jamplay vs guitar tricks

JamPlay vs Guitar Tricks: Which Platform Is Best?

Before we get too deep into this review, you should be aware that Guitar Tricks is the older site between the two, as it was established in 1998.

Some people will go as far to claim that Guitar Tricks (affiliate link) actually created online guitar lessons. JamPlay came to light after Guitar Tricks and actually set out to outgrow Guitar Tricks.

From a beginner guitarist perspective, we wanted to compare JamPlay and Guitar Tricks to see if one site happened to be better than other in terms of educational value, cost, and learning quality. We wanted to observe to see if a novice guitarist would be able to properly learn how to play guitar with these sites and for what price.

As mentioned before, Jam Play and Guitar Tricks are the two sites that we are comparing. JamPlay is a website that provides users with online video tutorials for guitar for around $11 a month, if you end up choosing the annual membership.

This is much cheaper than going with a personal guitar teacher, since prices for personal guitar teachers start at about $55 an hour.

Bottom Line Up Front Summary: While both platforms are geared towards beginners, the more user-friendly, organized and guided learning process is GuitarTricks here (my personal pick). That said, if you prefer to mix and match your own courses and can’t commit to sticking the course, JamPlay has a “choose your own adventure” advantage. 

Main Differences Between JamPlay vs GuitarTricks

The main differences between JamPlay and Guitar Tricks are:

  • Guitar Tricks let’s you download lessons online to your local device, whereas JamPlay requires you to use their system
  • Guitar Tricks is more suited for beginners just starting out, whereas JamPlay is better for more self-paced ad hoc styles of play
  • Guitar Tricks offers 60 days to refund, whereas JamPlay only offers 30 days to refund
Better Pick
I Personally Prefer GuitarTricks

I like GuitarTricks because they have an easy to learn system with many different options for different STYLES of play. Other programs are really only geared towards casual learners, but GuitarTricks covers the whole spectrum.

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About Jam Play Online Guitar Lesson Platform

jamplay

JamPlay has a great selection of scales in a library, which is a great tool to have if you’re a beginner or advanced musician (advanced player). When comparing the video quality to Guitar Tricks, Jam Play has a better overall video quality than Guitar Tricks does.

Jam Play has beginner lessons online that are categorized by the different teachers and the different guitar types that Jam Play has to offer. Each different teacher has a set of specific lessons for beginners, so if you’re looking for a certain type of consistency, that isn’t really what Jam Play offers.

Each guitar lesson varies in length, depending upon who the teacher is and what the teacher is teaching. If you’re worried about going with an online lesson site (video lesson) and not learning guitar with an instructor, there are a good handful of benefits with using JamPly.

The teachers at Jam Play will answer any personal questions that you write in a personal letter, if your question isn’t answered in one of the guitar lesson videos that Jam Play offers.

Whether you’re looking to learn how electric guitar or acoustic guitar, Jam Play has a three skills level learning process for all of their users:

  • A basic course that covers all the fundamental parts for beginners (electric guitar and acoustic online lessons)
  • Style classes for specific genres/styles of music (rock, blues, folk, etc…)
  • Leaning how to play specific songs
  • A metronome
  • Chord book
  • Interactive learning games incorporated into online guitar lesson offerings
  • Backing tracks player

Jam Play also has advanced lessons for established musicians to be able to learn and advance with. My favorite part about Jam Play is that they even have live webcam lessons (two-way video live lessons), where you actually get to interact with your instructor. Through some of these lessons, you also get the ability to learn how to copy a specific musician’s unique sound, style and techniques.

After you surpass beginner’s courses, Jam Play has a lot of different song lesson choices for you to pick from.

They actually have more choices than Guitar Tricks. You even have the ability to pick what genre you want to learn in and pick which instructor you want you to teach you said genre. Jam Play is a site that’s better for advanced musicians to use.

Overall, Jam Play has amazing functionality, which provides users with thousands of video lessons. There is a huge selection of games and guitar tools that you can use online, which really helps with your learning process.

I didn’t like that you are unable to download the video clips on your computer or your laptop, as you can with Guitar Tricks.

I also didn’t like that even though that Jam Play has a large selection of teachers, a lot of the teachers teach the same thing.

Interesting Read: What are the Best JamPlay Alternatives?

About Guitar Tricks

guitar tricks core learning system

On Guitar Tricks, most of the guitar tools and videos lessons are downloadable to your device, so if you aren’t connected to the Internet, you can still learn. You can’t download any songs, however, because of problems with licensing.

