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At the
Musician's Training Academy, we are frequently asked about good
training courses for learning various instruments, and probably
none more frequently than guitar. As teachers, we
naturally feel that the very best way to learn is from a private
instructor, but we also recognize that this is simply not
possible for everyone. For that reason, we felt it would
be helpful to test several of the most popular home training
courses and share our results with those of you who are trying
to learn on your own.
In addition to our
own staff instructors, we also added several total beginners to
our review panel in order to get both teacher and student
perspectives on the quality of these courses.
Here is a quick
summary of our findings, as well as links to the full reviews.
We've also condensed everything into a course comparison chart
to help simplify things even further. Best wishes with
your studies, and we hope this helps!
 Learn & Master
Guitar is the high end of guitar training courses.
Honestly, if you are serious about learning to play guitar and
you don't have access to a private instructor, this would be the
next best thing. The material is presented on ten DVDs,
five play-along CDs, and a rather detailed lesson book.
It's easy to follow and guides students from the very basics all
the way through advanced techniques for playing guitar in a
variety of genres.
Rating: Five Stars
Read our
Complete
Review
 There are a lot of
new "e-courses" coming out that attempt to allow you to
take
guitar lessons from your computer. The majority of
"e-courses" we tested were pretty much worthless, but Jamorama
was a notable exception. The instruction was at least
decent, and the price is low. It still requires that you
practice your guitar in front of a computer every day, however,
which our testers found to be awkward and cumbersome.
However, if Learn & Master Guitar is out of your price range,
and you don't mind practicing along with a computer, Jamorama
may be worth looking at.
Rating: Three & Half Stars
Complete Review
 Guitar Tutor Pro is
another downloadable "e-course." We did not like it as
much as Jamorama, particularly because it didn't include any
video clips, which we considered a major downside. It's
very inexpensive, however, so it may be worth looking at if
you're on an extremely limited budget.
Rating: Two & Half Stars
Full Review
 As teachers, we did
not like this product at all, but several of our student testers
did, so it only seemed fair to mention it. It's not really
a guitar training course, per se, as it does not teach the
fundamentals of playing guitar at all. Instead it simply
shows you precisely how to play fifty songs from their list in a
straight forward, paint-by-numbers kind of approach.
Rating: Two Stars
Full Review
 How to Play Guitar
by Roger Evans is a traditional-style guitar instruction book.
Obviously, it does not have the advantage of using audio and
video examples, but if you prefer to learn from a book, this is
one of our favorites (although
there are many good ones available). The educational quality is
first class and there are plenty of good pictures and diagrams
to help explain things. You can find the book just about
anywhere, but we recommend Amazon.com.
Rating: Three Stars
January, 2008:
KT Tunstall Gets Guitar Lesson from Ronnie
Wood - Singer will be
getting guitar lessons from legendary Rolling Stones rocker.
School of Rock coming to Seattle
- Music lessons for Seattle kids focuses on rock music.
Nile's Karl Sanders to Offer Guitar
Lessons on US Tour - Metal guitarist offering
advanced lessons while on tour.
Artist Praises Power of Music Education
- A popular artist speaks to supporters of the W. O. Smith
Nashville Community Music School
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