Do you buy online lessons?

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  • antonyivantonyiv Frets: 300
    I buy a lot and totally love online lessons. 

    For guitar: I buy lessons from Truefire on regular basis. I really like Tom Quayle and My Twangy Guitar lessons as well. I still have monthly subscription on Ultimate Guitar which I’m using for tabs.

    Other stuff: I buy writing lessons from Masterclass.com. And I have pretty good collection for web and graphic design from many teachers.

    I would definitely prefer streaming instead of download.
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  • bingefellerbingefeller Frets: 5723
    edited April 2018

    Bit of market research for something I’m working on.  Do you/ have you bought any lessons online? The download ones I mean not Skype type stuff. 

    If if you have, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Why did you get them and not search for the same kind of content from a free source? 

    Were they what you expected? Did you get what you wanted from them? 

    Did you buy just one or more or do you intend I buy more from the same provider or someone else? 

    Was it it a more basic lesson or more advanced? 

    all replies much appreciated.  

    I've bought a load of lessons over the years.

    For a while I was a member of guitarmasterclass.net.  The reason I joined this site was because you could interact with the teachers on the forum and you could download the material.  I joined to get access to Ben Higgins's stuff as he was the most advanced rock orientated guy on there. 

    I left the site after a while as the stuff wasn't really that unique that I couldn't have got it somewhere for free.  I liked Ben's "in the style of" videos that he did on Youtube and they were my main reason for joining the site. 

    I also bought a number of Truefire lessons.  From memory I bought Pat Martino, Steve Vai, Tim Miller and all of Fareed Haque's lessons. 

    The Pat Martino lessons were OK - I have his Quantum Guitar DVDs and most of the Truefire stuff was recycled from that.  I got a refund as it wasn't anything new to me and bought Tim Miller's lesson instead.  This was good and wasn't anything that I could have got online for free due to Tim's unique 2 1 2 approach and how he uses these shapes. 

    The Steve Vai lesson was alright, nothing to give an insight into his playing, just him playing parts from songs.  I bought it because I'm a big Vai fan. 

    The Fareed Haque stuff is alright, nothing you couldn't get elsewhere online for free, apart from his Indian influenced lesson, that is quite unique and I got some new ideas from it.

    I bought a number of lessons from Jazzheaven, Mikesmasterclass and mymusicmasterclass too. 

    The ones from Mikesmasterclass were with Tom Lippincott and I couldn't have got the stuff anywhere else.  He went very in depth and I got a lot out of it.  The videos were quite long - over 2 hours IIRC - and he is quite dry and it is hard going. 

    Jazzheaven lesson was with Lage Lund and was his Jazz Guitar Chord Vocab course.  Again, because his approach is modern and unique, I couldn't have got the stuff anywhere else.  One you know his approach, it isn't anything ground breaking.  His phrasing makes it special. 

    The thing I didn't like about jazzheaven was that you had to pay extra to be able to download your lesson, or pay even more to be able to access it forever.  I was able to find a work around for this and could download a copy easy enough. 

    The mymusicmasterclass lessons was with Mike Moreno.  Again, like the Lage Lund one, I couldn't have got it anywhere else due to his unique approach.  I did learn lots from it, although it started off basic e.g. talking about 3rds and 7ths. 

    For about 6 months I was a member of Tim Miller's site.  When you're a member you have access to everything, with tabs in pdf format.  You could also interact with Tim on his message board.

    I took away a lot of info, but I felt that a lot of material was getting recycled from week to week.  I also felt that Tim wasn't that helpful in answering some questions on the forum.  Eventually I left the site, in part due to the lack of new material and the lack of detailed answers on the forum.

    The most money I've spent is with Troy Grady's lessons.  I've bought all the lessons on his site and am also a member.  I have learnt the most on there about technique than I have anywhere else. 

