitar.

GUITAR TRICKS

Guitar Tricks CORE Learning System

Featuring less recognizable guitar instructors, Guitar Tricks seems to prioritize concise, easy to use features over the name recognition and flair of JamPlay.

Guitar Tricks bases their lessons around their “core learning system”. While JamPlay offers multiple different beginner options from different teachers, Guitar Tricks slowly and easily takes you through all the basics with one teacher, and one set of classes, one core step at a time, offering a simple way to play guitar.

We personally believe this linear learning path is much easier for beginners and students as they don’t have to choose from a number of options that they may not be able to differentiate between.

Keeping the same instructor through first lesson step can help breed familiarity and continuity as the student progresses through the most essential part of learning the guitar.

If you’re going to pay the Guitar Tricks subscription cost of $19.99 per month, you should get access to the easiest path to learning guitar.

Winner: GUITAR TRICKS

User Interface

When learning guitar, there are enough small things to frustrate and discourage you enough to quite altogether. One thing that can easily make it worse on a student is a hard to navigate website or lesson plan.

Even for experienced players, you don’t want to have to spend too much time trying to figure out to how to find your way around the song lesson pages or figuring out how to slow down the video or where the tabs load from.

JAMPLAY

JamPlay Account

Overall, the user interface is not difficult to navigate whatsoever, but we wish there was more of an emphasis on getting started with lessons. Once you scroll down a little bit, the viewer is bombarded with course options that don’t seem to tie in together at all based on genre, style, or difficulty.

Once you get to the lessons tab on top of the site, the four phases are easily laid out and you are directed to the homepage for each phase.

However, as we mentioned before, it can be a little bit overwhelming to a new student as there are about two dozen options, split between acoustic and electric guitar.

This site puts the onus on the student to find out which path is best suited for them and the page layout further emphasizes that.

GUITAR TRICKS

Guitar Tricks Home

The home page on Guitar Tricks is set up with a much more user-friendly appearance in our opinion with the left side of the page featuring an easy to read menu.

Better yet, the center of the page features four, large, clickable options for beginner lessons, experienced lessons, learning songs, or learning styles. Once you click on the beginner lessons, it then directs you to the easy to follow core system, with a labeled starting point that says, “start here”.

Even better, on the same page, there are sections for tuning your guitar, practicing, and learning songs below the main core system. We strongly feel if we were starting today, this site would be more appealing based strictly on the appearance and usability.

Keep in mind the guitar lessons landscape is always changing. For a look at where online lessons may be headed, check out our article comparing Fender Play and Guitar Tricks.

Winner: GUITAR TRICKS

Tools and Learning Aids

Along with all the videos and great teachers that makes these sites great, the real value lies within the tools they offer via the website.

Things like tabs that pop up next to the video, the ability to slow down/speed up the pace, built in tuners, or chord finders are all invaluable to students.

JAMPLAY

JamPlay Video Lessons

JamPlay has a very easy to use toolbox that is located right below the video screen of each lesson. It’s simple to find and shouldn’t be too confusing for students as it has helpful labels and links to multiple features.

Students can hit the clearly labeled “Ask A Teacher” button for additional help, take their own notes in “notes”, and control playback speed with an adjustable clicker among many others.

While we have not been thrilled with their home screen and lesson selection user interface, this is clearly a top-notch video lesson webpage. Tools like this are the easiest way to play guitar while you learn.

GUITAR TRICKS

GuitarTricks Lesson Tutorials

The toolbox and lesson interface for Guitar Tricks is much more stripped down and simple than JamPlay which some students or experienced players may prefer.

As someone who has been playing guitar for years, we appreciated the simple screen setup that only has options for slowing down the video speed, while the tab pops up on a screen next to it.

For beginners, it doesn’t have quite the options and resources of the rival JamPlay but it still certainly is enjoyable and informative.

Winner: JAMPLAY

Available Song Lessons

Last but not least, if you’re going to be shelling out your hard-earned money to learn your favorite songs, you expect at least some of those songs to be available on the platform.

JAMPLAY

JamPlay Song Library

While licensing and tablature rights can get legally tricky, JamPlay still appears to have a questionably low number of songs available for its students to learn; somewhere in the range of 200-300 by our hand count.

