Scams typically promise one thing and then under-deliver, or don’t deliver at all. They are set up to part people from their money, without giving anything valuable in return. Jamorama isn’t like this – here’s why:

Reasonable price

Jamorama costs just $49.95 for the whole course (Standard version), and less than $100 for the Deluxe version, which offers enough lessons to keep most beginners going for several months to a year or more. In comparison to the cost of lessons with a private teacher (which can run to $30 or more per hour), or even to the cost of other online guitar courses, this is extremely reasonable. So, Jamorama isn’t over-charging by any stretch of the imagination.

Course quality

A low cost course still isn’t worth buying if the materials are of poor quality. That’s not the case with Jamorama either – the text is well-written and nicely laid out (there are a couple of small typos, but nothing major), the audio is professionally recorded by live musicians – no cheesy MIDI tracks – and the videos are also well recorded and edited, and very useful. The software also works well, and the bonuses are genuinely helpful, not just ‘filler’ to make you think you’re getting a good deal. The member’s site is also easy to use, and there’s a support system in place if you need help with the materials. So if you buy Jamorama, you won’t get ripped off with shoddy materials either.

Teacher quality

It’s important to learn guitar from someone who both knows what they’re talking about, and is able to express themselves effectively. Many new guitarists have found their progress thwarted by taking instruction from poor teachers. The nature of the internet is such that anyone can throw up a site and a few videos, and call themselves an expert, but are they really? Fortunately Ben Edwards, Jamorama’s creator, is both a professional musician and a professional teacher, and is well qualified to show you the ropes.

Secure payments

Another concern that many people have when buying online is that their credit card details will be used fraudulently. Jamorama’s payment processing is handled by Clickbank, which is the biggest marketplace for digital products on the web. Since Clickbank handles the payments, the merchant you’re buying from doesn’t even see your financial details. Clickbank is a highly reputable US-based company, and your payment is guaranteed to be secure, so you can buy Jamorama with peace of mind.

Satisfaction guarantee

Scammers don’t care if you’re happy with their product/service or not – they take your money and run. Jamorama, on the other hand, does care that you should be happy with the course. Like all products sold through Clickbank, it offers a 60 day money back guarantee, so you can try it with confidence. If you don’t like it, you can get a refund within that period with no questions asked. There’s also a support desk that you can contact if you have issues with the course, so even after the guarantee period as expired, you won’t be left on your own if you run into trouble.

Is Jamorama right for you?

So, hopefully it’s now obvious that Jamorama isn’t a scam, but is instead a high quality, high value course from a reputable company, backed by an equally reputable payment processor. But the best guitar lesson course in the world will be a bad buy if it doesn’t match your needs. Only buy Jamorama if:

• You’re a beginner or intermediate level guitarist – advanced players will probably know what is taught here already.

• You have a decent computer with internet access – it doesn’t have to be super-fast, but you need to be able to download the material, and there’s a lot of it. Alternatively, Jamorama is available in a physical format, but this is relatively expensive – I think the downloadable version is a much better deal.
• You want to play popular styles of music – Jamorama’s emphasis is on rock, pop etc, and it doesn’t cover classical or flamenco guitar playing.
• You’re willing to put in the work of practising every day, consistently. Jamorama isn’t one of those awful ‘master the guitar in a weekend’ type of courses. The lessons may take around a year to complete (obviously different people will learn at different speeds), and the text emphasises the need for regular application. This may get boring or frustrating at times, once the initial enthusiasm as worn off – but will you still have the self-discipline to carry on?

If this all sounds like you, and you want to learn to play the guitar with the aid of a great online course that is definitely not a scam, then go ahead and buy Jamorama with confidence. You can also read my in-depth Jamorama review for more details about what I like and don’t like so much about the lessons.

Set things up right

First of all, make sure that you have a designated practice area, and that it’s set up in a convenient way. If you have to spend 10 minutes every day arranging ‘stuff’ before you can start to play, chances are you won’t keep doing it for very long. Since Jamorama is a downloadable course, it helps to have a computer in your practice area so you can conveniently access the audio, video and text (I use a spare laptop for this purpose). If you don’t leave your computer on all the time, keep it in stand-by or hibernation mode between sessions, so you can get started quickly each day without having to boot up from scratch. Make sure the screen is positioned such that you can easily see it from where you sit to play, and that the keyboard and mouse are within easy reach so you can start and stop the video and audio without having to get up.

Print out the text

You might also want to print out the course text, or at least just print out the tabs for the jam tracks. I did this, because the longer tracks are spread over more than one page, and it’s difficult or impossible to read them both at once on the screen. Printing the text out means you can also make use of the course when you’re away from your computer. If you do this, get a music stand, if you don’t have one already, and bind the pages together using something like [eBay link], which will allow you to open the pages flat once they’re on the stand.

