The Best Guitar Lesson Programs

Monday, October 14th

2024 Guitar Lesson Program Reviews

GuitarGate

• Full membership is $299.99/year
• First lesson is free
• Beginner to advanced guitar courses
• Integrates music theory
• 200,000 global students
• 6,500 videos and learning resources
• Positive reviews from third-party sites

Guitargate is a place for people of all skill levels to come and improve their talent. The program was created by Michael Palmisano, an award-winning teacher who graduated from the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California. Guitargate was designed to recreate the experience of attending a world-class guitar school but online, from wherever you want, 24/7. Through watching and practicing the skills highlighted in the Guitargate videos, students should have a comprehensive, working knowledge of the guitar by the end.

Course levels for everyone

Guitargate is made up of course levels 1-8, blues guitar fundamentals, country guitar fundamentals, and a class called "The Successful Cover Band Playbook”. The course levels range from teaching the very basic fundamentals of playing the guitar to learning progressions and arpeggios, hybrid picking, 7th chords, non-diatonic harmony, and more. In total there are over 6,500 videos and learning resources for you to dive into at Guitargate.

Weekly Zoom lesson

Each week there is a Zoom lesson from a guitar pro that's recorded for anytime viewing later on. You'll have it emailed to you each week and you'll have the opportunity to ask questions about course material, stay engaged, and dive into the songs you're interested in. Some of the most recent lesson topics we saw included multiple lessons on Grateful Dead songs, how to build your practice sessions, drop D tuning and voicing, connecting arpeggios, voice leading, Memphis riffs and grooves, and a Q&A session.

Ever-changing platform

At the bottom of each lesson is a discussion forum for students to connect and also provide feedback about the course. Guitargate looks for common threads in these forums about things in the lessons that need to be addressed and they'll make changes in the curriculum. This is part of their commitment to provide the best learning environment and up-to-date material for students. When they feel that an entirely new lesson needs to be created based on the feedback they've received, they'll create one.

First lesson is free

The first lesson at Guitargate is completely free to everyone. It's called "The Total Beginner's Course” and includes 16 lessons about chords, theory, rhythm, guitar tone, and technique. Subscribers get full access to everything on the site including live lessons. We appreciate that you can do this without paying anything so you get an idea of the format of the lessons and how much is included. This should be enough to help you decide if you want to sign up for the premium membership.

Yearly membership plan

Committing to a premium membership at Guitargate is no joke. You'll want to make sure you're really dedicated to the program since the only payment plan is a one-time payment billed yearly for $299.99. When you think of this compared to in-person guitar lessons, it's a steal of a deal. However, it is more expensive than quite a few other online guitar courses we've considered. Based on how the first lesson goes, you'll have to weigh whether or not this is worth it to you. And keep in mind that subscriptions can be canceled at any time but you will lose your course progress and all of your video submissions.

Good value for the money

Guitargate boasts that they have over 200,000 members who use their site. They don't have a Better Business Bureau profile or unfiltered reviews on their site, but we did dive pretty deep to see what people all over the internet had to say about using Guitargate. If it makes you feel any better about committing to the membership price, people are actually quite thrilled with this lesson platform. This is coming from both newbies and people who know their way around a guitar. People say that it is extremely comprehensive and they can easily pick up where they left off and start improving and learning right away. Guitargate does a good job of teaching music theory as well as how to play the guitar, which is a crucial combination. Students are happy with the quality of content, how many concepts are covered, and the value for the price.

Highly recommend

In the end, we highly recommend Guitargate. The best way to gauge whether or not this is the right route for you is to dive into their first lesson and see where it gets you. Even if you're beyond learning the basics, breeze through the videos to see how they are laid out, see if you like how things are explained, and make sure you feel confident that the instructors are well-trained. If you feel good about lesson #1, then surely there is plenty of course material to warrant paying for a year-long subscription. Guitargate has earned our highest rating.

Virtu Academy

• $39 for a 30-minute lesson or $74 per hour
• Trial lessons available
• First lesson 50% off
• Private face-to-face lessons
• Choose your own teacher

Virtu Academy connects students to teachers for real-time, live private guitar lessons. The company boasts that their students will be getting private lessons from musicians with backgrounds from Julliard, Cleveland Orchestra, Berklee, Met Opera, and more. You won't have thousands of recorded videos to shuffle through here or a lot of content you can refer to at any time, but rather you'll be experiencing lessons like you would in-person, only it will be from the comfort of your home.

