• Correct playing position

• How to look after your guitar and gear
• How to maintain your motivation, get the most from your practice sessions, and develop as a musician
• How to read chord diagrams, tab and simple traditional notation
• Notes and scales in the first position
• A variety of major, minor, dominant 7th and suspended chords, plus chord progressions
• Rhythm and lead guitar techniques
• Plus you’ll have practiced playing with a band in a variety of styles, via the jam tracks

Overall, I’m impressed with the Jamorama course so far. It’s not perfect – I’ve spotted a couple of typos, and the digital format has its limitations (like trying to follow the tab for the jam tracks when they take up more than one page – I recommend printing them out for easier reference). However, on the whole this is proving to be a high quality course that is easy and interesting to follow. The jam tracks and videos are well-produced, and really do make the learning process easier and more enjoyable – Jamorama doesn’t have the ‘dry’ quality of the tutor books that I used to use!

Best of all, you start to see results and progress pretty quickly, and at each stage along the way you play ‘real’ music, and not just exercises. By the end of Book 1 you’ll have made a lot of progress, and will be playing rhythm and lead patterns that will probably impress anyone listening, even though they’re not hugely difficult technically.

Lesson 14 takes a major step forward, and introduces suspended chords and the major scale. Three new chords are covered, plus the C major scale. There are two jam tracks this time, one of which incorporates the C major scale, which many people will find more interesting than just practising the scale in isolation (though there’s no getting away from the fact that to be a good guitarist you’ll have to practice scales, arpeggios etc – but they can actually be interesting if you really focus on what you’re doing, and always try to play as well as you can).

Must have a whinge here unfortunately, as there is a minor typo in the Esus4 chord explanation. I’ve rarely seen a music book (or a normal book for that matter) that doesn’t contain at least a couple of errors, and it looks like Jamorama is no exception. It’s pretty obvious in this case though, so if you’ve understood all of the material so far you shouldn’t find it confusing.

Lesson 15 is relatively short, and gives tips for additional ways to expand your practice routine and increase your skill, and introduces two new suspended chords, with exercises and a jam track to practice with.

This lesson is followed by an ‘Outro’ section, which invites readers to submit testimonials, and there’s also an illustrated chord reference, showing major and dominant 7th chords in open position (including lots that haven’t been covered in the course so far – this would be handy to print out).

And that’s it – you’ve now finished Book 1 of the Jamorama course! (Next: my Book 1 summary)

Lesson 12 provides a recap of the first position notes (with both tab and traditional notation), and also introduces a simple but effective bass note picking pattern. Things are really sounding good now, as you’ve learned a wide variety of chords, notes, progressions and rhythmic patterns to play with!

Lesson 10 continues in the same vein, with more increasingly complex rhythms, as well as two new chords, and a great tip for measuring your progress and increasing your motivation. I think that the course could be improved by using traditional notation to – erm, notate the rhythms, rather than just relying on a combination of tab and up/downstrokes. I realise that the existing method is probably easier to follow for those without a music theory background, but it would be nice if there was a choice (many guitar tutor books do use a combination of the two). Still, that’s a minor gripe, and it’s forcing me to use my rather rusty tab skills more than I usually do, which isn’t a bad thing.

Another new chord is introduced in this lesson, along with eighth-note rhythm and the chromatic scale. As usual, there are plenty of exercises, diagrams and videos to ensure that you fully understand the new material.

Lesson 8 is a pretty long one, and you’ll learn about dominant 7th chords. Three are introduced, along with alternate fingerings, which I think is a nice touch, as it’s always good to be able to play different versions of the same chord – it’s not essential, and most people usually stick with the easiest version of each, but taking the time to go beyond that will add to your versatility as a guitarist and musician. There are lots of new sequences to practice, which incorporate the new chords, as well as a jazz-influenced jam track to finish off. This is the most challenging lesson so far, and by this point in the Jamorama course you’re playing a good variety of chords and the pace at which you play is speeding up too.

