Guitar Tricks Review
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Playing the guitar can be a very fulfilling hobby, a potential career path, or even a way for people to feel like a rock star now and then. Whatever your reason may be for wanting to play, the common thread is learning how to play in the first place. Online guitar lessons have become a convenient and affordable way to learn, and being able to learn at your own pace on your own schedule makes them all the more attractive.
Guitar Tricks offers thousands of lessons for all skill levels using 45 instructors covering several different styles. They also have more than 1,000 songs in their song library that you can learn to play, as well as lessons that you can download and keep. And, they have a 14-day free trial which gives you full access to the entire website, along with a 60-day money-back guarantee for paid memberships.
- Huge site with thousands of lessons
- Exceptional video quality
- More than 800 songs and over 1,000 jam tracks to play along with
- Great for beginners, with well-defined learning tracks designed to develop a variety of playing styles.
- Limited “free” area
- Some content areas aren’t as full as others
- Just a few songs for bass players
- Huge site with thousands of lessons
- Exceptional video quality
- More than 800 songs and over 1,000 jam tracks to play along with
- Great for beginners, with well-defined learning tracks designed to develop a variety of playing styles.
- Limited “free” area
- Some content areas aren’t as full as others
- Just a few songs for bass players
Our Video Review of Guitar Tricks
Why You Should Trust This Review
I’ve been playing guitar and making music for approximately 35 years, mostly based out of Los Angeles, CA. I’ve played in several bands, been involved with several recording projects and played countless shows all over the world.
As a band member I have been a leader, a follower and a team player, primarily playing punk and alternative styles of music. I’ve never taken a formal guitar lesson but I have learned a lot from other musicians by simply playing along with them, asking questions and picking up tips and tricks here and there.
I continue to enjoy the experiences I get from playing and touring, and a big part of that is because I’m still able to learn so much from other guitar players.
How I Tested It
I spent a few days exploring the Guitar Tricks website and found that it was very easy to navigate. When you create an account it asks you a series of questions that help create a learning path, which skills you want to learn or refine, and which styles of music you want to focus on.
The main focus is on the two levels of core classes for beginner and intermediate players, but it’s very easy to skip ahead if the lessons cover things that you already know, or if you want to sample some of the more advanced lessons just for fun.
I started with the beginner lessons and Guitar Tricks spends a good amount of time on the very basics, such as how to properly hold a guitar, the names of the different parts of the guitar and how to tune.
As for the lessons for actual playing, they are also very fundamental, first focusing on hand and finger placement, how to hold a pick and proper strumming. But soon they move forward with learning cords, playing songs and practice techniques, and eventually getting into power cords, bar cords, scales and how to read music.
The experienced lessons are the next step after the beginner lessons, but you’re not forced to complete the beginner lessons to access the experienced lessons.
These lessons take you to the next level and focus on genres, solos, tones and song structure, and you can choose between blues, country, rock or acoustic.
It’s easy to skip around between styles and, though the selection of genres may seem limited, these fundamentals are applicable for nearly all styles of playing.
The Lessons, Video Player and Instructors
The average length of each lesson is around five minutes, which makes them easy to remember and digest, and the video player is top-notch. All of the lessons are viewable in 4K resolution but you can select which resolution works best for your device and Internet connection, or use the auto setting and let the video player choose the resolution for you.
All of the videos show multiple angles of the instructor, including close-ups of their hands so you can really see what they’re doing. You can also select which playback speed you prefer, including going twice as fast as normal and slowing it down to half-speed. Another feature is creating your own loops within the lesson so you can watch a specific segment over and over again.
Each lesson has the accompanying notation that you can play along with, or you can hide the notation if you prefer to just watch the video. You can also download and print the notation if you like. You can also mark lessons as favorites if you want to quickly go back to them later, and there’s also a progress tracker that let’s you know which lessons you’ve already watched. And, as part of a paid membership, each lesson is available to download at no additional cost.
As for the instructors, they come across as very knowledgeable and experienced with giving guitar lessons. Guitar Tricks has been around since 1998 and claim to have taught more than 3,000,000 people, so it makes sense that their instructors would be so capable. The lessons may be short, but the instructors give a lot of useful information while being friendly, relaxed and not intimidating.
What it Offers
Guitar Tricks offers a 14-day free trial which gives you full access to more than 11,000 lessons and more than 1,000 song lessons, taught by 45 instructors covering 12 different styles of music, with new lessons uploaded almost weekly. Guitar Tricks also has a 60-day money-back guarantee for paid memberships.
It’s important to note that you are required to give them a credit or debit card number when you sign up for the free trial, and it’s your responsibility to cancel before the trial period ends if you don’t want to get charged for a paid membership.
