Jamorama Guitar Lessons Review: Online Guitar Lesson Reviews

Hello and welcome to my Jamorama guitar lessons review.

I have been using Jamorama for a couple of weeks now and have thoroughly checked it out.

In this review I will look at:

• The pros and cons
• Who Jamorama is best suited to
• How Jamorama works;
• A comprehensive rating of Jamorama;
• The price and whether or not it is value-for-money
• My final verdict

O.k. let’s get rolling.

Overview

Product being reviewed: Jamorama
Overall Ranking:?79/100
Price: $12.95/month or $79 per year
Website: www.Jamorama.com

Disclosure: This a professional review site that receives compensation from the companies whose products we review.

The Pros and Cons

Pros

• Well Organized Lessons
• Really Easy to follow
• Jam Sessions at the end of each set of lessons
• Fantastic for Beginner to Intermediate Guitarists
• Instructor is a like-able friendly guy
• Great technique emphasized from the beginning

Cons

• Only 1 instructor
• Not a massive amount of material
• Not many different genres
• Not a lot for the more advanced guitarist
• Song lessons are hidden (but they are there)

Who Jamorama is Best Suited to

Beginners

In my opinion Jamorama is great for beginner to intermediate guitarists or for self-taught guitarists who need to fill in the gaps in their learning.

If you are the latter you can probably get through these courses fairly quickly.

If you are just starting out this is going to be the best course for you, in my opinion – see the final verdict below for more on that.

Advanced

it’s probably not the best if you are already a pretty decent guitarist who has already had structured tuition and who is looking to expand on their abilities. There?s probably still some stuff there but in my opinion there are better online guitar lesson providers for you.

Genres

Also if you are looking to go into depth for a particular style of music then I would look for something else – like Jamplay or Guitartricks.

There is some introduction to some genres but that isn?t the strength of Jamorama.

Budget

If you?re budget conscious then this is going to definitely be your best bet (assuming you are also a beginner to intermediate guitarist as discussed above). it’s really reasonably priced – see below for prices.

Heard enough? Want to see how it works for yourself? Check out the link below to learn more and for a free trial:

>> Jamorama Online Guitar Lessons Free Trial

How Jamorama Works

The first thing that I was impressed with when I first logged in after signing up was the ease of navigation of the site. it’s really easy to find what you want in the drop down menu at the top of the page.

Jamorama is broken down into a number of different courses, namely:

• Beginner Guitar Method Stage 1 (beginner)
• Beginner Guitar Method Stage 2 (beginner)
• Beginner Guitar Chords Series (beginner)
• The Blues Guitar Breakthrough (intermediate/advanced)
• Fingerstyle Guitar (intermediate)
• Lead Guitar for Beginners (intermediate)
• The 1 Hour Workout (intermediate/advanced)
• Speed picking (intermediate/advanced)
• Guitar Theory made even easier (intermediate)

The Structure

Each course is made up of several lessons and in the beginner courses these are broken down into ?weeks?.

For each week there are a number of short lessons. So, for example, week 1 might have 30 minutes worth of video but it’s broken down into short lessons ranging from 2-6mins each.

As is the beauty of online guitar lessons you could choose to do 1 or 2 small lessons per day and take it slow or you could do week 1?s lessons in a day.

Of course being online lessons these ?weeks? are pretty loose and you can spend as long or as short a time on them as you need.

Jam Sessions

At the end of each week there is a jam session where you can play along with a backing track.

This is great for training your rhythm and for practicing what you?ve learnt during the week in a fun way.

Exercise Files

For each week there is a PDF file that goes with the lesson which you can read along with as you watch the video. I found this very handy to have there.

Using this and the videos (which you can pause and replay as much as you need) makes the lessons really easy to follow.

O.k. let’s have a look at each of these courses in a bit more detail.

Beginner Guitar Method Stage 1

This course starts out with the very basics but by the end of the 5 weeks this course you’ll be jamming several chord?progressions?with a backing track and even jamming a couple of easy riffs.

Emphasis at the start of the course is on good picking technique, good strumming technique and good fingering technique. This is all important stuff and if you can get this right it will make the rest of your learning process much better and easier.

Beginner Guitar Method Stage 2

In stage 2 you build on what you learnt in stage 1.

