What Makes JamClass Lessons Awesome?
Online music lessons offer obvious advantages. Connecting with the right teacher is the most important factor in the value of lessons, yet with traditional lessons, you have to settle for a teacher who lives close to you rather than selecting the best teacher. {test_drive_point} Travel to and from lessons takes far more time than the lessons themselves. You often forget important teachings and demonstrations between lessons. The list goes on, as traditional lessons have many drawbacks.
Historically, online lessons have had major issues too. Several companies have built online marketplaces of music teachers, but every one of these companies relies on Skype or similar apps – built for voice conferencing – to deliver online lessons. This is a major problem. The voice technology of these apps makes music sound awful in online sessions – so bad that teachers can’t assess the student’s tone and sometimes even the pitch of what they are playing. These apps also have very high latency – a technical term that means that the student and teacher cannot play together, another critical requirement for productive lessons. Since Skype wasn’t built for music, it also lacks many other basic features to support effective lessons, like a metronome, support for backing tracks, etc.
At JamKazam, we’ve spent years designing, patenting, and building technology specifically to enable musicians to play online live in sync with studio quality audio. We’ve built a wide variety of critical online music performance features into this platform. And we’ve built a lesson marketplace on top of this foundation, and attracted and vetted a terrific set of instructors to teach using our unparalleled technology platform. Following are some of the top features of JamClass by JamKazam.
Testimonials
Julie Bonk
Carl Brown of GuitarLessions365
Justin Pierce
Dave Sebree
Sara Nelson
1
Play Live In Sync From Different Locations
Teacher and student need to be able to play together to enable effective lessons. As any teacher who has attempted to teach using Skype will tell you, Skype doesn't let you play together. JamKazam's patented technologies deliver on this requirement at an amazing level. Click the video above to watch 6 bands play together from different locations to see our tech in action. And for an even more impressive feat, watch this video with a band playing together from Austin, Atlanta, Chicago, and Brooklyn using JamKazam tech.
2
Studio Quality Audio
These audio links will open a new tab in your browser. When done listening, close the tab and return to this page.
Skype was built for voice - for people talking with each other. It uses something called a "voice codec". This just means it processes all audio as a spoken human voice, and the result is that music, whether instrumental or vocal, sounds very bad in Skype, as it has been processed through tech built for talking. JamKazam delivers very high quality audio. You will be amazed at how good it sounds. It sounds like you're sitting next to each other playing. This is also critical for a good lesson. Poor audio is hard to endure in lessons.
3
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Connecting with the right teacher is the most important factor in the effectiveness of lessons. But with traditional lessons, you are stuck choosing a teacher within a 30-minute drive - choosing the closest vs. the best. Plus students often just settle on the first teacher they try, as it's hard and expensive to try out multiple teachers. Our unique TestDrive program lets you try full lessons with multiple teachers at a discounted rate to find the best teacher for you. It's inexpensive, easy, and it makes a world of difference in the value of your investment in lessons.
4
Record & Refer Back to Lessons
Students rarely take notes during lessons, and often notes won't really capture what's being taught. Many times a student thinks they've got it, but they get home and realize "I don't got it", and then you've wasted a week. In JamClass the instructor can record all or portions of a lesson that the student can easily refer back to later.
5
Play Along with Your Favorite Songs/Artists
When taking lessons, you usually apply the techniques you are learning to playing songs - ideally songs you love. JamKazam makes this better too, as we offer a catalog of 3,700+ songs. Each song is is a complete multi-track recording, with fully isolated tracks for each part of the music - e.g. lead vocal, backing vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, keys, bass, drums, etc. So you can listen to just the part you're learning in isolation, turn around and mute that one part to play along with the rest of the band, slow down playback for practice, record and share your performances, and more. It's really fun! And a great way to reward yourself and reinforce what you're learning from your lessons.
6
Apply VST & AU Audio Plug-In Effects
The free JamKazam app lets you easily apply VST & AU plugin effects to your live performance in lessons. For example, guitarists can apply popular amp sims like AmpliTube to get any kind of guitar tone without pedal boards or amps, and vocalists can apply effects like reverb, pitch correction, etc.
7
Use MIDI Instruments
The free JamKazam app also lets you use MIDI instruments in online lesson sessions. For example, keys players can use MIDI keyboard controllers with VST & AU plugins to generate traditional piano sounds, Rhodes electric piano, Hammond organ, and other classic keys tones. And drummers who use electronic kits can use their favorite plugins to power their percussive audio.
8
And More…
There are many other features that are specifically useful for online lessons built into JamClass by JamKazam, including a metronome feature, the ability for either teacher or student to open any audio file and use it as a backing track for session acccompaniment, and too many more to list.
In addition to the lesson features, the awesome bonus is that once a student is set up to play in online lessons, he or she can also play completely FREE with anyone else in the JamKazam community any time to practice skills learned in lessons, or just for fun. There are thousands of online sessions played every month on the JamKazam service, including open jam sessions set up by our user community, and you can hop into these sessions, create your own improptu sessions, schedule sessions with a particular focus or song list, etc. It's a vibrant and welcoming community of fellow musicians, and it's open to you anytime, anywhere.
What Do You Need to Play in JamClass Lessons?
At a minimum, you need:
- A computer running either
- Windows 7 or a later version
- Mac OS X 10.7 or a later version
how do I know which version I'm running?
- A built-in microphone and built-in webcam on your computer
- Internet service with at least 500kbps upload bandwidth
how do I know how much upload bandwidth my Internet service delivers?
To have very high quality audio in your sessions, rather than using the built-in microphone on your computer to capture your instrumental and/or vocal audio, we recommend using an external audio interface. An audio interface is a hardware product that connects to your computer and processes audio better than your computer alone. If you already own/use an audio interface, you can use the one you have. And if you don't, please refer to this set of help articles that recommend the best gear based on your instruments and/or vocals. You can pick up a perfectly good interface very inexpensively, typically for less than $50. And you can use your new interface not just for JamClass, but also to make home recordings of your performances, and also to play in online JamKazam sessions with other musicians. So it's a great thing to have for any musician.
If you feel worried or confused about getting set up because you're not a "tech genius", we are happy to work with you 1:1 to answer your questions, and walk you through picking gear and setting it up. We'll even hop into an online test session with you, show you around the key features, and make sure you're ready to rock and roll online! Just email us at support@jamkazam.com, and tell us you need help getting set up for JamClass. We do this all the time.
We Have Fabulous Teachers, Check Them Out!
JamClass instructors are a terrific set of teachers from whom you can learn almost anything musically. We review every single teacher individually to ensure they meet high standards in terms of their ability, experience, and desire to teach music.
If you want to check out teachers before signing up, use the link below to search our community of teachers. If you are looking for someone/something specific that you can't find in our set of instructors, please let us know and our lesson concierge staff will find and add the right teachers. We are constantly reviewing prospective teachers and adding to the community, and we don't mind at all using specific student requests to focus our efforts on filling holes in our coverage.
When you're done searching, just close that tab, and you'll return here.
Guidance for Parents of Music Students
If you are the parent of a child who is under the age of 13, you must give consent for your child to use this service, and this must be done in a specific manner, due to the provisions of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). If this applies to your child, please email us at support@jamkazam.com so that we can handle this process with you prior to signup, thank you!