Check out the Instrument Master website at www.instrumentmaster.com

Anyone who has spend time trawling through the internet and the many music related websites will probably have come across Instrument Master.  One of the negative aspects of Instrument Master is the hyped and over the top way that the course is featured on the webpage.  Many people are put off by websites with pop ups, endless reviews by random people and outrageous claims about how good the product is and ‘special prices’ for recommending your friends also buy the product.  What seems to attract people to this piano course is the promise of an all inclusive piano course, the price which is cheaper than many of the other courses available online and also the advertised bonus of access to other courses for instruments including guitar, bass and violin at no extra cost.

Unfortunately after parting with the purchase price to have access to all that Instrument Master (Piano) has to offer it was clear that many of the features that were advertised on the website were substandard or in some cases were exaggerated or nonexistent.  The advertisement for Instrument Master claims that you will have access to 1000s of lessons for all instruments via the Instrument Master library as well as access to 10 Styles and genres of instruction for each of the instruments covered by this site.  What you really get is somewhat different to the promises made before you part with your money.

After gaining access to the teaching materials for Instrument Master it was clear that what was promised and what was delivered were two totally different things.  The advertisement for Instrument Master promised thousands of lessons but the site only features 13 QuickTime movie files which were poor quality, didn’t really teach anything of importance and were only short with the longest clip only 3 minutes.  The clips that did show something where blurry,  had muffled audio and there was no structure to any of the lessons.

Instrument Master also provides the user with 13 MP3 files that contain just the audio of the above mentioned QuickTime movie files.  These audio files are completely useless as you already have the audio with the video clips and they aren’t that good anyhow.  The package also features scale illustrations, some PDF files that have some basic music theory and notation and some Jam Tracks which as with most of this package are rubbish and a waste of time downloading.

For people looking for a great online course for learning to play piano – keep looking.  Instrument Master is a poor quality waste of money – do not buy this course.

For more information check the website www.instrumentmaster.com

Check out the Learn and Master Bass Guitar website www.learnandmaster.com

Learn and Master Bass Guitar is a brand new bass guitar course from the Legacy Learning company.  This course is part of the spotlight series of courses offered by this company and is a less expensive bass guitar course which still manages to give the student good quality video lessons and an excellent introduction to the 4 string bass guitar.  The video lessons feature Tony Marvelli who has a solid background in playing and teaching the bass guitar and his easy style comes across well as he teaches in the video lessons.

As with many of the online courses, Learn and Master Bass Guitar features 3 DVDs of video lessons, 1 audio CD and a work book which is used to supplement the lessons.  The video lessons are split into 6 sessions which cover topics such as an introduction to the bass guitar, music theory, tab and reading music, scales, chord progressions and how to get the most out of your practice time.  This course is great for beginners as it spends a fair amount of time focusing on the basics of playing the bass guitar such as picking, fretting techniques as well as slides and patterns.  Some of the topics that are featured during the video lessons are only covered very briefly so it is essential to have the work book to follow which fills in the required detail for many of these skills.

Learn and Master Bass Guitar also features a Jam Along CD which has 8 tracks which you can play along to.  The tracks are of a high quality and feature full band backing as well as excellent jazz and blues sections which are great to play along to.  The Jam Along CD is good but unlike other learn to play bass courses the tracks are only featured at the one tempo and the tracks are an extra and learning them is not covered in any of the video lessons.

The lesson book is available only as a PDF and can be downloaded from the resource website.  The book is an excellent complement to the video lessons and has been produced with easy to understand diagrams, chord charts and exercises.

Learn and Master Bass Guitar is quite a good course for people who are looking for a cheaper option for an online course.  The video lessons and work book have many positive features and this course is great for beginners who are looking for a course that covers the basics of playing bass in some detail.

Check out the Learn and Master Bass Guitar website www.learnandmaster.com

Check out the Piano by Pattern website at www.pianobypattern.com

Piano by Pattern is not your typical 1 through 10 piano course with much of the course and the information included focusing around a secret technique that makes playing easier and also aids the player to easily make your own impromptu tunes.  People who are looking for a course to teach them how to play the piano should give this one a miss as the central theme of this piano course, the secret technique, does not teach you anything that will help you develop or make you into a better pianist.  This course was created by Scott Jordan and is available to view both online or once you have purchased, for download to your computer.