This course introduces:

• several new chords (including barre chords and 7^th chords)
• new picking patterns
• new techniques
• new riffs
• more rhythm work
• introduction to blues, rock and country styles

Beginner Guitar Chords Series

As the name suggests this course takes you through a number of different chords and also comes with the Jamorama Chord Book.

O.k. Let’s break up this text with a video!

The Blues Breakthrough

This course builds on the Introduction to Blues – ?which?was part of the?Beginner Method Stage 2.

It teaches you all about blues intros, walking blues, blues chords and more advanced blues techniques.

Fingerstyle Guitar

This course starts out teaching you the very basics of playing fingertsyle (using all of the fingers on your right hand as opposed to using a pick or just picking with one finger).

It progresses through and should get you to an advanced-intermediate stage of fingerpicking.

The 1 Hour Workout

This is something a little bit unique to Jamorama that I haven’t seen with other guitar lesson providers – or at least not exactly this kind of thing.

The 1 hour workout is a practice thing you can do and it takes you through:

• Warm up exercises
• Strengthening exercises
• Scales training; and
• Strumming training

If you?re really serious about becoming a good guitarist then something like this is going to really help you to improve if you can?make it a regular part of your guitar practice.

This kind of feels like a boot camp for improving your guitar!

I liked this so much I?ve started incorporating this into my own routine.

Speed Picking

This, as it sounds, is all about picking and how to increase the speed of your picking. This is the shortest course by a good bit but shows some good techniques and exercises for adding speed to your playing.

Guitar Theory made even easier

This is by no means a complete course on musical theory. It covers some of the basics to get you going and it’s taught in relation to the guitar.

What is there is taught in a way that is easy to grasp but it’s just an overview of the basics of theory really.

Songs

There are song lessons – and good ones at that – but they?re just a little hard to find. They are hidden within the blog section of the website.

This is all very well but I?d like to see these song lessons organized and included in the drop down menu so that you can search for them.

Of course there are songs to learn within the lessons as you go too but it would be good to see the songs in the blog more easily searchable.

Comprehensive Rating

O.k. let’s see how Jamorama did in my comprehensive rating system.

let’s take a quick look at each factor that was rated:

Quantity/Thoroughness of Lessons

Points Allocated: 15

Guitar Tricks (GT) Points scored: 9/15

Compared to some other online guitar lesson providers there?s not a huge amount of stuff there overall but the beginner material is extremely thorough and quality.

Quality of Lessons

Points Allocated: 15

GT Points scored: 14/15

Whilst there?s not that much there, what is there is good quality stuff.

Number of Instructors

Points Allocated: 5

GT points scored: 1/5

There?s just the one instructor. The downside of this is that if you don?t like the guy you?re stuck with him. It also means that you are only getting the knowledge of one guitarist and no matter how good that guitarist is he or she can only know so much.

Fortunately, in my opinion, the one guy you do get is pretty likeable and very knowledgeable – and there is a team behind him.

Quality of Instructors

Points Allocated: 15

GT points scored: 15/15

As mentioned above you only get one, but that one has been a professional guitarist for 24 years and has been teaching the guitar for 20 years.

I also found him to be a friendly likeable guy who explains things very clearly and patiently.

Variety of Material

Points Allocated: 10

GT points scored: 5.5/10

Compared to some other lesson providers there?s not a huge amount of variety. The stuff for the beginner is extremely thorough and there?s heaps there.

Amongst that and outside of that there is some introduction to some styles and some stuff for the more advanced player but not that much.

There are song lessons. But they?re hidden away in the blog. These are great lessons and I learned ?Dock of the Bay? by Otis Reading which was the latest song to be posted at the time I am writing this.

It would be nice to see these songs organized and searchable as one of the main courses in the drop down menu.

Ease of Following the Lessons

Points Allocated: 15

GT points scored: 15/15

I found the lessons super easy to follow just playing them through. And remember that you can pause and replay stuff as much as you want with online lessons so that makes it really easy to follow.

On top of that the lessons are structured really well so you won’t get lost as to where you are or the lesson you should go to next.

Enjoyment of the Lessons

Points Allocated: 5

GT points scored: 5/5

I really enjoyed these lessons. To me they have the right balance of getting to the point but covering everything that needs to be covered. And like I?ve said the guy is likeable so that always makes it easier too.