Real-time online private lessons

Of all the guitar lessons we've considered, Virtu Academy is the only place that primarily connects students with teachers for private virtual face-to-face lessons. The company cites a study from UNC that students are 36% more focused and perform 22% better with online lessons when compared to in-person. Virtu Academy also uses the High Fidelity Music Mode on Zoom, which was developed in partnership with the Yale School of Music. It helps ensure that your guitar teacher can hear every detail of your playing throughout the lesson. (We didn't even know that was a thing.)

Choose your favorite teacher

To find the teachers that would be the best fit for you, Virtu Academy has a drop-down menu where you select which instrument you want to learn (there are over 20 options here), your age range, how much experience you have, and what genre you're most interested in. You'll be matched with a few teachers who fit your criteria (and are currently taking new students) and provided with a bio you can read through before booking a lesson.

Easy booking and minimal material

After you choose a teacher for your guitar lesson, you will be sent a link that connects you and your teacher for the lesson. All you'll need is a computer with a built-in microphone and webcam. If for some reason you need to change or cancel your lesson, you can do so with at least 24 hours of notice by clicking "change/cancel” from your confirmation email or by logging into your account. Virtu Academy really couldn't make anything easier than they have.

Clear, straightforward pricing

Pricing at Virtu Academy is both transparent and straightforward. For a 30-minute lesson, the cost is $39 or you could extend your lesson to an hour for $74. For your very first lesson, Virtu Academy offers 50% off, making your 30-minute lesson just $19.50. If you aren't happy with this lesson, Virtu Academy will find you a new teacher and pay for the lesson. This trial lesson only applies one time.

Phenomenal student reviews

Virtu Academy does not have a rating from the Better Business Bureau, but they have fantastic reviews from students. People say the instructors are patient and kind and do an excellent job of meeting you at your level. The instructors are professional, show up for lessons when they're scheduled, and do a great job of helping you progress. We're truly impressed with everything we see here.

Perfect for one-on-one instruction

If you want a lot of personal training on your journey to learn the guitar, Virtu Academy should be your go-to place. You won't get material or lesson content in-between your lessons, so you might consider using Virtu Academy in conjunction with another highly-rated guitar learning platform in this review. However, for one-on-one instruction, Virtu Academy is a great option and has earned one of our highest ratings.

True Fire

• Pricing starts at $20 for a course, $24.99/month, or $119.88/year
• 1,500+ courses across every skill level, style, and topic
• Massive library of over 50,000 video lessons
• GRAMMY Award winners and pro instructors
• Customize your own learning path
• 100% satisfaction guarantee
• 14-day free trial
• "A+” rated by the BBB

Starting from VHS tapes and transferring to online lessons in the 2010s, TrueFire has been teaching guitar since 1991. Whether you're looking for beginner basics or advanced techniques, you're guaranteed to find something new and challenging to learn. TrueFire offers lessons and courses in a wide variety of genres, from blues, to metal, to country, and more. Boasting over 2 million users worldwide and big name instructors such as Frank Vignola and Tommy Emmanuel, TrueFire offers one of the largest and most comprehensive sets of online guitar video lessons available.

Different ways to learn

What sets TrueFire apart from its competitors is its wide range of features. Members have the choice of picking individual lessons, taking a course, selecting one of their more structured Learning Paths on various topics, or even taking private online lessons with its top educators - which allow users to get personalized instruction and feedback via video messaging. More advanced guitarists can utilize TrueFire's unique "InTheJam” feature, a computer program that puts you into a studio with a real band. For $30 per jam, you can listen to each band member talk about the given song and their approach to playing it, mute any instrument(s) you don't want to hear, and jam along as well.