The Piano by Pattern includes 14 video lessons which make up the bulk of the material for the course.  One of the disappointing features of these lessons is that you are only show what keys are being played through a diagram and hand positions and techniques are not covered in these video lessons.  A positive feature of the videos is that Jordan is quite good to listen to and many of the techniques and teachings are explained quite well.

Also included in Piano by Pattern is a PDF Chord workbook which is a fairly standard chord chart showing much of the same information found in most beginner piano books.  There is also a notes workbook which contains basic music notation found in any beginner piano book.  The last extra included in the pack is a short document called Read Music Now which covers the basics of reading music and understanding notation and symbols used in music.

People looking for a beginner course to learn how to play the piano should avoid this piano course like the plague.  The secret technique that is taught by Jordan through this course does work to some extent but has very real limitations and after listening to many of the original tunes he has made up they all sound pretty much the same.  Some website reviews of Piano by Pattern have suggested that this package is a rip off or at best a scam as there are many excellent online piano courses available with better content and extras for much less money.  It is recommended that you don’t waste your time or your hard earned money on Piano by Pattern.

For more information check out the Piano by Pattern website www.pianobypattern.com

Check out the Piano Coach Pro website at www.pianocoachpro.com

If you have spent time surfing the internet for an online piano course then you may have come across Piano Coach Pro in your travels.  For those people who have bought or checked out Instrument Master you will see that Piano Coach Pro is very similar in relation to the content and also the hype and misinformation.  The course has been put together by Jamie Lewis who does most of the playing in the badly filmed video lessons.  As with Instrument Master, Piano Coach Pro offers much in their advertising but delivers little of what is advertised.

According to the website and advertisements for Piano Coach Pro you will receive the following once you have enrolled and paid your money.  The course is said to provide you with over 200 lessons, 18 video lessons, 20 audio lessons, play along tracks, 1000s of scales, arpeggios, chords and exercises as well as over 50 MP3 audio lessons on Piano Style.  This sounds relatively good for a learn to play piano course considering that the price is lower than other courses claiming to have content such as this.  Unfortunately the content of Piano Coach Pro is really only 10 video lessons, 4 scale charts, one 12 page music theory booklet and a membership to guitar hot shot and Violin Master Pro which is considerably less content than advertised.

Once you have paid your money and have access to the members area of the website you have a choice of downloading the lessons or you can stream them onto your computer.  The video lessons are very poor in quality and in many parts the audio is muffled which makes it difficult to follow or hear what is being taught.  Another negative with the video lessons is that they have no structure or logical sequence and jump around from one skill to another which makes it very hard to follow and learn.  The other material included in Piano Coach Pro is not really worth mentioning to much as information such as the scale charts and music theory featured in the book can be obtain free on other websites and in a much better format.

For people looking to buy an online guide to playing the piano make sure that you stay right away from Piano Coach Pro.  This over hyped rubbish with its poor quality video lessons and lack of content is sure to disappoint and there are so many other courses available so don’t waste your time or money on Piano Coach Pro.

Check the Play Piano Tonight Website www.playpianotonight.com

Play Piano Tonight is one of many computer based courses that combines the use of an eBook with other multimedia presentations in a lesson format.  The course has been designed and presented by musician and music teacher Ron Worthy who also has several different piano related websites for students of the piano to visit.  The eBook that you download after purchase is central to the lessons for this course and as with many of these courses the examples, video and audio clips are imbedded in the eBook and are relatively easy to use.

Play Piano Tonight is targeted at a novice or beginner level skills on the piano and this is where the course falls a bit short.  The title suggests that these lessons are for beginner pianists however if you are a beginner at the piano you may find that the course is not quite what you expected and that the lessons are quite hard and are targeted at people with a few more piano skills.

The Play Piano Tonight course is available online and once you have purchased the course and logged into the website you are presented with a membership area that contains all the sheet music and exercises embedded on this page of the website.  This format of presenting the course is very user unfriendly as there are much better ways of presenting information on webpage’s especially when the user has paid for access to the content.  After going through the lessons and using the video and audio functions another disappointment was the quality of the video and audio supplied with the course especially from Worthy who mumbles a lot through important parts of the video lessons.

Apart from the course content the only other extras that are included in the Play Piano Tonight course is a membership to the SheetMusicDigital.com website and access to the VanBasco Karaoke Player which is a free downloadable application.  The access to the sheet music website is quite a good extra as memberships are usually $20 so you save a bit of money and get access to a great music website.

Play Piano Tonight is not the best piano course on the market and one of the big problems with this course is that it is marketed at beginner piano players and clearly to get the best out of this course you need to have some background in music and have some experience playing the piano.  For beginners it is recommended that you give this course a miss and check out other piano courses that are specifically targeted at beginner piano players.

