The Learn & Master Guitar series, by professional guitarist Steve Krenz, gets our 5 out of 5 star rating. It is simply the best package available currently for anyone serious about learning and mastering the guitar. As you can see, this learning system comes with an incredible amount of materials and is by far the most complete guitar instruction program around.

First, let’s take a look at what exactly comes with this product.

• 20 Full DVDs with Guided Lessons
• 5 Jam-Along CDs
• 100+ Page Lesson Book
• Bonus Materials

DVD Guided Lessons

The twenty DVDs included in this package offer an incredible wealth of knowledge, as they provide guided lesson plans to teach you to play the guitar from the very beginning. On-screen graphics make these DVDs easy to follow, and their menus allow you to jump from lesson to lesson quickly or revisit any lessons you may need more practice with.

With 20 full DVDs worth of lessons, these videos will help take you to a level of guitar mastery you’ve never been able to attain before!

Jam-Along CDs

The Jam-Along CDs are the second part of the Learn & Master Guitar package. Said to be the favorite part of the course by many students, these CDs allow you to practice songs with an actual band! Using recordings made with professional musicians in a real studio, you can test your guitar skills playing along with with the music.

The CDs provide nearly 100 different tracks, ranging from beginner songs to popular favorites to others which highlight the various musical styles available with the guitar. In the beginning, you’ll be able to play along with the beginner songs which offer “slow”, “medium”, and “fast” versions so you can play at your own pace. As you pick up skill, you can progress to some more popular songs and really get some practice in with the band!

Lesson Book

Although many rave about the DVD instruction and Jam-Along CDs, sometimes it’s necessary to sit down and practice without having to watch video or play along with the CDs. This is where the 100+ page lesson book comes in. This workbook not only covers all of the songs and exercises presented in the DVD lessons, but also includes several additional exercises. With the lessons outlined in the Learn & Master Guitar workbook, you’re free to move along at your own pace and take as much time as you need.

Bonus Materials

If the 20 Instructional DVDs, 5 Jam-Along CDs, and 100+ page lesson book wasn’t enough, this program also includes bonus materials and online support for guitar students. With your purchase, you get access to the exclusive Learn & Master Guitar “members only” portion of their website where you can find more songs, more exercises, tips and tricks, and more all included for free with the program. Also, they offer a forum where students can post questions for the author of the program, Steve Krenz, and discuss progress.

Learn and Master Guitar

With all of these features, the Learn & Master Guitar program goes above and beyond to cater to prospective guitar students. We’ve tried to provide an in-depth review of the program, but honestly, it’s difficult to include all of the features and topics covered. If you want to learn more about the Learn & Master Guitar program and see if it might be right for you, click here to visit their official website.

The concept behind the Team Method Guitar system is that students naturally learn better and more thoroughly from a team of professional teachers rather than one instructor. The author of this program and team leader, Ben Edwards, has thus compiled a team of master guitar players to serve as instructors and teach you an extensive list of skills and styles to take your guitar playing to an entirely new level.

This program, like others, uses video instruction throughout to explain and show the techniques it’s teaching in easy-to-follow lessons. Also, similar to Jamorama, several exclusive software games are included which help students learn to read sheet music, learn guitar tabs, and play by ear, and these games honestly make learning guitar fun!

The Team Method Guitar program breaks its instructional method down into several steps:

1. Learning Basics: Chords, Reading Guitar Tabs, and Rhythm
2. Play-by-Ear Mini Course
3. Chord Reference Library and Learning Tool
4. Playing Lead Guitar
5. Playing Acoustic Guitar
6. Exclusive CAGED Learning System

This may seem like a lot to digest, but it’s actually pretty simple when you break it down. In step 1, the team of experts start from the beginning and progress towards more advanced courses with their collection of 148 video lessons. At the end, you’ll be able to play chords, read guitar tabs, and play rhythm guitar like a pro!

Next, Team Method Guitar takes you through a mini-course designed to get students to a point where they can play virtually any guitar song they hear simply by ear. Their master music theory instructor breaks the songs down to simply parts to the point where you can learn each individually and master songs easily!

The Chord Reference Library and Learning Tool sounds daunting, but it’s really an exclusive tool provided to coach you through chords and progressions. With this reference book, you’ll receive 72 pages of high-res chord diagrams, 216 chord variations, and a chord progression for each of the 216 chords. As a bonus, Team Method Guitar has also included six additional video lessons to go along with the this resource.