    Another source of lessons was from Wayne Krantz's site.  He offered audio lessons for sale a lot of years ago and these were very unique.  I bought them more for curiosity as he is interesting to listen to.  I learnt a lot about his approach.


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  • BlueingreenBlueingreen Frets: 2582
    Never paid for a course, although I've used lots of online tuition in a fairly random and unstructured way.  I have bought screeds of books for guitar and bass.

    What I would pay for, but think would be hard to find, is someone who would assess my strengths and weaknesses, and from a discussion of my musical interests help devise a road map for progress.

    As far as I'm concerned a teacher who starts off by asking me to identify discrete and achievable goals is not earning his or her corn.  If I'm already clear what my short term, achievable goals ought to be I think I can get there without a teacher: there's plenty of very good free or inexpensive material out there.

    What would be much more valuable is someone capable of saying "I can see you're working on x, y and z, and although they are all valuable in themselves I don't think what you're doing is the most efficient way of becoming the kind of player you want to be.  If I were you I'd be concentrating on this program instead."

    Whether it's viable to do something like that with online courses I don't know, there'd obviously have to be some direct teacher/student contact.   But I don't see anything less as being worth paying for, unless it really is inexpensive.

    “To a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail.”
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  • Matt_McGMatt_McG Frets: 321

    Bit of market research for something I’m working on.  Do you/ have you bought any lessons online? The download ones I mean not Skype type stuff. 

    If if you have, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Why did you get them and not search for the same kind of content from a free source? 

    Were they what you expected? Did you get what you wanted from them? 

    Did you buy just one or more or do you intend I buy more from the same provider or someone else? 

    Was it it a more basic lesson or more advanced? 

    all replies much appreciated.  

    I've bought a load of lessons over the years.

    ...

    The Fareed Haque stuff is alright, nothing you couldn't get elsewhere online for free, apart from his Indian influenced lesson, that is quite unique and I got some new ideas from it.

    I bought a number of lessons from Jazzheaven, Mikesmasterclass and mymusicmasterclass too. 




    That is super helpful information, as some of those are ones I've considered myself.
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  • bingefellerbingefeller Frets: 5723
    Ross if you’re thinking of creating some kind of lesson site then, what I like, is downloadable PDF format tabs of the lessons.  The tabs should be created in something like Guitar Pro, not handwritten.  

    I also like downloadable videos or Audio.   The reason is that I can open them in VLC or Transcribe! and loop or slow down certain sections while I play along.  Even when I find a YouTube lesson I like I use YouTube-dl to download it and add it to my archive of guitar lessons.  

    If a site doesn’t offer a downloadable option, there is pretty much always a way to download the video one way or another, so they may as well offer up the download imo.  
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  • lukedlblukedlb Frets: 488
    I've long been tempted to start with TXBA. The lessons are good and the cost is very reasonable:
    https://texasbluesalley.com
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  • EvoEvo Frets: 307
    I’ve dabbled in a fair few different online courses. Most value so far has probably been the Tom Quayle stuff, both through his own site and licklibrary. 

    Im currently a TrueFire all access member, but don’t really feel that their approach is quite right for me. Same with jamtrackcentral. There’s a lot of “here’s some playing” and now “here’s the tab”, without any real explanation or teaching other than parroting the notes. So while I can play “Whatever style” licks, I haven’t really learned anything in depth.

    On the flip side of the coin, I’ve always loved Mattias Eklundh’s music and his lesson material actually inspired me enough to hop on a plane to Sweden and get some 1 to 1 time with him. Best guitar playing decision I’ve ever made, completely refuelled my musical soul. 

    I guess my playing is at a point where I’m not too fussed about what the tab is, I can work that out myself. I just want to know more about different approaches and ways of thinking.
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  • bingefellerbingefeller Frets: 5723
    Evo said:
    I’ve dabbled in a fair few different online courses. Most value so far has probably been the Tom Quayle stuff, both through his own site and licklibrary. 