For more information check the website www.playpianotonight.com

Check out Rocket Piano at www.rocketpiano.com

The Rocket Piano course has been around for several years and has become a favourite with beginners who have decided to learn the piano from home.  The piano lessons and information are specifically targeted at beginners which means that the lessons don’t have an overwhelming amount of technical terms and the student does not have to have any prior knowledge of music or the piano.  Rocket Piano has been designed and is taught by Ruth Searle who has a background in piano which includes classical training, a bachelor of arts in music and various other prestigious awards for composition and performance.  Searle features as the instructor in the video lessons and guides students through the various exercises and practice.

The Rocket Piano course is a very comprehensive one which uses a mix of video, audio and work book based material to teach beginners the basics of playing the piano.  Rocket Piano is available as a download including video and audio files and the workbooks as a PDF or the course can be purchased in a physical form as DVDs, CDs and 3 bound work books.  Downloading the course is the better of the two as it is slightly cheaper and you receive the course straight away rather than having to wait for it to come in the post.

The Rocket Piano course has a large amount of material which has been put together in such a way that it moves you through the course as you master the exercises and improve on your skill base.  The course contains 3 lesson books which, at over 200 pages total, are an important reference as you move through the lessons, 2 extra Jazz and Gospel books, 191 audio files, 57 video lessons, 17 jam tracks, an online question and answer video lesson and life membership to Rocket Piano which allows for future material to be accessed for free.  Searle has also included some bonus material in the Rocket Piano course such as a perfect pitch learning game and great reference called the chordinator which teaches people who are new to the piano how to easily read piano chords.

Piano Rocket is one of the better piano learning courses available online which focuses on people who are beginners at both music and playing the piano.  The content of this course may look at first to be overwhelming but this course has a good structure which moves you through the lessons and the theory as your skills and playing improve.

Check out the Teach Me Bass Guitar webpage at www.teachmebassguitar.com

Finding good quality courses and online lessons for bass guitar has in the past been a battle as many courses or online lessons were more focused on guitar with a bass section sometimes included as an extra.  This has changed in recent times with a few companies creating online courses and lessons that cater specifically for students who wish to learn the bass guitar.  The Learning Dock is one of these companies that has brought out a comprehensive multimedia course for learning the bass guitar called Teach Me Bass Guitar.

Teach Me Bass Guitar is one of the most comprehensive bass courses on the market with over 16 hours of tuition through video lessons as well as 10 full length DVDs and a huge amount of resource materials.  The course is targeted at beginners as is covers the basics and knowledge required by someone who is new to the bass guitar but is also a great course for intermediate players who are looking to refine their skills and develop their playing.  The course has been created by Roy Vogt who has been playing bass guitar for over 40 years and has many other notable accolades such as masters degrees in music and performance as well as a teaching history of over 30 years.

The Teach Me Bass course is very comprehensive and is designed around the video lessons as well as the lesson book which is a PDF that can be downloaded and printed.  The lesson book is designed to be used as a guide while you watch the video lessons as it contains material such as music terminology, fret board diagrams and extra lesson information.  As well as the great video lessons the course also includes over 100 play along music videos that are incorporated into each of the lessons.  The great thing about these music videos is they are featured 4 times on the DVD so you can play with Vogt playing the bass or without Vogt playing and the track has also been recorded at a slow or fast tempo.  One other feature of the lessons that is worth noting is the real time fret board that shows exactly what notes are being played in the lesson.

There is little to fault with this bass guitar course as it is well put together and features more than enough support and information for the beginner bass guitarist.  If you are looking for an excellent bass guitar course then you have found it.

Check out the Piano System Review at www.pianosystem.com

Piano System is produced by Railroad Media, a company that has made a name for itself producing DVD  and online music courses that are of high quality.  The Piano system course is DVD based and features video lessons which take you through learning the basic skills required to play the piano and also play along tracks that let you use and practise these skills in a more interesting way than just playing scales and exercises.  The video quality and the teaching of this course is very good and the course is designed for beginners and intermediate piano players looking to improve their skills.

Piano System features Nate Bosch, a well known pianist who has experience teaching and playing with various bands in his native Canada.  Bosch features in the video lessons and his relaxed and friendly style conveys the content of lessons extremely well.