Hard rock and heavy metal are well represented, as are The Beatles but overall the selection is lot on many classic and modern rock hits such as guitar lesson staples “Wonderwall” or “Good Riddance”.

Blues and Country are similarly understaffed as a dozen or more of the instructor’s original pieces take up valuable space, not something that really justifies the Jamplay membership cost.

A diverse list of songs is a critical part of intermediate guitar lessons, as students begin to advance from the beginner stage.

GUITAR TRICKS

Guitar Tricks Song Library

With over 700 song lessons available, Guitar Tricks is off to a good start in making sure your favorite song or at the very least, band, is represented.

The site also offers a more diverse group of styles such as world, surf, and funk music that JamPlay does not. Specifically, the “Top Hits” includes a great selection of the site’s most popular lessons, including some made easier for the student.

Even just the rock section is wildly more variable with everything from modern day indie rock like Cage the Elephant, to pop rock such as Elton John. When comparing Guitar Tricks vs Jamplay, the former takes the cake here.

Winner: GUITAR TRICKS

Final Recount:

Conclusion: Which Is The Better Lessons Site – JamPlay or Guitar Tricks?

There are a lot of features between these two sites that weren’t compared head to head because of similarities.

First off, looking for the best online guitar instruction, both sites have readily accessible and highly rate IOS apps that can be used to learn on the go or reference while practicing.

Secondly the Guitar Tricks cost and JamPlay cost are identical at $19.99 a month for the basic subscription plans, with yearly subscriptions also available. Both of the sites also offer basic tools such as guitar tuners, chord finders, and discussion forums or group chats.

For those looking for a bargain, a JamPlay or Guitar Tricks free trial is one option if you want to try before you buy (or steal a free month) and every so often coupons will pop up, sometimes associated with reviews.

So which is better, Jamplay or Guitar Tricks?

Guitar Tricks won three out of the four categories, making it far and away the most impressive of the two and our ultimate recommendation to anyone deciding between the two.

Overall Winner:

Overall, we believe you can’t go too wrong with either option based on the number of commonalities between the two as well as the popularity of both, but Guitar Tricks clearly has the upper hand based on song options, user interface, and linear lesson plans.

That wraps up our JamPlay vs Guitar Tricks review, let us know which one you think is the better value or if you learned through either platform.

VISIT GUITAR TRICKS TODAY >>

The post JamPlay vs Guitar Tricks (Which One Has The Secret Sauce?) first appeared on GuitarNiche.

Key features at a glance:

Try Fender Play Free Here >>

Learning Guitar Online with Fender Play: Read This First!

We certainly hope you benefit from the information we provide in this article! Just so you know, we may receive compensation if you use the links on this page. If you do, thank you so much!

Fender Play Overview

Fender Play is a rather new entry into the online guitar lesson competition. While it doesn’t have the rich teaching history of Guitar Tricks or JamPlay, it does offer detailed courses for modern guitar students.

Featuring multiple young instructors, Fender Play is a video-based lesson system that offers students a linear teaching plan based on the style of music you wish to learn.

Fender Play Key Stats:

• Lessons Taken : 55,000,000
• App Store Rating: 4.8
• Development: 30,000+ Hours
• Available Lessons: 3,000 and counting…

Lessons often focus on using popular songs or riffs to teach basic guitar techniques while also introducing players to the different types of Fender guitar lines, pickups, and features.

Follow along as we here at Guitar Niche perform a thorough Fender Play review and let us know if you think it is worth the subscription cost!

Fender Play Paths

Who Is Fender Play For?

Fender Play is unique in the sense that while it is certainly a beginner-oriented site, it generally targets anyone buying or playing Fender guitars.

In fact, almost all new Fender or Squier guitars come with 6 months of free access to Fender Play meaning that even an experienced player like me may hop on the web page to check out specific song or high-level technique lessons.

Fender Play comes from a brand still making history at its grass roots.

The lessons are especially easy to follow for new students and the user interphase is built around a simple, linear lesson plan.

Due to the ease of use and limited song lesson selection, Fender play is ideal for true beginners and more of a non-essential supplement for others.