A variety of features

With TrueFire, learners can engage on a Windows/Mac computer, tablet, or mobile device (through any modern web browser or even the TrueFire-specific app). TrueFire interactive tools allow users to fully maximize their lesson experience, including assessment tools to allow you to find the best starting spot, multiple angle videos to show you exactly what's being played, a fretboard view to allow you to clearly see proper finger placement, and soundslice integration, which syncs the video with tab and notation. Downloadable tabs are available for practicing later, and you can even download videos for offline learning. Not to mention that the built-in chord and scale charts, metronome, and tuner makes practicing a breeze.

Options for everyone

Although not as extensive, TrueFire has a number of free lessons and downloadable materials on their website, including Guitar and Bass for Beginners, Top 20 Guitar Lessons, practice tips, and more. Additionally, they offer a 14-day free trial of streaming access to every course and song lesson in their library to help you decide whether the program is the right fit for you. After the free trial concludes, users can buy individual packages (ranging from $20 to $50 per course) or subscribe for all-access. At the time of this review, TrueFire's monthly pass was on sale for $24.99/month, and their yearly pass for $9.99/month ($119.88 billed annually), which you can cancel at any time. Both plans come with all access streaming, 50,000+ guitar lessons, 30,000+ tabs and notations, 20,000+ jam tracks, and a free monthly download.

100% satisfaction guarantee

As demonstrated by its "A+” rating from the Better Business Bureau, TrueFire remains committed to customer satisfaction. They also offer a 14-day money-back guarantee on all purchases, including subscriptions and individual courses.

Great reviews from happy students

Out of more than 550 reviews on Google alone, TrueFire earns 4- and 5-star ratings from 95% of those who took the time to offer feedback. Satisfied subscribers say that TrueFire offers excellent value for the money spent, customer service is excellent, and they're able to access the exact style of guitar they were looking for (from worship to country).

Excellent choice for guitar lessons

While slightly more expensive than other options, TrueFire's extensive catalog of resources can't be beat, especially for those who are more intermediate/advanced players looking to hone their technique.

Guitar Tricks

• Monthly ($19.95/month) and annual ($179/year) memberships
• Free Basic Access Membership to sample library
• 60-day satisfaction guarantee
• Over 11,000 lessons
• Optional one-on-one lessons and video feedback
• Extremely satisfied students
• "A+” Better Business Bureau rating

Guitar Tricks said they created their platform for people who are looking for an easy, fast, and fun way to learn the guitar. The company launched their first online guitar lessons in 1998 as a way to bridge the gap between in-person lessons from instructors and searching through YouTube videos. Whether you're a beginner or an advanced player, Guitar Tricks promises that you'll be able to improve your technique without getting bored.

Learn at your own pace

Guitar Tricks hosts a comprehensive library of over 11,000 lessons and hundreds of songs. You can learn different styles like acoustic, rock, blues, and country. Once you make an account, you'll be able to access their platform from any device, find a course and lesson you want to play, and get practicing. Each lesson course is divided into step-by-step instruction with multi-angle video, written script, guitar tabs, guitar notation, and a table of contents.

Try for free

The two membership plans offered by Guitar Tricks are either monthly or annual. You could pay $19.95/month for full access to all the content and cancel at any time or pay $179/year, which breaks down to about $14.91/month instead. To start out, we recommend signing up for their free Basic Access Membership, which gives you access to their unlimited sample library. This is a good way to get a feel for the style here.

Guaranteed success

Guitar Tricks really wants to make sure that their students are improving and learning. They say they continually refine their teaching method and guarantee their system to work. If you sign up for their course and don't make progress within 60 days, Guitar Tricks will refund your money, no questions asked.

One-on-one instruction

For an additional cost, you can schedule one-on-one Zoom lessons with an instructor. We like that this is an option since it can be extremely helpful for so many students. There is also a video feedback feature where you can submit videos of yourself playing and receive personalized video feedback from one of the Guitar Tricks instructors.

Fantastic ratings

We found a Better Business Bureau rating for Guitar Tricks, which is more than we can say for a lot of other companies. They have an "A+” rating, which is great. They have excellent reviews on third-party sites, which gives us reassurance that signing up for guitar lessons from Guitar Tricks is totally worth it. People agree that the course is comprehensive and covers all the basics. They also say that the website is intuitive and well-designed, improvement happens quickly, and that the course offers a lot of value for the money.

