Learn and Master Guitar is a very thorough DVD course, most likely the most comprehensive DVD course that has been introduced onto the market to date. The course was developed by Steve Krenz and Legacy Learning Systems based out of Nashville, Tennessee. Learn and Master Guitar can take someone who doesn’t know the first thing about music or guitar, and with time, turn them into real guitarists.
Learn and Master Guitar Quick Review Sheet
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Ease of use - 7/107/10
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Quality - 8/108/10
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Support - 4/104/10
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Price - 6/106/10
Summary
Learn and Master Guitar is a 20 DVD guitar course, which is very thorough. It is aimed at beginner guitarists, who are just starting out. There is lots of video material, which is supplemented well by the workbooks that are included in the package. If you want to learn from DVDs, this course is a good pick.
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The full Gibson’s Learn and Master Guitar program includes 20 professionally produced DVDs with 20 learning sessions, a printed book of 108 pages, which follows the material of the DVDs and five audio CDs containing jam tracks, which features jam along tracks of the songs taught in the video lessons. A neat feature of the jam tracks is that the guitar part is on the left stereo channel, so you can easily turn the guitar track volume down and just play along with your virtual band. The Learn and Master Guitar kit is shipped in a well organized plastic case that completely encloses the DVDs, the audio CDs, and the workbook.
Gibson is basically a name giving sponsor in the course, which itself was already established, when Gibson hopped along for the ride.
We were pleased to see during our review of the Learn and Master Guitar course, that it teaches you acoustic guitar playing, electric and rock guitar styles, classical and fingerstyle guitar, blues, jazz, country, RB and funk, but most importantly, let you develop your own style of playing. There is also a 10 DVD set version of the program, which we did not review, since the 20 DVD set is a much better value being only $30 more expensive.
(Updated on Nov/20/2024)
The Learn and Master Guitar course is currently on sale from $249 to $149!
Video and course material production quality is the highest that we’ve ever seen for guitar learning DVDs. As you watch the course and learn the guitar, you really feel like you have your own personal guitar instructor (at a fraction of the price). The instructor, Steve Krenz, is a great teacher with a very warm and friendly teaching style. His CV is impressive as well, as he holds a degree in music, he’s a professional recording artist and tours the world teaching music and speaking live.
Nothing shows the quality of this course better than the awards it has earned: Acoustic Guitar Magazine Players’ Choice Awards, Two Telly Awards, AEGIS Award for Excellence in Education.
While the course costs more than most other guitar lessons, its quality and comprehensiveness more than makes up for it. The course can be purchased for a one time fee or a payment plan, which, in contrast with paying a monthly fee for as long as it takes you to learn, lets you really learn at your own pace without pressure.
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What you’ll learn with Learn and Master Guitar
Basically everything from the moment you pick up the guitar to playing at an intermediate level. This review would get way too long if we listed everything in detail, so we chose to list just the contents of the Learn and Master Guitar DVDs. Keep in mind that everything is taught through using backing tracks and songs, making the learning process intuitive, without ever getting boring:
- Starting Off Right
- Reading Music
- Notes on the 1st and 2nd Strings
- Notes on the 3rd and 4th Strings
- Notes on the 5th and 6th Strings
- Basic Open Chords and Roll
- Minor 7th Suspended Chords
- Barre Chords on the 6th String
- Barre Chords on the 5th String
- The Secret to Great Strumming
- Fingerstyle Guitar
- Pentatonic Scales
- Advanced Chords
- Playing the Blues
- Giving Your Playing Some Style
- Electric Guitars – The Heart of Rock
- Advanced Strumming
- Going Beyond the 1st Position
- Jazz
- Soloing
- All the Chords You Need to Know
Ease of Use
The course is organized in a very easy to follow manner. The DVDs have an accompaniment lesson book, which contains all the examples, exercises, and songs you will be playing. Steve Krenz’s teaching style is concise, thorough, and easy to understand.
