UPDATE: 14/12/09 – since I wrote this original review, Jamorama have updated the course and made some significant changes, so your experience of buying Jamorama won’t be the same as mine was – I’ve noted these changes in [brackets] below.
I purchased the downloadable version of Jamorama from the website [UPDATE: Jamorama is now available in two formats: Jamorama Standard and Jamorama Deluxe], and you can get both of these as a set of physical printed books and DVDs, and as digital versions of the same material. I opted for the digital version, since it is much cheaper, and is also available immediately after payment. The Jamorama courses consist of books, videos, audio tracks, jam tracks and a selection of bonuses (a metronome, a tuner, ear training software, software to help with learning music notation, two PDF guides and a month’s free access to the SongPond site). I’ll write about all of these in more detail later.
Jamorama is sold through Clickbank, which is the world’s largest retailer of digital products. Clickbank processes the payments, and is highly reputable and trustworthy. I had the option to pay by credit card or by Paypal, and chose Paypal. After payment I was redirected to a download page, from which I downloaded the Jamorama software. It is through this software that the course instructions and videos are accessed. I was pleased to see that it can be installed on more than one PC that I own, which will be useful, as I want to use it on the laptop in my music room. [UPDATE: the software is no longer available - instead you download the materials as individual PDFs, MP3s, video files, which are organised into zip files.]
When buying Jamorama there was an offer on the salespage – buy Jamorama, and get
Jamorama Lead at a highly discounted price. Since I intend to purchase and review Jamorama Lead (which is a more advanced course that is designed to be followed after the basic Jamorama lessons) for this site as well, I bought both at once. I don’t know if that offer will be there when you come to buy, but if it is, don’t be fooled by the ‘limited time’ blurb on the page (it said that the discount would only be available for a few more days) – this is a standard marketing tactic, and 99% of the time, any such ‘limited’ offers are still available after the deadline has passed. [UPDATE: Jamorama Lead is no longer available - instead, the lead guitar lessons have now been incorporated into the Jamorama Deluxe course.]
There was also an upsell for the Jamorama ‘Chord Method Kit’, which I think is also available to buy separately after buying Jamorama. Again, I bought it at a large discount. [UPDATE - The Chord Method Kit is now included in the main course.]
Experience so far – I had no problems with ordering and payment. The main Jamorama course was easily accessed through the member’s area, and was downloaded without problems. The welcome email also included separate links to the download areas for the Jamorama Lead book and videos, and the Chord Kit, which consists of a book, a series of videos, and a bonus game called Chordinator. It’s getting kind of late now, so I’ll look at all these goodies in more detail tomorrow.
