Trial play review

The addition of bass and ukulele lessons is another feature that sets Fender play apart from the competition. The ukulele lessons also go super in-depth, we were honestly surprised to see such a focus on technique and strumming, assuming that this side of the site would be dedicated just to novelty songs that guitarists can pick up easily.

We all love blues guitar lick, and whether you're a beginner guitarist looking to get to grips with blues styles …. Your email address will not be published. Posted On March 16, guitaarr 0. Fender Play Review. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.

Newsletter Don't miss a thing! Paris is left with the decision that is the play's finale. There are no surprises in this play. Its main function, apart from the legal didacticism, is its introduction of Kirkland as a writer.

There's a feeling that the work needs tightening, particularly in the first act which leaves us unsure as to where it's going. However, Kirkland grasps his subject and shakes it until its facets rattle. He has a welcome flair for epigrams. Discussing legal fees, Paris snarls, "We kill our food and eat what we kill. There are colors in the character he's written that he hasn't yet filled in. Amy Laxineta brings strength and intelligence to Karen. Here again, the first act performance of a woman confident in her sexuality who enjoys men's response to it seems inappropriate to the office situation where she declares her focus is her intelligence and professionalism.

Supporting roles are well filled by Livingston as a puppy-doggish Daniel, whose final peroration to his client Paris shows that he's learned his cousin's lesson all too well. Steen brings an interesting intuitive quality to the judge and Phoebe McKenery Beacham makes her sympathetic legal secretary an awkward woman whose simplicity is a welcome antidote to the head-trippers. And while this might be considered a strength of Fender Play, it's also a significant weakness if you consider what happens when there's application without any understanding of foundational mechanics or theory of the fretboard.

From an educational perspective, it's not always helpful or productive to jump into playing songs without understanding how those songs are put together. We'll touch more on this as I get into the review. I've noticed several articles many of which read more like advertorials for Fender Play will read something like this:. The "variety of questions on preferred instrument and genre" is actually only two questions:.

The assertion that this creates a comprehensive or customized curriculum is empirically untrue, since those two questions are not comprehensive when it comes to teaching or learning guitar. Moreover, you can't focus on exclusively beginner material while simultaneously creating a "comprehensive" learning path.

Guitar content for beginners is a singular learning path that is, in many ways, agnostic of style. It's also far more complex and delicate than Fender Play's treatment would suggest. I've also noticed a lot of copy either from Fender directly or from third-party marketers that voluntarily pits Fender Play lessons against other online guitar lessons and, in particular, YouTube. Now, if John Titlow in the Fast Company article is only talking about production quality, he might be making a fair statement.

If he's talking about the content quality, he's completely incorrect, as is the title of his article. Fender Play absolutely does not put YouTube guitar lessons to shame. In no respects, whatsoever , is Fender Play reinventing online guitar lessons, even if we give Mr. Titlow the "age of distraction" qualifier. What they've done has already been happening for years on a number of platforms, which are and have been doing it far better.

Again, from Forbes, Melissa Daniels echoes an oddly similar sentiment:. It's almost as if these talking points have gone out to several major media outlets and they've just stamped their name on them. The reality is, if you have any experience with online guitar lessons and if you've actually taken the time to compare them to Fender Play's product, it would be impossible to honestly say Fender is changing or reinventing anything about how we learn guitar online.

If anything, they're woefully behind the gun. Here's how they stack up against some of the other programs we've reviewed in terms of overall content quality, which is a broad look at the volume and the condition of the site's material. Though Fender Play's interface is modern, the substance of the content is lacking, leaving it near the bottom of this chart. It's crucial to understand that Fender Play was not simply birthed out of an idea or creative initiative to teach people guitar in a better or different way.

Fender's motivation behind developing Fender Play is one of sales , as it relates to their physical products. Fender Play was developed as a response to their own drop in sales and a shifting guitar market that appears to have led to massive amounts of debt for Fender, among other larger guitar manufacturers. It's an effort to both keep more customers and attract new ones. Thus, the motivation behind Fender Play is indirect.