What You Get with Learn and Master Guitar
- 20 DVDs
- 5 Jam along CDs
- 108 page book to accompany the video lessons
Pros:
- Well structured guitar course to get beginners playing like pros with enough practice.
- The DVD tutorials are broken split into manageable pieces, so you learn gradually. Each lesson builds onto the previous lessons, which makes progressing intuitive.
- The video lessons are supplemented with written material for reference, when you just want to practice without turning on your DVD and TV.
- The course features a lot of teaching aids.
- High quality, professionally produced videos.
- Easy to understand teaching methods.
- The instructor makes it feel like he is actually talking to your.
- One-time purchase price and a payment plan if you don’t want to spend all of the money at once.
Cons:
- The most expensive guitar course, which beginners might find intimidating. But trust me, if you stick with the course, you’ll be playing anything you want, since it truly is a great course.
- Low level of online aids, since Learn and Master Guitar focuses on shipping all the tools with their package, rather than placing them online. While the entire program isn’t accessible online, there are also a number of web-based supplementary materials as well.
Support Services of Learn and Master Guitar
Online support, where you can post questions and discuss your progress on the Student Support Discussion Board. There is also a community website where students post clips and videos of themselves playing and get feedback. You can ask for support via Email as well.
Setup/Compatibility of the Learn and Master Guitar DVDs
The Learn and Master Guitar DVDs are not region encoded, so they will play on any standalone DVD player or your DVD drive equipped PC.
Warranty
Learn and Master Guitar has a risk-free 60 day money back guarantee. This is great, since this is a pricey course, so if you are not satisfied with it, you simply return it by mail and get a full refund.
Price
- 20 DVD set: $199 or $49/month – Sale alert! Discount from $299
- 10 DVD set: $149 or $39/month – Sale alert! Discount from $249
The price may seem steep, but it’s not. After conducting our review, we would recommend the 20 DVD set, since its much better value for your money. The $199 price comes out to $7/disc, which is very reasonable.
Learn and Master Guitar accepts both Visa and Mastercard.
International orders are also available for a $35 surcharge.
Conclusion
Summing up our Learn and Master Guitar review, we have come to the conclusion that if you are serious about learning the guitar, this is the course for you. You’ll learn everything you’ll need to play the guitar, including how to read guitar notes and tabs, guitar tuning, how to read chord charts, open position chords, barre chords, strumming Techniques, fingerstyle picking, pentatonic scales, blues, jazz, funk and rock licks, etc.
As previously stated, we did not find any holes or inaccuracies in the course during our entire review of Learn and Master Guitar. This course comes with our highest recommendation, but only buy it if you are sure you will stick with it, since the price tag is rather steep. If you just want to experiment and see whether you’ll stick with the guitar, we’d recommend a cheaper online course.
Learn and Master Guitar is a superb DVD course, that will get you from 0 to an intermediate level in a step-by-step, easy to follow manner.
Looks good, bit expensive tough…
It is the most expensive guitar course out there, purely because it is the highest quality you can get. As you can see in the review, Learn and Master Guitar will take a total beginner to a strong intermediate level in a very effective manner. It is well structured, and if you stick with the course, you’ll be playing very soon. Think of it as an investment really.
Hello, I second what the editor wrote. I bought the learn & master guitar DVDs for my son-in-law as a Christmas present last year (my daughter bought him a guitar, so it was well planned), he stuck with it, and now he can actually play. Obviously he still has far to go, I think he’s only half way through the DVDs after about half a year, but I can imagine that after he finishes, he’ll be at a level where he’ll be able to play pretty much whatever he wants to.
John
Ok, i bought this second hand from their website and so far it’s the best thing since sliced bread. i’m now up to session 4 and as far as i’m concerned i’m on my way to being a guitar player, certain parts are boring but you need to stick with it and don’t skip around as you will find out later on that everything he teaches is for a reason.