Use the bonuses

Remember to make full use of the Jamorama bonuses – they’re not referenced much within the main text, so it’s up to you to incorporate them into your practice schedule. Practising with a metronome is essential if you want to play in time, and the Jamorama metronome provides an easy way to do this. Plus you’ll want to develop your ear skills with GuitEarIt!, and if you don’t already read music, Jayde Musica is a fun game that will help you to learn. And don’t forget to use the tuner (or one of your own) to tune up at the start of each session (you’ll sound terrible when playing along with the jam tracks if you don’t!)

Keep to a practice schedule

If there is one key habit that sets aside successful guitarists from the wannabes, it’s that the former group practice consistently, every day. And they don’t just pick up the guitar when they ‘feel like it’ – but they plan their practice schedules in advance, and stick to that plan, even if they’re not in the mood on any give day. If you’re serious about learning to play well, you must do this – you don’t need to practice for hours every day, but consistent practice, day in day out, is vital. So choose a time that works well for you, and make a commitment to show up and put in the necessary work each day (and sometimes it will feel like work – playing the guitar is hugely enjoyable, but you will have off days, so don’t feel discouraged if your enthusiasm dips every now and then).

Practice mindfully

Practicing regularly is key, but what you do in those sessions is just as important. It’s vital to practice mindfully – really listen to yourself and focus fully on what you’re doing. Don’t let your mind wander while your fingers just go through the motions – it’s easy for that to happen, but you must stay focused if you want to keep progressing. Practising effectively is a bit like meditating – the ‘monkey mind’ will try to wander, but it gets easier to stay focused the more you do it.

Master each stage before moving on

With any guitar course, it’s tempting to want to progress as quickly as possible, and Jamorama is no exception, especially when you can look ahead to the more advanced videos and jam tracks, which sound more interesting than the early exercises. However, it’s important to take as much time as necessary to get the basics right – if you don’t you won’t be able to play the more difficult stuff properly anyway, and the whole experience will just be frustrating.

Pace yourself

So it’s important to practice regularly – but it’s equally important not to overdo things, especially when you’re first starting. Playing the guitar is like a workout for your hands and fingers, and just as you wouldn’t expect to go from couch potato to marathon runner overnight, so you’re not going to go from complete beginner to someone who can spend hours playing comfortably. Keep your sessions short to start with, and increase them gradually, as your muscles get stronger, and the calluses build on your fretting hand. Do too much too soon, and you risk injury.

Build good habits

Related to the above point is the necessity of building a healthy technique right from the start. Taking the time to learn the correct playing positions now (for your hands and your body as a whole), will mean less chance of injury and less time spend undoing bad habits later on. This is one area where teaching yourself at home falls short of having lessons with a private teacher. Normally the teacher could nip any poor habits in the bud, but as it is you’ll have to be vigilant on your own behalf. Every now and then (perhaps once a week or so), refer back to the opening section of Jamorama, which shows you how to sit and stand, and exactly how to place your hands for fretting and strumming, and make sure you’re still doing it all properly.

The benefits of reviewing older materials applies to the lessons themselves too – it’s always helpful to go periodically back over the chords, scales and other techniques that you’ve already learned, so they stay fresh in your mind.

Upgrade to Jamorama Deluxe

Jamorama Standard is basically a rhythm guitar course. If, like many people, you aspire to play cool lead solos, you’ll also need a course that teaches lead guitar, and Jamorama Deluxe does just that. It is designed as a to complement the rhythm guitar instruction in Jamorama Standard, since you need to learn rhythm skills first, in order to play lead effectively. If you’ve already bought Jamorama Standard you can upgrade to Jamorama Deluxe from within the member’s area, and if you haven’t made a purchase yet, consider getting Jamorama Deluxe (which also includes the Standard version’s rhythm guitar lessons) if you think you’ll want to learn lead guitar too.

Make use of the forum and support

Learning to play the guitar at home can be an isolating experience sometimes, so if you find yourself feeling discouraged, you’re having trouble with some aspect of the materials, or you have a question that the course doesn’t cover, make sure you make use of the support resources available to you as a Jamorama member. You can ask questions in the forum, as well as via the support desk in the member’s area. All guitarists run into problems and feel like giving up at times, but the Jamorama people are committed to helping you succeed, so don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it.

Jamorama is a fun and effective course of guitar lessons – bear these tips in mind, stick with it and you WILL learn to play well, so long as you do your part.

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.