Other Features
- Song Library
Another feature of Guitar Tricks is their library of more than 1,000 songs to learn, which you can sort by artist, title, genre and level of difficulty. Now, these aren’t just audio tracks for you to play along with, these are full lessons taught by instructors.
Each song is broken down into multiple videos that teach you how to play the song from beginning to end, including the solos, and each song also includes the accompanying notation and lyrics. It’s important to note that, due to copyright laws, the songs and notation from the song library cannot be downloaded.
- Guitar Style Lessons
There’s also a section of lessons that just focus on different styles of guitar playing, categorized by genre. There are 12 different styles to choose from, and the lessons focus on things like guitar tones, chords, scales, solos and theories that are specific to that particular style of music. Most of these lessons are for intermediate and advanced players, but there are some beginner lessons mixed in here and there.
- Toolbox
The toolbox section of Guitar Tricks has a large collection of resources to help hone your skills. There’s a scale finder with audio and visual aids where you can learn hundreds of scales, and a cord finder that also has audio and visual aids which can teach you thousands of cords.
There’s also a jam station containing more than 1,400 songs covering various genres. These are pre-recorded songs without the lead guitar for you to play along with and improving your soloing and general playing.
Also, the toolbox also has a tuner, metronome, fretboard diagram, glossary of guitar-related terms, library of chord charts, guide to reading tablature, and fretboard trainer, which is a game to help you learn the different notes on the fretboard.
- Free Apps
In addition to taking your lessons on a desktop or laptop computer, Guitar Tricks also offers a free app that you can download for phones and tablets, and it can also be used with web-enabled TVs. After creating an account, it syncs your account across your devices and remembers which lessons you have taken, so you can literally take your lessons from just about anywhere.
- 11,000+ lessons available
- Beginner to advanced level lessons
- Multi-view videos with adjustable speed
- Tablature and chord charts available
- Song Library and Jam Station
Signing Up
As I mentioned, Guitar Tricks offers a 14-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee for paid memberships. If you opt for a paid membership, it’s $19.99 per month or $179.00 per year for full access to their website, and all of the lessons (with the exception of the song library lessons) are available to download at no additional charge.
Another option for tying out Guitar Tricks is to sign-up for standard access, which offers 24 sample lessons taught by 12 different instructors. Standard access is free and does not require a credit or debit card to use. However, the lessons in standard access are never updated. Still, if you’re hesitant to sign up for the free trial for full access, standard access might be a good option if you’re concerned about remembering to cancel before the free trial is up.
Additional Purchases
- One-On-One Lessons
You can schedule 30-minute or 60-minute lessons with an instructor of your choosing which are done live via webcam. The lessons are $40 for a 30-minute lesson and $60 for a 60-minute lesson, and you can schedule them to either be a one-time lesson or weekly recurring lessons.
- Free 14-day trial and 60-day money-back guarantee
- $19.95 per month or $179.00 per year
- Free app for phones, tablets and web-enabled TVs
- Toolbox with additional learning resources
- Lessons are free to download
What I Liked
I really enjoyed the Guitar Tricks website and, even though it has tons of lessons, options, features and additional resources, I found their site to be very easy to navigate.
There’s also a helpful introductory video that walks you through how to use the website and all of its features, and how to get started with your lessons.
The HD videos with multi-view format are outstanding, and being able to choose your own streaming resolution and slow down the playback speed are great features. Also, having 12 different styles to choose from along with new lessons being uploaded almost weekly should keep anybody pretty busy. The many resources in the toolbox are extremely useful for players of all levels, and I really liked the step-buy-step lessons for the song library.
- Large selection of courses
- New lessons uploaded almost weekly
- Go at your own pace
- Watch only the lessons that you want
- Several styles to choose from
- Knowledgeable instructors
- Great video quality
- Free app for phones, tablets and web-enabled TVs
What I Didn’t Like
Honestly, I really couldn’t find anything that I disliked about Guitar Tricks. If I had to pick something, I would say that the 14-day free trial seems a little short, but considering that you can try standard access with no obligation, and that they have a 60-day money-back guarantee for paid memberships, it’s a very minor dislike.
- Short free trial period
Final Thoughts
The cost for Guitar Tricks seems reasonable considering the amount of lessons, styles and instructors and other features that it offers.
And considering that new lessons are uploaded almost weekly, and that there are lessons for learning more than 1,400 songs in their library, I think the cost of a paid membership is very reasonable.
So, even though the free trial is a little short, the 60-day money-back guarantee and the option for standard access should give you plenty of time to decide if learning how to play the guitar is something that you want to pursue. There’s really nothing to lose by giving it a try.
Click here to a free trail at Guitar Tricks