For any new members, you can try Guitar Tricks free trial membership for fourteen days, where you will get full access to all of the tools and lessons that Guitar Tricks has to offer to users.

When it comes to the song selection that Guitar Tricks has to offer, this site actually does more lessons with songs that are more recent and more popular. On the other hand, we have Guitar Tricks.

Guitar Tricks is also a website that provides online guitar lessons; this is a gigantic website that has thousands of video lessons that teacher several different skill level, genres, and playing styles. Guitar Tricks has a large variety of downloadable guitar tools for you to use when you’re not connected to the internet. These tools include:

Once you start off with GuitarTricks as a brand new beginner, you’re going to go through with their core learning system, which is a system that was very well thought out to get a beginning guitarist to an intermediate skill level.

If you are an advanced guitarist, Guitar Tricks offers a search function that allows you to look for lessons in the styles of well famous guitar players; this part of Guitar Tricks is known as “By Inspiration” and it allows you to find songs performed by these said guitarists.

There are several techniques that are covered at Guitar Tricks; there are modules that focus on the exact playing style of these megastars and cover artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Chet Atkins.

I thought that the core learning system for beginning musicians was really great; Guitar Tricks produced short lessons that didn’t get too complex or boring.

All of the guitar lessons and guitar tools that are on the Guitar Tricks website are completely downloadable, so if you ever don’t have an internet connection and want to keep learning how to play, just download your lessons! The program is really affordable, especially since you can download off of the website; you’re only paying $15 a month!

The only thing that I didn’t really like about Guitar Tricks is that there are some very old video lessons on there that are comprised of very low production quality, but there are only a handful of these videos- I would say about two or three videos have this problem.

Interesting Read: How to Find the Best Guitar Tricks Alternatives.

Which Site is Better? Jam Play or Guitar Tricks? Pros and Cons?

Jam Play VS Guitar Tricks- Which Platform Is Better To Learn On?

Personally, I think that Guitar Tricks (affiliate link) is a better site to learn guitar on. While Jam Play and Guitar Tricks are the two biggest guitar learning websites in the world, Guitar Tricks really beats out Jam Play.

The Guitar Tricks app has a class that’s been designed specifically for beginners, that has step by step instructions to make sure that the learning guitar process goes nice and slow. With Guitar Tricks, each lesson builds on top of the previous lesson, which means that this site has a whole lot of information to offer beginners.

The video lessons that Guitar Tricks has to offer are short, sweet, and to the point.

The beginner’s section for Guitar Tricks is easier to follow than JamPlay lessons, as Guitar Trick’s beginners’ section has had a whole lot of time going into it, making it really easy to navigate through step by step. This makes the entire site much more appealing.

If you’re a beginning guitar player, I would highly recommend that you start out with Guitar Tricks.

However, both of these sites are designed for people of all advancement levels (skill level), not just beginners.

Both of these sites have great beginner’s sections, but Guitar Tricks provides users with a straight and narrow path of education to keep playing the guitar on, while Jam Play will let you wander off and make your own decisions.

Conclusion: Guitar Tricks or JamPlay?

Better Pick
I Personally Prefer GuitarTricks

I like GuitarTricks because they have an easy to learn system with many different options for different STYLES of play. Other programs are really only geared towards casual learners, but GuitarTricks covers the whole spectrum.

Sign up for GuitarTricks Use code NEWYEAR24 to Save!
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

Learning how to play acoustic guitar or electric guitar through Guitar Tricks or Jam Play is a very real option for guitar playing when compared to aspiring guitarists learning how to play with a private lesson guitar teacher (or live course guitar instructor lessons).

I would say that with both options are much more affordable than learning guitar with a private teacher.

Both of these sides offer a wide range of advantages that even a private teacher can’t offer you.

Jam Play and Guitar Tricks offer the same quality education level, but Jam Play does offer better quality videos.

Both GuitarTricks and Jam Play cost $19.95 a month, while Guitar Tricks provides users with a 60-day money back guarantee if you aren’t happy with the product, while JamPlay only offers a 30-day money back guarantee.

One thing both courses do NOT do is get deep into music theory. That’s probably a good thing for most folks.

At the end of all of this, it’s probably still going to be hard to make a decision to choose between JamPlay and Guitar Tricks. Both of these sites have many similarities to each other and both have very little negatives when it comes to their programs.

Further Resources on Guitar Courses, Guitar Playing, and Video Guitar Lessons:

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