Give them a shot

Over 4 million people have used Guitar Tricks' course in some form, so it's definitely one that people like and that's effective. Their price is competitive and we like that they offer some form of a free account for people to test out as well as a 60-day guarantee. The option for learning at your own pace through video lessons and upgrading to some one-on-one lessons with a tutor is the perfect combination. We're really happy with what we see from Guitar Tricks and highly recommend giving them a shot.

Artist Works

• As low as $19.99/month (for 12 months)
• 1, 3, and 12 month plans
• One-on-one teacher feedback
• Fantastic student reviews
• "A+” Better Business Bureau rating

ArtistWorks is dedicated to providing people all over the world with affordable, interactive music lessons. They boast that they have some of the greatest music teachers in the world who help to create a unique social environment. The ArtistWorks platform has been around since 2008, and besides teaching guitar lessons, the company has material to teach you to sing, play the piano, play the violin, and a host of other instruments as well.

Choose your lesson

There are tons of lessons to choose from at ArtistWorks. Some of the most popular include Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar, Bluegrass Guitar, and Rock Guitar. When you're deciding on the style and material you want to learn, you can see who teaches the course and read their bio. There will be an explanation of the course, the specific lessons, and everything you'll be learning along with the material you'll get access to. Students can also leave reviews about a course they've taken, so it's helpful to read through these and see what people thought about the teacher and how effective the lessons are.

Asynchronous video feedback

The way the ArtistWork platform functions is by connecting students with real artists and teachers to get feedback about their playing. It's an asynchronous method meaning that through "Video Exchange” you can submit videos and get responses on your (and your teacher's) own timetable and schedule. Videos can be created from your smartphone or computer and uploaded directly to AristWorks. These aren't made public, but other students within the course can view and learn from your videos, which creates a community where students learn from both teachers and each other.

Cheaper with longer subscription

There are three options when it comes to paying for your ArtistWorks guitar course. You could do the one month plan, which is the most expensive, and pay $39.99. This comes with 1 video exchange per month, streaming access to video lessons, access to the video exchange library, and the music theory workshop. For $29.99/month, you can subscribe to a 3-month plan and get everything in the 1-month plan plus 4 additional video exchanges. The best deal is just to sign up for a whole year and pay $19.99/month. Besides being the least expensive option per month, you'll also get unlimited video exchanges, access to backing tracks, and VIP bonus content.

Great student reviews

The Better Business Bureau gives ArtistWorks an "A+” rating. The reviews on their courses are generally quite high, much like their third-party reviews. People are really happy with their content and have excellent things to say about their customer service. People felt like the process was both effective and personalized, so what more can you ask for? We're really impressed with how satisfied their members are.

A few criticisms

If we're being really picky, we do have a couple criticisms about the ArtistWorks platform that we'll just get out of the way. We really would have liked to see a free trial from ArtistWorks (always a fan of those) and more guidance for students who are at different guitar levels and are trying to figure out which course to take. It's not really clear if all of these courses are for beginners or if some cater to those who already have quite a bit of experience playing the guitar. We assume you can just skip the beginner lessons in the plans and jump ahead to more difficult material if it better fits your skill level. We also wish that they had some sort of satisfaction guarantee or cancellation policy if you sign up and find that the lessons aren't what you expected or aren't going to work with your learning style. However, they mention nothing about this, so we can only assume that if you sign up for 1, 3, or 12 months, you'll need to stick out your subscription and just make the best of it.

A good option

Overall, the ArtistWorks program is a fairly straightforward way of learning guitar and since it is so well-liked by students, we're pretty happy with it. If you want to get some feedback from a reputable teacher but don't want direct face-to-face lessons, this is a great option. ArtistWorks has earned a good rating from us.

Jamplay

• $29.99/monthly or $9.99/month yearly
• Over 70,000 guitar videos for every skill level
• Over 1,500 guitar lessons from over 400 instructors
• 14-day free trial
• Satisfaction guarantee
• "A+” Better Business Bureau rating

JamPlay was built for aspiring acoustic and electric guitar players. The company is integrated with another company on our list called TrueFire. Rather than offering a one-time product, JamPlay has positioned themselves as a teaching service where they are continually producing new lessons to guide you along the way. Their full-service platform is meant for the absolute beginner or experienced musicians.

