Review: Online Guitar Instruction from Mike's Master Classes

by Dr. Matthew Warnock.

Have you ever wanted to study with one of the best guitarists in the world but couldn't afford to take the time to travel across the country, let alone the cost of the lessons themselves? The Mike's Master Classes website aims to alleviate these problems by bringing your favorite players to you through live video streaming and downloadable archived master classes taught by some of the biggest names in the business. While most of us will never be able to study with our favorite jazz or blues guitarists in person, Mike's Master Classes delivers the next best thing: streaming, interactive guitar classes with world-class players and teachers. For the price of a method book, or a one-off private lesson with a local teacher, you can take part in a master class with players such as Paul Bollenback, Sid Jacobs and Vic Juris. Classes are offered almost every week and cover a wide variety of guitar related topics in the jazz, classical and blues genres. Mike's Master Classes offers everyone the chance to study and interact with some of the best players on the planet at an affordable price from the comfort of home.

The master classes offered by MMC come in two different formats: streaming live and downloadable archives. All of these classes are initially presented in a live format that can be viewed in an interactive manner by participants. The class schedules are posted under the Classes link on the website and are usually up on the site at least several weeks, if not months, in advance. The live classes are a bit more expensive than the archived downloads, but they offer participants the chance to interact live with the teacher by asking questions through an instant messaging program that runs alongside the video feed of the class. While each class has a theme or specific topic that it's designed to cover, teachers will often take a few minutes to answer questions on different topics that might come up, such as what guitar or gear the teacher is using, or questions related to time feel, a certain chord voicing being used or other similar topics.

After the classes have been streamed live, they are archived and available to download at a reduced price. While viewers aren't able to ask questions during the archived videos, the classes are just as valuable since, more often than not, live participants ask questions that are often applicable to many of the players who view the archived videos. Both live and streamed classes come with PDF files of material related to the lesson. These info packets contain items such as chord progressions for further practice, written out licks, scales, chord fingerings, chord soloing and chord melody ideas or any other musical examples related to the topics covered during the course. The information presented in these handouts is often extremely detailed and can run almost ten pages in length for some classes. The handouts are also a great tool for helping to figure out specific fingerings for chords/lines that the teachers use in the video without having to spend extra time slowing the video down to catch a fast run or chord sequence.

While other online lesson sites offer students the chance to study with great performers and composers, MMC's instructors are all highly-experienced teachers as well. Classes are currently available from such world-class guitarists and educators as Steve Herberman, John Stowell, Jake Langley, Jack Wilkins, Vic Juris, Paul Bollenback, Lorne Lofsky, and Sid Jacobs, just to name a few. By featuring guitarists who can teach as well as play, MMC is able to offer students the opportunity to study with guitarists who have a wealth of real-life performance experience as well as years of private and group teaching under their belts. Having a strong teaching background allows the instructors to be organized with their topic presentations, have abundant reading material to accompany the video lessons and quickly and thoroughly address any questions that arise during the streaming video classes. As well, each class begins with the teacher performing a short tune for the students, which goes a long way in establishing credibility between the performer and participants. Many online classes will only present the teaching material to the students, but by having each teacher perform at the start of the video, students can immediately see how the information in the upcoming lesson can be applied to a real-life performance situation. This is one of the reasons that MMC's video lessons are so successful, and why they more closely resemble a live master class situation than an online group lesson.

Aside from the depth of instructors that students can choose to study with, there is also a wide variety of topics covered in each and every class. Some classes deal with larger concepts such as modern approaches to the 12-bar blues or harmonic substitutions over rhythm changes, while other classes deal with more specific areas of study such as walking bass lines, drop-2 voicings or chord melody harmonization over a particular tune or progression. Often, teachers will present a series of classes on a larger topic such as Sheryl Bailey's "Boot Camp Basics" or Steve Herberman's great set of classes on "Motion and Chord Voicings." These collections of classes give the students a chance to take the information provided in the first video, work it out for a month or so, and then return fully prepared to tackle the next course in the series. It also gives students the chance to come up with questions on problems or road blocks that occurred after the first class and the teacher can address those during the next video lesson. All of these aspects come together to provide an interactive experience that is far beyond what any other DVD or downloadable video instruction series can offer.

While MMC is mostly known for offering jazz guitar related classes, the site also contains courses for upright bass, sax and drums as well as blues and classical guitar and bass lessons. Recently MMC spent a week streaming live from the 2009 International Society of Bassists convention at Penn State University. There were more than 20 free, live classes in the series that were streamed for people to view during the convention's week long run. Many of those classes are now available to purchase on the site for people who are interested but who could not make the original class time. With the success of the 2009 ISB convention live classes, there is optimism from students that similar events will happen in the future, and hopefully featuring guitar related conventions and conferences as well.

Mike's Master Classes has quickly become known as one of the best sites on the web for jazz and blues guitar lessons. With a large catalogue of past lessons available in an instant and new classes offered regularly, the site provides instructional aids for every level of player that cover just about every possible area of study. While in the past one had to travel long distances and spend hundreds of dollars to study with a world-class guitarist, MMC makes all of this accessible to everyone with an Internet connection and a few dollars in the pocket.

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