Lesson 6 introduces minor chords, which makes a nice contrast to the major chords covered so far. To digress a bit, I do take issue with Ben’s assertion (that nearly all music books/sites I’ve read make) that major chords sound ‘happy’, whereas minor chords sound ‘sad’. I think this is a totally subjective, culturally-influenced viewpoint, and I know that while in western music most people associate minor chords with a melncholy feel, I personally find minor key music to be very joyful and uplifting. I know I might be in the minority there though!

This lesson also introduces notes on the fifth string, and there’s a catchy jam track based on a simple turnaround chord progression, as well as a second one with a lead melody. Also, there’s a discussion about the nature of musical talent, and what it takes to become a great guitarist. I agree that constant, disciplined practice accounts for most of it, although I do think that some people have an inborn extra ‘gift’ that can make the whole learning process easier. But no matter how naturally playing the guitar comes to you, you’ll never reach your full potential without plenty of work at it!

Lesson 3 discusses some more basic music theory, including note time values, an introduction to time signatures and reading notes on the treble clef. The you learn about note picking, and the main notes on the first and second strings. Exercises are included to practice the new notes, and then you can play along with the second Jam Track – unlike the first one, this one involves picking out a simple melody, rather than strumming chords. Both aspects of playing the guitar (note picking and chord strumming) are equally important, so it’s good that Jamorama introduces them both early on.

Lesson 4 introduces the E major chord, plus notes on the third string. Again there are practice exercises, plus another fun Jam Track which includes the new chord.

I’m still impressed with how Jamorama is shaping up – everything is well presented, and the Jam Tracks are lots of fun. However, I want this review to be an objective one, so I’m also going to discuss the things I don’t like so much about the course. My main annoyance (now that it has started to include long pieces of tab) is that when using the reader within the software, only one page is displayed at a time, and you have to scroll down to get to the next page. Normally this isn’t a problem – but when you’re playing from a piece of tab that is spread across two pages, it is! So it would be better if you could opt to display adjacent pages side by side on the screen, like you can with Adobe’s PDF reader. As it happens, the course is currently available in the older format, which includes PDF versions of the text, so I could use those if it gets to be a real nuisance. And printing them out is another option too – so this isn’t a huge issue, but it is a bit annoying, and I’m surprised that the designers of the software didn’t take it into account. Hopefully future updates of Jamorama will address the issue.

There is one other thing that bothers me – the E major chord is wrongly described in Lesson 4 as being ‘constructed of the notes E, Ab (A flat) and B’. This is not true – it should be E, G# (G sharp) and B. Yes, Ab and G# are the same enharmonically, so the chord will sound correct, but in terms of music theory the statement is incorrect – the E major scale doesn’t contain the note Ab (and a complete beginner isn’t likely to know this, so the mistake is misleading). So, a black mark there!

You then learn to play two of the most common major chords – A and D. As well as illustrations, videos are used to show you exactly how the chords should look and sound. The videos are high quality and professionally presented, showing the correct positions of both hands, as well as a chord diagram – and as mentioned earlier, they can be accessed automatically by clicking the ‘video’ icon within the text. You’re also introduced to tab notation and basic strumming.

I’m rather impressed with the first Jamorama lesson. It is clear and well presented, and covers enough material to feel like you’ve really made a start and can actually play something, but not so much as to be overwhelming for a complete beginner.

The Table of Contents provides a useful overview of the topics covered in each chapter.

The Preface is basically a welcome message from Ben Edwards, Jamorama’s creator, that explains what you can hope to gain from the Jamorama guitar course (in a nutshell, the ability to fluenty play pretty much any song you hear).

The Introduction tells you how to get the most out of the Jamorama course by explaining how it’s laid out, and then shows you the basics that you absolutely must understand before you actually begin playing – that is, how to hold the guitar correctly in both sitting and standing positions, how to position your right hand to play the notes cleanly and avoid injury, how to fret the notes and how to hold the guitar pick. There are also labelled photos of the acoustic and electric guitars, so you can learn to identify the different parts.

So far, so clear – next, in Lesson 1, you actually begin playing the guitar.