Create your own learning path

To simplify the process of JamPlay, they've laid out four main steps that you'll follow to get you started. First, you'll select your membership and get instant access to their platform and can start playing. When you set up your account, you can specify what skills you want to learn to create your teaching path. As you work and practice, JamPlay will monitor and keep track of your progress. And last, you'll be able to reach your goals as you take advantage of all the material available to you here. An average lesson is around 14 minutes, but ranges anywhere from 5 to 60, depending on the song and teacher. You can work as fast or slow as you want through these lessons on your own timetable.

Explore lessons before signing up

All of JamPlay's content can be accessed on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, AppleTV, and Roku through the TrueFire app. The genres that their courses cater to include rock, blues, country, fingerstyle, metal, and jazz. If you click on the genre you're interested in, you'll be taken to a page on JamPlay's website with a list of classes you could take. You can read through the teacher bio, see an overview of what's taught in the course, and read the course details (how many lessons there are, the runtime, tabs, play along tracks, and so on). We recommend browsing through these courses before signing up to make sure there are plenty of lessons that you'd be excited to take.

14-day trial

The other thing you should do before committing to a membership is take advantage of the 14-day free trial at JamPlay. You'll get access to all of JamPlay and TrueFire's content of over 70,000 videos, a free course download of their top 20 guitar lessons, access to learning paths and song lessons, and a promo code for 20% off your first download purchase.

Unbeatable amount of content

Once your trial is up, you have two membership options. First, you could pay $29/month for an all access pass to the platform, or sign up for a year and pay $119.88 annually. This is a much better deal since it comes out to just $9.99 per month. The membership includes the JamPlay + TrueFire library of over 1,500 courses, over 450 song lessons, over 70,000 multi-angle video lessons from across all skill levels, over 40,000 tabs, standard notations, and guitar files, progress tracking, access to community threads, and more. The amount of content available to you here is beyond what we've seen through most guitar companies, but you won't get one-on-one teaching, which we know some people are looking for.

Satisfaction guarantee

Even though you get a free trial from JamPlay, they still offer a satisfaction guarantee. If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of what you paid for, you can contact them within 14 days for an exchange, credit, or refund of the purchase price.

Mixed student reviews

The Better Business Bureau gives JamPlay an "A+” rating. On JamPlay's website, they have a host of YouTube videos with user reviews and pages of testimonials from students. All of them are 5 out of 5 stars, so we aren't sure that they're unfiltered. We did find on some third-party sites that people had mixed feelings about the effectiveness of this site. Some said that for absolute beginners, knowing where to dive into the lessons is a little complex. A lot of people said they liked the teachers and found the tools useful, which is a plus. But we wouldn't say that this is everyone's favorite platform for learning guitar.

Lacking structure

We felt like there wasn't a lot of structure on JamPlay's site. It's amazing to have so many videos for students to use, but if they aren't well organized and outline a clear learning path, then this just feels complicated and confusing. The pay-per-month fee feels a little steep to us, but committing yearly might not be what everyone wants either. We're glad to see that there's a free trial here and a 14-day satisfaction guarantee. You should undoubtedly take advantage of these before signing up to see if you like the way this program works. JamPlay has not earned one of our top ratings, but still could be a good option.

Fender Play

• Monthly ($19.99/month) and annual plans ($149.99)
• 2-week free trial
• For beginner and intermediate players
• Progress tracking
• Practice and feedback modes

Fender Play provides on-demand video lessons for guitar, bass, and ukulele. The company doesn't provide much information about their history, their instructors, or anything else we usually look for in a company. Instead, they have a basic landing page where they encourage students to sign up for their lessons and see what they're all about. They also list that they've been recommended by Nylon, Today, Forbes, Teen Vogue, Guitar World, and Vice.

Sign up to see

Fender takes a song-based approach to their teaching so that students are more excited and engaged in their lessons. They don't show a lot of detail about their lesson plans or what exactly the teaching style is like unless you sign up. We wish they gave us more screenshots or demos in advance so that we didn't have to jump through hoops and provide personal information to use their site before seeing how it all works.