At $9.99 a month, it is certainly accessible to all players and is much more affordable than the $19.99 per month when comparing Fender Play vs JamPlay or Fender Play vs Guitar Tricks.

What’s Included with the Service?

Before you decide whether this lesson plan is for you or not, you may be wondering: How long is the Fender Play free trial?

Everyone gets a free two weeks period when signing up to look around, check out videos, and become familiar with the set-up which can be really useful when shopping around for the right fit.

If you go out and buy a Fender or Squier guitar to learn on, that two-week trail can get an additional free 6 months of Fender play which can save you a ton of money and add significant value to your new instrument purchase.

Once you’ve signed up there are number of great tools and lessons available to you including guitar, bass, and ukulele tuners, informative articles, gear demos, along with the video lessons.

In addition to enjoying the easy guitar lessons for beginners, you can also skip ahead to browsing their list of popular song lessons including hits ranging from Marvin Gaye to Taylor Swift to The Rolling Stones.

By hand count, it seems there are around 700 song lessons for guitar, bass, and ukulele, however some of these lessons are only the main riff and not the full song.

Overview of Fender Play Features

The best feature about Fender Play has to be in the in depth and easy to follow lessons you’ll find under the “My Path” tab on the left side of the screen.

The “My Path” section walks you through 5 levels of lessons that get more and more difficult as you progress mixing in basic guitar lessons such as chord and scale structures with famous guitar riffs or songs that demonstrate their usage.

One of our favourite parts of these levels was how informative they were about guitar technique such as telling you the importance of strumming right as opposed to only telling you that you need to strum correctly.

You learn how to play music as well as the guitar

The inclusion of famous songs and riffs in the lessons as you learn also should help motivate students and keep them focused on learning how to make music with the guitar, not just how to play the guitar.

Each video lesson has helpful and accessible tabs below the lesson screen for tags, tools, and external links as well as three screen images to help you learn.

One screen focuses on the picking hand, one on the fretting hand, and a smaller one shows the whole video.

Tutorials & How To Access

Fender Play guitar lessons are incredibly easy to access by visiting www.Fender.com/play or simply searching “Fender Play” on your preferred web browser.

Furthermore, this site, like most, requires no downloads and takes up no valuable desktop or application space on your computer.

Conveniently, Fender Play also has an app meaning you can learn on a phone or tablet and take lessons to go if needed.

Fender Play: The Good and The Bad

Fender Play Review – Key Points

Online Guitar Lessons Alternatives

As you’ll find in our other reviews of TrueFire, ArtistWorks, or Guitar Tricks, there are many different options out there for guitar students looking to learn online.

Fender Play is no doubt a great choice with its modern, easy to access web design and streamlined lesson plans, but it does lack some of features of the other sites.

JamPlay has drawn raves reviews for the number of famous musicians who have recorded lessons on how to play their own songs or techniques and all three of those sites have a much longer history of success and peer review.

Ultimately, the choice will come down to what instructors or web page you find most engaging, for me, that was Fender Play.

Final Thoughts: Does Fender Play Offer Good Value?

Ultimately, I find Fender Play to be growing rapidly, as the number of song lessons seems to have doubled since I first visited the site over a year ago.

Fender Play simply has one of the easiest to follow and aesthetically pleasing web sites out of all online lesson options, something that is sure to attract and engage visitors.

Fender Play simply has one of the easiest to follow and aesthetically pleasing web sites out of all online lesson options, something that is sure to attract and engage visitors.

You get a free kick-start, and an affordable subscription

When you combine the two-week Fender Play free trial, 6-month subscription that comes with new Fender guitars, and the affordable $9.99 a month cost, there is just a ton of surplus value here.

The lessons are shot with high definition video quality and feature a young, diverse, and exciting array of instructors that represents the modern-day guitar community phenomenally.

Overall, I think Fender Play has the potential to be the best of all four sites mentioned if it continues to add songs and lessons at this rate making it the most fun and educational site for online lessons.

Get 50% Off Fender Play >> Use Code “learntoplay50“

The post Fender Play Review (Are The Lessons Helpful Or Hype?) first appeared on GuitarNiche.