Inside the Jamorama Member’s Area

The material is accessed through the member’s area, which looks like this:

From the Home page (shown here), you can visit the download area, and download the rhythm course (books 1 and 2), the Chord Kit, the Tuning Guide, the software and other bonuses, and the Acoustic Kit, as well as accessing your free trial membership to SongPond. Jamorama Deluxe customers can download the Lead Course and the Lead Licks Kit, in addition to the other materials. There is also a link to the member’s forum, where you ask questions and chat with others who are working through the course. Other areas include the Help section, where you can contact the Jamorama staff with any queries you may have, and links to the Jamorama blog and pages on sites such as Twitter and Facebook, where you can get further involved in the Jamorama community.

The Jamorama Course Material

The course material itself is organised in a series of zip files, which you extract after downloading, so it’s easy to keep track of which video and audio files go with the relevant text books. Within each section is a ‘Read Me’ file which tells you exactly where to start and how to use the material – there’s a lot of material in both of the Jamorama courses, so it’s nice that clear ‘where to start’ guidelines are given.

In both versions, you begin with the rhythm guitar course, which is split between two books, Beginner and Intermediate, each of which has its associated audio demo files, jam tracks and video lessons. The video and audio tracks you need to use are referenced at the appropriate places in the text.

I’ll describe each lesson in more detail as I work through it [update - see my review blog contents at the bottom of the page], but to give an overview, Jamorama Book 1 has 15 lessons, and covers:

• Parts of the guitar

• Playing position
• Chord diagrams
• Strumming
• Introduction to tablature and musical notation
• Individual notes on each string
• Common chords & chord progressions
• The chromatic scale
• Basic rhythmic patterns
• Practice with 10 jam tracks

Book 2 has 29 lessons of increasingly more advanced material, covering:

• Sight reading
  
• Lots of more advanced chords and progressions
  
• Bass note runs
  
• More complex rhythmic patterns
  
• Music theory
  
• Barre chords
  
• More complex strumming patterns
  
• More info about practice techniques and the psychological side of music
  
• Playing in a band/with others
  
• Scales
  
• Deadening and muting techniques
  
• Power chords
  
• Various musical styles
  
• A supplementary chord reference section with photo-diagrams of all of the chords covered in the course

As these are PDF texts, you have some control over how the text is displayed, and of course you can print it out if you prefer (which I did). The text and diagrams are laid out in a clean and attractive style, with easily readable print, and feature full colour photographs and diagrams showing things like the correct hand positions in lots of detail. As well as the technical ‘how to’ material, there are brief discussions on topics such as cultivating the right mindset and the nature of musical talent, plus little facts about guitars and guitarists.

Here is a screenshot of part of a page from Book 1, Lesson 1:

You can see the CD icon at the bottom right – this directs you to the appropriate video for this section, which shows the instructor strumming this chord, with a close-up of the correct position.

These two books constitute the main Jamorama rhythm course, and form the core material of Jamorama Standard. The Standard course also contains an additional module called Acoustic Focus, which includes two more instruction manuals and a total of 26 additional jam tracks to practice your acoustic guitar playing. Jamorama Deluxe includes all of these rhythm and acoustic guitar materials too, plus the lead guitar lessons, which are delivered in a similar format.

Both Jamorama Standard and Jamorama Deluxe also come with a variety of bonuses – you can read more about these in detail on the Jamorama Bonuses review page.

First, a bit of background. Jamorama is aimed at those who have no previous experience of playing the guitar, as well as those of an intermediate level who want to brush up their skills, or fill in some gaps in their knowledge. I’m not a beginner – I started playing the guitar aged 10, gave up a year or so later, then took it up again when I was about 20, and have been playing ever since. I also play other instruments, including the piano, and have a very strong background in music theory and composition. So I have quite a lot of experience, both with the guitar and in terms of my general musical skills (although there’s always more to learn of course, and I’m sure Jamorama will teach me a few things too), and I think that this experience will enable me to recognise the strong and weak points of the guitar courses that I review on this site.

I don’t have a huge amount of time to devote to Jamorama at the moment, as I’ll be fitting it in around my normal practice routine and other work, but I aim to spend about 15-30 minutes on it each day – so don’t assume that you’ll progress at exactly the same rate as me – you may be faster or slower, depending on your experience level, time spent practising, innate ability level and other factors. I’ll be starting properly next week, and will write each day (or I’ll try to – but at least a couple of times each week) to give details about the Jamorama course and my experience with it along the way.

UPDATE – 14/12/09
Since I originally wrote this blog, Jamorama have updated their course to include more materials. Two versions are now available; Jamorama Standard, which focuses on rhythm guitar skills, and Jamorama Deluxe, which covers lead techniques as well. The two Jamorama books reviewed in this blog are those that make up the Jamorama Standard course – I’ll also be adding a similar in-depth review of the lead guitar lessons in Jamorama Deluxe (which I also have access to, as an existing customer) when I have time. Read more about Jamorama Standard and Jamorama Deluxe.