Bite-size lessons for beginner and intermediate players

After a little searching, we found a help page that provided answers to a lot of questions we had about the platform. The company says that their material is for beginner and intermediate guitar players. This means that if you have a lot of experience under your belt, you probably won't find any of the lessons here challenging enough. Fender Play says they have thousands of instructional videos and practice activities to create a learning path based on your musical preferences and goals. Each lesson is "bite-sized” so that they don't take up much time, but after every few lessons, you should be able to play something new.

Pre-recorded lessons

Fender Play is a guided online learning program where all the lessons are pre-recorded. This means you won't be scheduling in-person lessons or feedback sessions with real instructors. Instead you'll watch videos, do hands-on exercises, and follow the curriculum at your own pace. There is progress tracking as you learn new songs and techniques to keep you motivated as you go along. There are also different modes for practicing and feedback to help you fine-tune whatever you're learning.

Billed monthly or annually

You can't even see Fender Play's pricing until you sign up, which we were bugged by. They have annual and monthly plans, so you can choose one and then you'll be asked to provide your name, email, and create a password. We initially chose a monthly plan and were shown that the cost is $19.99/month and includes a 7-day free trial. We were disappointed since everywhere on their site they advertise a 2-week free trial. We realized the 2-week free trial is only for the annual subscription, which is $149.99/year ($12.50/month). After this, the company makes no mention of refunds or satisfaction guarantees, but we assume and hope that with the monthly subscription you could at least cancel at any time and you won't be charged at the next billing cycle.

Scant reviews

There are no unfiltered customer reviews on Fender Play's website, nor do they have a rating from the Better Business Bureau. All we were able to find from Fender Play are their self-published 5-star testimonials. We run into this a lot with online guitar programs, so if you're willing to sign up, we recommend trying their free trial to see if this is the right program for you. You should quickly be able to tell if it fits your learning style and makes you excited about learning guitar.

Looking for more transparency

We wish that Fender Play was a little more transparent about what their platform looks like and what their pricing is. We understand them wanting to hook people in and encourage them just to sign up, but if you're considering other options or not wanting to recklessly spend money, it's nice to know what you're getting into beforehand. This was the biggest downside of Fender Play for us. We also realize some people really benefit from a little bit more hands-on help from an instructor face-to-face and that's not an option here. Because of this, Fender Play has earned an average rating from us.

Elmore Music

• 21 video courses
• One-time payment plan option starting at $39.95
• Lots of free video resources
• On-the-go access
• All guitar-focused
• 60-day money back guarantee
• 7-day free trial

Elmore Music was named after its founder, Chris Elmore. The organization was founded in 2001 with the purpose of teaching students guitar. They focus on an easy-to-follow format and seek out qualified talent experts to further the content on their website. Elmore Music highlights photos of four team members who run the site, but there seems to be an issue with the website where we can't read their names or anything about them.

21 program choices

The exact methodology of Elmore Music and how everything works here is a little unclear at first. It's clear that this program was made over 20 years ago and hasn't been updated since then. The way you play the guitar hasn't necessarily changed since then either, so the material should still be effective, but it will have an old school feel. There are 21 choices when it comes to selecting the program you want to purchase. These include topics like "beginner”, "progressions”, "Jazz”, "7 Day Practice Plan”, "Country 2.0”, or an all access pass.

Access everything or lesson-by-lesson

If you want access to every single lesson on the Elmore Music platform, you get a 7-day free trial and then can either pay $12.95/month or $97/year billed automatically. If you want to stop your subscription at any time, you can email the company and they'll stop future payments and remove your access, no questions asked. If you want to focus on a specific lesson like classical guitar, you can get an instant download for $39.95 (works on any desktop, tablet, or mobile device) or an instant download + hard copy for $49.95. We like that this is a one-time payment and it also comes with a 60-day money back guarantee.

Download videos or access online

You can download all the guitar videos to your device so you can access them anytime, anywhere, even without internet access. Otherwise you'll receive a username and password to use on their website to log in and view all your lesson material. The lessons include videos, images, and written instructions.

Free video lessons

If you navigate to the "videos” section of Elmore Music, we like that there are a lot of free resources you could learn from here. There are videos on how to play power chords, chord progression, right hand technique for classical guitar, flatpicking, how to tune your guitar, and more. Each video is a few minutes long and doesn't cost anything to view.

