Guitar Tricks Review

The Basics:
Guitar Tricks has been offering online guitar lessons for more than 10 years and has a successful Core Learning System® , a step by step program for beginner to intermediate students. There are 1500 lessons, all inter-linked, that make up this instruction series which provide a step by step teaching process that will take you from first time beginner to an advanced-intermediate guitarist, capable of playing lead guitar.

This site is run by guitar players, for guitar players and it shows. Guitar Tricks has won the Players Choice award from the Acoustic guitar Magazine, an Award for Excellence in Web Video Education from the International Academy of Visual Arts and Davey Award for Excellence in Instructional Video. What this means to you, the aspiring guitar student is an all around good learning experience. The web site sets up a good learning environment and you will not be distracted by annoying little glitches. Guitar Tricks is a fully developed, mature site dedicated to guitar lessons.

1. Guitartricks.com offers a free membership, which includes 24 beginning guitar lessons to see if the program is a good fit for you.
2. Full access to the website, after full membership via subscription fee. You can choose to renew your monthly membership, or move on. Guitar Tricks offers a great monthly value and is confident you’ll opt to remain and continue learning!
3. Included with membership are a number of multimedia guitar lessons (close to 3500) taught by 45 different instructors.
4. If you prefer the style of a particular guitarist, you can choose lessons “inspired” by that artist.
5. Guitar Tricks covers a number of different styles, from alternative and classical to jazz and funk.
6. Online graphics can be copied and pasted or viewed as flash text.
7. Customer feedback shows 80% of students learned faster with the Guitar Tricks system and 97.8% of all survey respondents would recommend the Guitar Tricks system to friends and relatives.
8. Guitar Tricks provides the Jam Station for “jam along” tracks for every song so you can play along with the backing track while watching the instructor’s fingers on the video. Jam Station may become your most valuable tool in the fight against “stuck in a rut syndrome.”
9. The Ultimate Chord Finder covers all the most important chord forms and their variations. To help you learn new chords, the Ultimate Chord Finder includes audio samples to show you have the chord should sound when played correctly.
10. The Ultimate Scale Finder will show you all five scale patterns for 20 different scales in all 12 keys. This is a really nice tool for the developing guitarist and definitely helps with scales.
11. The Ultimate Metronome is another free tool that adds value to this site. It is convenient and will help you develop a steady beat, as well as allowing experimentation with different speeds to find the best pace for your music. The Ultimate Metronome’s Speed Drill feature increases BPM over time, turning exercises into a challenging game.

Customer Support:
Guitartricks.com encourages you to follow their online forum, moderated by guitarist, for guitarists. The forum and discussions appear to be quite up-to-date and focus on topics that will improve your learning experience and guitar playing. Although full access to forums is not allowed with the free trial membership, you are able to access all information after paying your monthly fee. Guitar Tricks also has a list of helpful resources and links for someone wanting to learn more about their craft.

Overall Thoughts:


Overall, Guitartricks.com has a professional, well developed website that is easy to use and will enhance your learning experience. Their Core Learning System® with interlinked lessons is a solid teaching system and will give you results if you spend even a little time regularly to use it. The lessons cover a wide variety of topics and appear to be taught by a number of instructional experts. Most impressive is their wide variety of guitar-related forums. For someone on a budget, the monthly membership fee is the way to go, because there is not a major up front out-of-pocket expense. Coming from a large family of musicians, with exposure to many different teaching styles, I can honestly say that Guitar Tricks is a great value for the depth of instruction that is offered. As with any musical instrument, it takes time and at least a little effort to develop musically. If you make the commitment to yourself for at least 6 months, you’ll be surprised at your results, with a very small cost when compared to taking lessons from an onsite teacher.

Disclosure: We are paid by the companies who’s products we review. Each product reviewed has been thoroughly tested by us. The opinions offered here are our own and all information is verified as accurate at the time of review.

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