    Im currently a TrueFire all access member, but don’t really feel that their approach is quite right for me. Same with jamtrackcentral. There’s a lot of “here’s some playing” and now “here’s the tab”, without any real explanation or teaching other than parroting the notes. So while I can play “Whatever style” licks, I haven’t really learned anything in depth.

    On the flip side of the coin, I’ve always loved Mattias Eklundh’s music and his lesson material actually inspired me enough to hop on a plane to Sweden and get some 1 to 1 time with him. Best guitar playing decision I’ve ever made, completely refuelled my musical soul. 

    I guess my playing is at a point where I’m not too fussed about what the tab is, I can work that out myself. I just want to know more about different approaches and ways of thinking.

    @Evo where is Mattias's instructional material?  Are you talking about his Freak Guitar Camp tab books?
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  • EvoEvo Frets: 307
    The growing your own moustache series, yes.

    I think he's up to volume 6 now, once he started putting videos of the tracks on YouTube, a lot of the stuff made a lot more sense. The stuff that still didn't click, is why I went over to Sweden.

    Some of his clinic stuff on YouTube offers some great insights into his playing too. His more recent stuff is heavily "konnokol'd up" so once that clicks in place then you start to see where it all comes from

    Despite the chaos, there is definite method to his Viking madness. 
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  • mburekengemburekenge Frets: 1054
    Truefire - I have a lot of the Robben Ford stuff. I think he's a great teacher as well as a great player. 

    I have a couple of JTC masterclasses - Martin miller visualisation and the arpeggio one. They are both good but some of the tab had errors which irritates me. 

    I've used Texas blues alley. His stuff is good on that srv / Hendrix vibe. His concept of 'blues boxes' annoys me though. Just relate it to standard music theory please.

    I'm a studio nerd, so i signed up to tim pierce's masterclass. Its not very structured, but everything on there is musical and useful imo
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  • richcolrichcol Frets: 12
    edited May 2018
    I signed up for Truefire All Access subscripton a couple of months ago and really happy with it and so far is above expectations. So you can stream their main library of courses from PC, tablet, smartphone. 

    Found them as they have a decent selection of funk/soul courses and I liked the material in general. Was after something to expand fretboard knowledge as well and get me into playing lead more and it's ticking the boxes so far. There's a good theory course and can just watch that anytime away from the guitar so really like that flexibility.

    The Soundslice feature they use allows slow down of the videos - which are excellent quality and have 3 angles. Can download the tab sheets and chord diagrams from PC. And theres a backing track for each clip. These are quite recent courses I've looked at so far so this might not be the case for all. To have access to a course offline you'd still have to purchase it.

    I like that there's lots of style (blues/soul/jazz/country)  and technique courses but not exactly "learn the licks/songs of player/band X..." so think that will keep it more interesting for me. 

    It's intermediate level stuff I've looked at so far. In one of the videos the instructor advised to watch the course through or flick through so you can cherry pick the bits of interest which is well worth doing.

    What the poster said above about videos not getting into the detail of why things are played may end up being the case and I'm sure this method won't offer as much as one to one lessons with the right teacher. But so far I've benefited from the courses and use the videos for the majority of practice time. 

    I got the subscription on offer and works out £6 a month. They have plenty of sales on. Think there is a month trial option.


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  • ZenOvertoneZenOvertone Frets: 231
    Some great stuff out there on Truefire, lots more coming on board now (e.g. Oz Noy, Allen Hinds).   
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  • DulcetJonesDulcetJones Frets: 515
    I've watched some free banjo and dobro/lap steel youtube instructional vids recently.  Some are better than others, biggest bug report:  keep the chatter short.   Overall though I learned something from all the ones I saw,  Some years back I bought a book/DVD on flamenco guitar that was good in some ways but advanced far to quickly and I've never gotten even to the half way point.

    “Theory is something that is written down after the music has been made so we can explain it to others”– Levi Clay


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