Abandoned website

Although the company boasts that they seek out talent to improve the learning experience for their students, we just don't believe that's the case. There are a few issues with their website that lead us to believe that the company's efforts here have nearly been abandoned. For example, we wanted to read through some of the blog posts and found that there are a few basic paragraphs about beginning to play the guitar with a Getty image attached and then the blog repeats itself over and over again. We could scroll endlessly and read the same thing over and over. This is a sign of a low quality website that no one is attending to. However, there are a few blog posts with useful information and videos on how to play certain chords or song styles, so we will give them that.

Ghostly online presence

There are customer testimonials published on Elmore Music's website, but they were formatted and put there by the company themselves. This means there are no honest reviews on the programs here. Since Elmore Music seems to be a pretty small company, they also don't have a Better Business Bureau rating and we could find almost nothing about them anywhere else online. They don't have a strong online presence or third-party ratings from customers that we can refer to.

A low-risk choice

Elmore Music has earned a slightly below average rating from us for a few reasons. First, they don't give a lot of sneak peeks into the actual content that comes with the lessons on their website. Their videos appear to be a little old and their website could use some serious work. You won't get one-on-one personal instruction here, but we know some people may prefer it this way. On a positive note, we like that there is a 7-day free trial and 60-day money-back guarantee to fall back on if you aren't happy with what you purchase. This makes Elmore Music a low-risk choice, assuming their customer service is responsive. It's nice that you can make a one-time payment and download your course content straight to your device to use over and over again. If the lessons here are your vibe, then go ahead and check out Elmore Music's lessons. Otherwise, there are some higher-rated options on our list that you should look at instead.

Jamorama

• $97 one-time purchase
• Access videos 24/7 from any device
• Lifetime access
• 60-day money back guarantee

Jamorama is a guitar-learning program created by instructor Mark McKenzie. His goal was to provide consistent, well-organized content for students wanting to learn to play the guitar without watching YouTube videos or paying subscription fees. Through the lessons he created, McKenzie aims to keep students motivated and teach them good habits while saving them time and money. The Jamorama Guitar System is designed to take students step-by-step from beginner through advanced courses.

Seems to cover it all

Some of the main things highlighted as part of the Jamorama Guitar System are foundational skills, chords, strumming, styles, techniques, scales, progressions, lead guitar, The Blues, finger style guitar, music theory, picking patterns, and the list goes on and on. You'll even get course information on how to structure your practice time and maintain your guitar so it's always in top condition.

10-part guitar system

You can read through the 10-part guitar system that makes up Jamorama to see what is contained in each section. For example, the beginner guitar method is stage 1 of the program and has 45 videos equaling 2 hours and 42 minutes. You'll form a solid foundation of the basics of guitar playing and jump right into playing recognizable riffs. You can continue to read through all 10 sections of Jamorama's program to see what you might expect to learn and how much material is included.

All video-based

Obviously with Jamorama, you aren't getting any sort of feedback on what you're practicing, live instruction, or a community of other guitarists who are learning the same materials as you. This will be a major downside for some while others couldn't care less. Just keep in mind that everything here is based on watching videos and self-paced learning, so you won't have progress tracking or other incentives that sometimes help you see how far you've come and motivate you to continue with your guitar lessons.

One-time payment for life

We're big fans of programs that give customers lifetime access to their content. Sometimes you get gung ho about learning a new instrument or any other type of hobby and then you taper off after a few months. If you want to pick back up again a while later, it's so nice to already have the resources to do so without having to resubscribe to a company's site. Jamorama charges $97 for a lifetime membership.

Money-back guarantee

On top of a lifetime membership, Jamorama has a 60-day money back guarantee. So if you put in the work for two months with the content available with your subscription and feel that it isn't getting you where you wanted to go, you can turn around and get your money back.

Technical issues

Jamorama was created years ago and we're afraid it doesn't have frequent maintenance or have an attentive customer support team behind it. Jamorama doesn't have a rating from the Better Business Bureau, but there are some customers out there who have complained that even after buying a lifetime membership, they can't access their videos and don't receive any response from customer support. Overall it seems that there are loads of technical issues and people don't always feel like they can use their Jamorama memberships.

