This Jamorama review is based on my own experience of working through the entire course of online guitar lessons from Jamorama. I'm not a beginner guitarist (I've been playing for several years), but as Jamorama is among the most popular online guitar courses available, I wanted to check it out to see if it was worth recommending on my guitar site – and of course it never hurts to revisit the fundamentals too! My overall impression of the course is a positive one, but I don't think that it's the best choice for everyone, and this review explains why.
What Is Jamorama?
Jamorama is a course of downloadable guitar lessons which teach you to play rhythm guitar, as well as general musicianship – so you learn chords, progressions, reading tab and basic notation, basic music theory (including scales and chord construction), playing along with a band, various rhythmic patterns and strumming techniques, ear training and more. It doesn't really cover lead guitar techniques; the follow up course, Jamorama Lead, is designed to build on this one and teach solo guitar playing.
The materials are delivered in text, video and audio format, and there are several software bonuses which complement the main course. You get: - Jamorama Maestro software – enables you to access all of the lessons in sequence, and plays the relevant audio and video tracks
- Jamorama Books 1 & 2 – in digital text format, with full colour photos and illustrations. Most of the music is notated in tab (basic traditional notation is introduced, but you don't need it to play the material in the course). There are 15 lessons in Book 1, and 29 in Book 2
- Video lessons – video instruction for each new chord and exercise, showing the correct positions for both hands, the fretboard and other information
- Audio jam tracks – enable you to practice playing with others, in a variety of musical styles
Plus there are some bonuses too:- GuitEarIt! – ear training software to improve your aural skills – vital if you want to be able to play by ear or improvise
- Jamorama Metronome – makes it easy to practice playing in time
- Jayde Musica – a software game to help you learn to read music quickly and easily
- Guitar Tuner Pro – simple software that helps you to tune your guitar accurately to a variety of tunings
- How To Tune Your Guitar – PDF guide to various tuning methods
- Advanced Learning Techniques For Guitar – PDF guide to learning more quickly and effectively
- Free access to SongPond – 30 days free membership to the SongPond website, which offers video tutorials showing you how to play a large range of popular songs on guitar or piano
There's also a member's only forum on the Jamorama site, and the course is fully guaranteed for eight weeks after purchase – so you can try it with confidence.
Is It A Good Quality Course?
So you get a lot of learning material, but is it actually any good? For the most part, I'm impressed with the quality of the Jamorama materials. The software all runs smoothly, the books are well written and clearly presented, the audio is professionally recorded, and the videos are just excellent. I also had no problems with downloading the course after making my payment, and the website is easy to navigate. It's not perfect however; I didn't really like reading off the screen especially when a jam track was more than one page long), so I ended up printing the text out. Also, I've noticed a few typos in the course text, which are potentially misleading, and it's a shame to see these in such an otherwise good product. Still, anyone who's paying attention to what they're learning should easily spot them.
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