Theory

Points Allocated: 10

GT points scored: 6/10

As outlined above there is a section on theory and naturally there are theoretical elements scattered through the lessons but it only really touches on the basics, the bare essentials in theory.

If that’s all you want to know then that’s great but it’s sometimes nice to know in more detail.

Support & Community

Points Allocated: 5

GT points scored: 3.5/5

There is no forum as such – but there is an active blog – and like I mentioned above the blog also has plenty of lessons in there – lessons for learning songs which are really good but a bit hidden.

I have chatted with a couple of the guys that run Jamorama and they?ve always been friendly and accommodating so the support is good from what I?ve experienced.

Price/Payment Structure

Points Allocated: 5

GT points scored: 5/5

You can either join up for monthly or yearly and with yearly you’ll get a per-month discount (as is usually the case with these things).

Monthly: $12.95

Yearly: $79.95

that’s the cheapest I?ve seen (apart from free lessons of course, but you won’t get free lessons of this quality). And if you go for a year it works out at less than $7 per month! that’s pretty extraordinary.

If you got in-person lessons you?d pay that whole $79.95 in just one month and wouldn’t learn nearly as much.

You get access to everything there is – there aren’t any up-sells or anything annoying like that.

You also get a 60 day money back guarantee which is awesome. You can try it out for 2 months to see if you like what you are getting if you don?t then you can get your money back. that’s sounds pretty low risk to me!

Value for Money?

You don?t get as much as you might with the likes of Jamplay or Guitartricks but what you do get is quality – and you pay less, so it evens out.

So do I think it’s value for money?

Absolutely. There?s nothing more affordable than this that I?ve seen.

If you are an advanced guitarist you won’t get as much value out of it – but if you are a beginner, then I truly don?t think you could get better value anywhere else for quality beginner lessons.

My Final Verdict and Recommendations

Jamorama?s score of 79/100 may not make it sound like a very good lesson program. However, this is because this rating system does rate for the amount of material. Whilst Jamorama doesn’t have a lot of material compared to others, what they do have is quality.

And because there isn?t a massive amount of stuff, it isn?t cluttered or confusing – as some others can be if you are just starting out on guitar.

For Beginners

This is THE # 1 course for beginners in my opinion. It may not have the same material for more advanced players but purely for the beginner this is number 1.

If you spend a year with Jamorama you will come out of it being a really solid intermediate to advanced guitarist with good technique.

There?s no mucking around trying to find where to start or which instructor to use. You just go to the drop down menu choose the first course and work your way through it.

And the money you have to invest? Very little – which makes it even better for the beginner who may not be willing to invest too much into guitar just yet or may not be willing to invest too much for their kid to learn guitar.

My suggestion

My tactic would be to use Jamorama for the first year or so of your guitar journey (depending on how fast you advance) and then move to either Guitar Tricks or Jamplay to expand into different areas. I think this would be an awesome way to become a really good guitarist really quickly.

Of course you will still have the benefit of using everything you were taught at Jamorama even as you progress including incorporating the 1 hour workout into your practice.

This may sound like a complicated way to do it but I think it would be beneficial.

Why not just stick with Guitar Tricks or Jamplay for the whole time?

You could and that wouldn’t be a bad thing but I think Jamorama gives you the best possible start and why not get the best possible start – particularly when it’s the cheapest possible start!

Over to You

Thanks for reading and I hope this review has helped you in your search for the best online guitar lessons. If you think Jamorama might be right for you can either check out some of their free stuff to see if it’s right for you or get started straight away and join up at the links below.

• Try for Free

• Get Full Access

You may have head Guitar Tricks and Jamplay being mentioned a lot in this review. If you want to check out my reviews on those guitar lesson providers check out the links below.

• Guitar Tricks Review

• Jamplay Review

Related Articles:

Jamplay Guitar Lessons Review: Online Guitar Lesson Review Series Online Guitar Lessons for Beginners – The Many Options Guitar Tricks Review: Online Guitar Lesson Reviews + Guitar Tricks Price Online Guitar Lessons Vs In Person Guitar Lessons: The Pros And Cons Jamplay Vs Guitartricks: Which is Better?