“… to learn to play guitar and play virtually any guitar song you
hear. Whether you want to start a band, perform at clubs, write your
own original songs, or just become a great guitarist. No matter what
level you are at now (beginner, intermediate or advanced)…” Ben
Edwards Author of
Jamorama
Who Will Benefit Most From This Program?
Beginner through Intermediate Students, that are at least 8 years
old and have access to a computer.
Is This Guitar Instruction Program For Acoustic Or Electric
Guitar Players?
Since this is a beginner - intermediate course, the same lessons
are required for both electric and acoustic guitars. The
illustrations often contain information about both.
About The Author
In Ben Edwards own words; “I am a highly respected guitar
teacher. I’m the former lead guitarist for “DegreesK”, who I toured
with internationally. Before joining the band I gained a Bachelor of
Education. My passion for teaching others, especially guitar,
sparked me to develop
Jamorama The
Ultimate Learning Kit…”.
The Parts of This Course
4 Downloadable ebooks;
book one is for beginners, book two is for intermediate level
students, book three is for advance students and the final book is
about tuning. The books are well written, logical and thorough with
an abundance of clear illustrations and photos.
Peppered through out the books are symbols that indicate when
there is a play along Jamtrack or an audio/video example to view for
clarification of the written word. Just click and those learning
aids smoothly pop into the screen.
148 short videos with sound to illustrate each lesson. These
short audio/video illustrations are well produced with split screens
showing the right hand and left hand separately as well as other
illustrations without fingers blocking the view. These videos make
learning a new technique or chord so much easier than static photos
alone.
Jamtracks are audio-only files for essential practicing with
a backup band. This part was my favorite. Just plain fun!
The
Jamorama Bonus Software
Guitar Tuner Pro
- this
software program simply provides a proper tone for each string of
the
guitar. If you wish to hear the proper sound for the low E string
simply click on the Low E on the 3D illustration of the guitar neck
. A perfect low E will sound twice. Over all, this program is simple
to use and will generally help you tune your guitar.
Many alternate tunings for 6,7 and 12 string guitar as well as
several Bass guitar tunings are also part of this nice little
program.
Guitar Ear It - is a software game designed to teach you to
recognize the sound of a chord and match it to its name (Am, B, C#,
etc.). It also teaches how to recognize simple chord progressions.
The
game plays four chords in a row then gives a choice of four groups
of written chord names. If you click on the written chord group that
correctly matches the chords played you receive points. Accumulating
240 points allows you to move up to a more difficult level.
I found that it really did improve my chord identifying skills.
This is a useful game for learning to play what you hear. It is fun
too.
Metronome - this program is designed to give you a steady
beat to develop solid timing and rhythm while practicing. You are
given a choice of 40 beats per minute (bpm) to 208 bpm. I almost
laughed when I first booted up because it looked and sounded exactly
like the old fashion wind up metronome my parents purchased for me
as a new guitar student almost 40 years ago.
The Metronome is simple to use and truly a nice tool. The only
flaw that I found was a minor, infrequent stopping or slowing down
of the beat when another program was running in the background on my
computer. It is possible that this might have more to do with the
age and power of my laptop than the program itself.
Jayde Musica Pro is
another software game that is cleverly designed to develop your
ability to quickly identify the pitch of a note with its musical
symbol and its letter name.
The game begins with a
short music staff containing a note or two moving from the right of
the computer screen to the left. Your task is to click on the
corresponding letter(s) name that corresponds to each note before
they reach the left side of the screen. If you are fast, accurate
and collect enough points you are invited to advance to more
difficult levels.
This game was fun and
indeed I became faster at connecting the musical symbols with their
letter names. Jade Musica Pro is fun, easy to use and productive.
Computer Requirements:
The books, audio, video, jam tracks and bonus
software are designed to be used on both Macintosh and Windows PCs.
The Negatives:
My previous Complaint:
This is my second time to review
Jamorama.
Previously, my biggest complaints had to do with the awkward and
time consuming way that all of the many lesson files had to be down
loaded. I am pleased to say that they have done a wonderful job of
fixing this problem.
The Fix: Now, when you purchase the program you first receive
a download manager software program that lets you smoothly access
each lesson as you need it.
Another previous complaint: When it was time to look at a
video supplement to a lesson it was tedious to hunt through your
downloaded files.
The Fix: Now you just click the video, audio or Jam track
symbol and they automatically load. This makes a huge difference
because you will spend all of your time learning to play guitar
instead of searching for files. Bravo
Jamorama!
I wish the video samples were larger to better see the details of
the left and right hands. This is not a huge problem because the
video is clear.
The final and only significant weakness is that this is basically
a written program with audio and video enhancements instead of an
all video program. They have, however, done a masterful job of
enhancing each written lesson with well produced photos, diagrams,
audio, video and play along jam tracks.
The Price options:
The price/value ratio is fantastic at $39.95 USD and no shipping
costs.
TIP: There is an alternate version of
Jamorama that supplies pre-printed
books and TV-ready DVDs for all of the videos, audios, Jam tracks
and software. It costs $239.95 and frankly just isn’t worth it.
For about $200 you can purchase the best all-video guitar lesson
program called Learn and Master Guitar that has more lessons, a
world renowned instructor and touches on many more styles like Jazz,
Funk, Blues and acoustic finger style picking.