Not confident in customer service

Knowing that you can get your money back for Jamorama's program makes this a fairly low-risk purchase, but only if you can reach someone who will refund your money. It's pretty inexpensive in the first place, so you could have lifetime access to these videos and even use it to supplement any in-person guitar lessons you're doing or another online platform you're using. We can't complain much about the price here, but we would be frustrated if we found that we weren't able to always access the videos we were promised. There is good potential for this to be a decent and inexpensive guitar course, but student reviews have us concerned. Because of this, Jamorama has earned a low rating.

Learn & Master

• One-time cost of $99
• DVD-based learning system
• Over 40 hours of instruction
• 60-day money-back guarantee

Learn & Master is part of Legacy Learning Systems, a company that produces comprehensive multimedia training courses for guitar, drums, piano, ballroom dance, painting, and photography. The goal of the company was to go beyond overhyped "Learn This Overnight” instructional videos and provide easy-to-follow step-by-step progression with everything you need in one place.

Outdated format

Whenever we're exploring lessons from Learn & Master, we reach their website and feel that it's almost comical. In the digital age where everything we do is through online streaming and downloads, a website selling guitar lessons with pictures of CDs and DVDs laid out seems really outdated. We'll say upfront that if you're looking for a company that's constantly updating songs for you to learn and adding new instructional videos to their site, you won't find that here. Learn & Master created their content years ago and it has remained the same since.

Over 40 hours of content

However, we've said it before and we'll say it again - the way you play the guitar hasn't changed over the years. The content from Learn & Master, although not modern or as visually appealing, still holds value. The 20 DVDs deliver over 40 hours of instruction. Everything is covered, from the very basics to the most advanced techniques.

Wordy but informative

Learn & Master's website is pretty wordy, but there are quite a few categories if you want to dive into the topics covered (foundational techniques, basic chords, advanced chords, ear training, reading music, scales, chord progressions, and more), styles (electric and rock, blues, classical, jazz, country, and R&B), which DVDs are included, testimonials, and get student support. When we navigated to the student support section, we were redirected to a completely different website and we weren't sure how it was connected with Learn & Master.

Hidden sample lessons

There are sample lessons included on Learn & Master's website that say they are examples of what you'll find in their instructional series. Unfortunately, when we clicked on them to go through the lessons, every video said it was unavailable because it had been made private. We were disappointed since this was the best version of a "free trial” we'd get here and we weren't able to view anything.

Inexpensive but out of stock

So how much is this comprehensive DVD set of guitar lessons anyway? Actually not a lot. The full set is a one-time payment of $99. We like that you'll have lifetime access and the one perk of DVDs is that you don't have to worry that years down the road you won't be able to access the videos you paid for on a website. You could take these, download them, and have them wherever you go. The kicker is that the DVD set is out-of-stock on Learn & Master's site, so you'd have to look elsewhere for it.

60-day guarantee

If you purchase Learn & Master to learn the guitar and it doesn't fit your learning style, you can return your DVDs within 60 days for a full refund. A phone number is listed at the top of the website and we assume this is the way you reach customer service and initiate a return if needed. However, with companies that don't update their website frequently and sell products from years ago, we don't always have a lot of hope that it will be easy to get in touch with whoever is managing the company.

High ratings

Although Learn & Master has testimonials on their website, these rarely mean much to us since they were self-published by the company. They're not going to post reviews from people who roasted their product, so it isn't really an accurate overview of how people generally feel about the product. Legacy Learning Systems does have an "A+” rating from the Better Business Bureau, which we're happy to see. As far as recent, raw customer reviews, we found some feedback on other sites and were pleased to see that this program actually receives extremely high ratings. People feel like material is clearly explained and they're able to progress just like they hoped.

Not an option

Overall, Learn & Master seems to have awesome content, but since it isn't even available, it doesn't really matter. We like the idea of a one-time payment and are glad to see that students like this method, but it does feel outdated. You may be able to find this program elsewhere, so keep your eyes peeled, but since it's not in stock on their own website, Learn and Master is our least favorite among guitar lesson options.