Most of the information in Piano System is contained on the three lesson DVDs that come in the package.  These DVDs are split into three sections, beginner, intermediate and advanced with each section following on as you develop and practise the skills.  The beginner DVD lessons are an excellent introduction to the piano with these lessons covering important piano skills as well as music theory which is important ground work for people who are beginners with the piano.  The intermediate DVD follows on from the beginner lessons and covers important scales and chord progressions required for a good grounding in piano playing.  Some of the exercises on the intermediate DVD can be a little repetitive but if you are able to stick to it these chord progressions and scales do give you a good base to work from and you will get more out of your piano playing if you are able to master these skills.  The Advanced lessons on the third DVD cover different types of piano styles and cover specific genre such as classical, jazz and blues.

The pack also features two play a long DVDs which take you step by step through 16 different songs.  Once you have learned these songs you can play along with or without Bosch playing the piano and with the backing band.  The 16 songs included on these DVDs are also contained in the work book which details chords and music for each.

The Piano System is a well presented learn to play piano program that would suit beginners who are looking for a course that focuses on important basic piano skills but also has interesting and challenging lessons which will hold interest and develop skills.

For more information check out the website www.pianosystem.com

That certainly beats guitar learning software, where students passively receive lessons from an electronic voice and a CG face.

The idea came to Nassie, who had been teaching since he was 14, when his Orange County guitar lessons began to eat up his free time. Wanting to do more teaching, he tried giving real-time online lessons on Skype in the only downtime he had, in the late evenings and early mornings. He said he would usually just sit and play anyway, so teaching online seemed like a better way to spend his time.

It’s also a better way to get more students, he said. Most of his local students came from word of mouth, but with online gigs, he gets promoted through forums and message boards.

Nassie now gives Skype lessons seven days a week to students all over the US and Canada. He’s also started to get students from Europe, a market he hopes to expand. With a good internet connection, Skype does away with the lag time and other interruptions associated with online teaching. After each lesson, Nassie sends his students an HD video recapping the lesson so they can review in their own time.

He has also started to branch out into guitar clinics, giving his first one this week at the Music Factory in Costa Mesa. The school is partly owned by a drummer from fellow California band Face to Face. Although Nassie hasn’t done clinics in some 15 years, he says he is looking forward to the gig and has even invited a few special guests over.

The Music Factory also hosts some of his lessons on its YouTube channel, which has been viewed over 60,000 times in a week with little promotion. He says they are also looking into offering downloadable lessons, where he would teach techniques for as little as one dollar.

Meanwhile, he continues to write and play music with Bleeding Through, in between sitting back and relaxing at home. The band is headed to Australia this spring to play alongside Parkway Drive, a Sydney punk band.

Check out Drumming System at www.drumming-system.com

The Drumming System course is one of the most comprehensive learn to drum courses on the market.  Railroad Media have managed to put together an excellent package which features a huge 30 hours of video instruction as well as a large amount of extra material suited to a course that is targeted at beginners and intermediate levels of drumming.  One of the better elements of this course is that it provides all the basics for beginner drummers but there is still quite a lot of material in this course that will challenge most levels of drumming ability.

The Drumming System contains 20 training DVDs which cover skills and topics from beginner to advanced drumming, 15 play along CDs which you can drum along to and 5 work books which are designed to complement the video lessons on the DVDs.  The material is well presented in this course and even though there is a large amount of material contained on the DVDs and in the work books it is easy to work through and there are plenty of exercises to help beginners to very quickly learn new drumming skills.

The first part of the video lessons in the Drumming System course are focused on skills and techniques that are essential for people who are starting drumming as a beginner.  Most of the first 6 DVDs covers topics such as how to develop correct foot and hand technique, how to read drum notation, setting up your drum kit, learning how to get the most out of your practice time and learning different stick techniques.  Once you have progressed through these lessons the next video lessons move you through skills such as building speed, dynamics and also performing drum solos which are important for all drummers to master.  The last 3 DVDs in this course feature video lessons that cover learning the drum part for over 100 songs.  These DVDs have the tracks featuring the drum part and also featuring just the backing band which you can drum along to.

As well as providing you with excellent course material Drumming System also includes some great bonuses such as phone and email support, access to a members forum, a DVD on buying a drum kit and also a DVD on hand / stick techniques.

Drumming System is one of the more expensive learn to drum courses available however this course provides you with everything a beginner or intermediate drummer requires.  Anyone who is looking at purchasing a drumming course should definitely consider Drumming System as this course is one of the best available.

For more information on Drumming System check the website www.drumming-system.com