As you’ve now become comfortable with the skills you’ve already learned, you’ll progress to step 4 where you learn all of the tips, tricks, and advanced techniques involved in playing lead guitar. This set of instruction features 43 step-by-step video lessons and really focuses on improving your lead guitar skills.

Of course, there are also separate techniques which apply to the acoustic guitar, and that’s what this next Team Method Guitar lesson focuses on: finger picking, palm deadening, and other skills necessary to master the acoustic.

Lastly, 12 step-by-step lessons will guide you through their own unique version of the “CAGED” system–a method which allows you to utilize the entire fretboard of the guitar and play masterful lead guitar! By the time you’ve completed this book, you will have the skills to perform hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, and many other advanced lead guitar techniques!

As you can see the Team Method Guitar instructional program really includes a lot of features, and we haven’t even had a chance to review the bonus materials included with the program. Having personally gone through the standard features, however, we’re ready to agree with the many students who have already utilized this program to learn guitar–Team Method Guitar is amazing! If you want to learn more about this program and read about the bonus materials included, click here to go to the official site.

JamPlay is a relatively new program, but offers affordable high-quality video guitar lessons with over 5080 minutes of instruction from 7 real, professional instructors. This program caters to everyone, from the true beginner to the advanced guitarist, providing easy to follow lessons on practically every facet of the acoustic and electric guitar.

The true appeal of the JamPlay program is that it is not a one-time purchase, but rather an ongoing video lesson plan which is continually updated by instructors. Although there are already 80+ hours of video instruction currently available to members of the JamPlay program, their professional instructors are still producing new lessons–in fact, they offer a list of the most recent additions right on their home page.To accommodate any level of player, JamPlay offers guitar lessons in three phases, as explained on their site.

• Phase 1: Basic Guitar Lessons For Beginners
• Phase 2: Genre Lessons and Advanced Seminars
• Phase 3: Learning Your Favorite Songs

As a beginner, you’ll learn the absolute basics of the guitar, gradually working your way to the more advanced lessons. In the genre specific phase, you’ll learn techniques and skills specific to the genre you enjoy most. JamPlay has instructors who focus on jazz guitar, rock, blues, bluegrass, classic and more, so you’re sure to find your own genre! In the last phase, JamPlay‘s instructors take requests for favorite songs from their members and offer instruction just for you. After you’ve learned the basics, and mastered techniques from your favorite genre, you can focus on learning all of the songs you enjoy playing!

We really feel the JamPlay program is a perfect option for those who are new to the guitar and want to start from the basics and work their way up. With engaging video guitar lessons at a seemingly endless supply, JamPlay is definitely worth checking out. To continue to JamPlay‘s site and read more about their program and its features, click here.

Jamorama, a program mainly focused toward beginning guitar players, is a fantastic value for its very low price of only $39.95. Although it may lack some of the ongoing instruction and community features of sites like JamPlay, it does offer a great framework for beginners. With this package you’ll receive an extensive package including e-books with beginner and advanced lessons, 1000s of lines of guitar tabs, and video lesson files.

If you’re looking for a package deal that can allow you to quickly dive into things while providing valuable tools, Jamorama may be the program for you. The two e-books included in this package deliver both beginner and advanced lessons, so you can make your way through the basics and then advance to more difficult guitar techniques. Jamorama also includes a ton of video lessons–148 total, to be specific–for those who learn better with video instruction. Let’s take a look at all of the features included:

• 2 Instructional E-Books: Beginner and Advanced
• 148 Step-by-Step Video Guitar Lessons
• Guitar Learning Games: GuitEarIt, JaydeMusica
• 26 Exclusive Jam Tracks
• 1000s of Lines of Guitar Tabs
• Bonus: Jayde Musica Pro, Guitar Tuner Pro, Jamorama Metronome

As you can see, Jamorama does offer a rather large amount of features and has been praised to have been worth the purchase simply for the bonus materials alone. The guitar learning games help students train their ear to identify guitar chords while JaydeMusica is designed to help read guitar music.

All in all, the Jamorama program is definitely a worthwhile option for a beginner student and makes learning guitar fun! To read more about this program, click here.