How should I start this review? Guitar Tricks is the oldest website with video guitar lessons on the Internet. It has been around since 1998, when it took more than an hour to download anything large. Jon Broderick, who has been playing guitar for a long time, started the site because he had a hard time finding accurate tabs and good information about playing guitar.
Today, Guitar Tricks is the place to go for guitar lessons online. For $10.95 a month, you can get access to more than 3,000 video lessons. The lessons are taught by professionals who are experts in their fields...
How should I start this review? Guitar Tricks is the oldest website with video guitar lessons on the Internet. It has been around since 1998, when it took more than an hour to download anything large. Jon Broderick, who has been playing guitar for a long time, started the site because he had a hard time finding accurate tabs and good information about playing guitar.
Today, Guitar Tricks is the place to go for guitar lessons online. For $10.95 a month, you can get access to more than 3,000 video lessons. The lessons are taught by professionals who play guitar for a living and are very good at it. I think the tips and tricks they teach are unique and hard to find elsewhere.
At Guitar Tricks, you won't find the same old "Here's how to play the Am Pentatonic Scale, here's how to play the C chord..." This is true for the very beginning lessons, but what really impresses me about the site is how varied the skill levels are, from beginner to expert, and how you can browse lessons based on genre (there's even Surf) and influences, like Eddie Van Halen.
I have DVDs by top professionals like Frank Gambale, John Petrucci, and Michael Angelo Batio in a drawer. All of these things cost me about $500. On Jon Broderick's website, you can watch videos that teach you how to play the same kinds of tricks I paid a lot of money to learn. Valuable doesn't quite describe the site, more like invaluable.
I used to learn more in a month than I do in a single day. It's very easy to get around. The lessons are full of great information.
But there are some bad things about it. Even though Guitar Tricks might be 10 times cheaper than private lessons and a great way to learn quickly, some of the older videos have bad lighting and sound. For example, there's a great 8–10 video tapping lesson I'd like to try, but it must have been uploaded carelessly near the site's start. Still, there are tabs next to the videos that don't have the best quality, so it's not a big deal.
We also don't have a private teacher who can correct your technique every step of the way. I think that sites like JamPlay have less useful information, but they might be better for beginners because they have a staff of guitar teachers who can work with you online one-on-one. Guitar Tricks is the best book out there for better guitarists, both intermediate and advanced.
I think Guitar Tricks is great for advanced players because it has lessons that will take you to an expert level, which I haven't seen on any other site I've used. You can learn the same techniques that guitar heroes like Paul Gilbert, Joe Satriani, and Jimi Hendrix use. I didn't need to know anything else before I joined the site.
You can spend all day weeding out the bad videos that average guitarists make in their bedrooms and post on YouTube, or you can use GT. You surf one great lesson after another, which is great for those of us who don't have time to practise more than an hour a day. It's crazy how much you can learn in one day.
That's what I knew and what I thought of the site. Even though there were a few things I didn't like, I still think it was great.