They're looking for a tool that will help build a bigger clientele for their physical products. In a broad sense, the biggest problem with Fender Play is its lack of content depth. There are certainly other concerns - smaller ones even - but the sheer simplicity and surface-level feel of the content is the most apparent problem area. Even if they were intentionally trying to avoid the weeds of more in-depth theory and technical topics, they would still have to deal with two major problems:.

As I browsed through Fender Play's content, it appeared that everything covered was very basic, entry-level information that could easily be obtained elsewhere online. To be fair, it's probably true that almost all information in existence can be found on the internet, or at least at a well-funded library. Yet, the mark of a good teacher and a valuable educational resource is that they provide depth and substance in a way that's easy to understand and easy to digest in some kind of topical order.

Fender Play fails this measure on multiple levels, even for a beginner looking to get started. I'll point out some specific evidence for these claims and walk you through what my experience with the program was like. Out of the major programs we've reviewed, Fender Play scores lowest in the education quality category.

Since Fender gives you a 30 day free trial, I gave up my credit card information, signed up and started browsing around. The "world-class instructors" bit is a serious stretch, as you'll recognize some of the instructors from YouTube channels many of which, ironically, provide the same type of content for free.

The sign-up process is quick, painless and immediately sends you to a screen where you choose between acoustic and electric guitar, presumably to cater your material to the path you choose. I clicked electric guitar, though it's easy to change this at any point, depending on what you pick next. Fender Play has added a ukulele and bass path to their instrument section. Initially, when Fender Play was released, it only included electric and acoustic guitar. After you select either electric and acoustic guitar they've now added bass and ukulele paths as well, you have five different styles to pick from to further narrow your content.

The style paths you can choose from have remained the same. I selected "Rock" and was taken to the following screen:. The "Rock" path has changed a bit, though still seems to take a fairly minimalist approach to content. The path it sets up for you does a good job of getting you into songs and applicable material quickly.

You can easily start playing chords and riffs, depending on your comfort level with the guitar. The content in each path has very little to do with any of the specific disciplines of the given styles. It makes you feel like the "tailored path" you choose has almost nothing to do with what you end up studying, outside of the songs selected for you to learn. These songs are added between lessons, allowing you to select them at will or go in the order they've setup for you.

Song lessons are interjected between topical lessons. Fender Play does do a good job with their video production, which is shot from multiple camera angles in HD and 4K if you have a screen that supports it with excellent audio quality. Instructors seem fairly knowledgeable, though not overly engaging or interesting, partly because of the simplicity of the material they're covering.

The original video system that Fender Play used, with broken up video segments to the left of the main video player, is gone. Now you have a central video player with the navigational components moved to the previous page. A small amount of supplemental content is typically available beneath the videos, making this a major deviation from their original design.

It's not necessarily better or worse than the original setup, just different. Fender deserves credit for a better-than-average production quality, but that doesn't mean much if the content isn't equally good, or better.

It's clear that Fender put a lot of work into the production quality of this material, which is worth acknowledging. However, it's also evident they've recycled information that is readily available on a ton of other platforms and charged 20 bucks a month for it without adding any additional value or organization. Moreover, Fender Play repeats and re-uses their own material in different paths and levels within those paths. Simply put, Fender Play is a very stripped-down, short-winded body of content that provides little value or depth of information.

It's not worth even the modest price of admission. If we look at the price and plot it against our overall rating for Fender Play and other programs, we get a visual for how weak it is in terms of value based on what you pay, even at the lowered price tag.

In the following graph, lower and to the right is better. If you plot Fender Play's price along with the rating we've given, you can see how it stacks up against other programs. It's cheap, but there isn't a ton of quality which brings down its overall value when compared to programs in a similar price range. The same is true when you look at value based on monthly cost of Fender Play and its comparables:. When looking at monthly price, it's the same story.

Low price, but little else compared to other programs. Making Fender Play free would be a start. But once again, the content they provide is already available in a multitude of free outlets. And no, it doesn't "put YouTube to shame. If Fender Play was cheaper than well-established sites like Guitar Tricks and JamPlay, I'd be willing to give them a little more credit.

Cost concerns aside, we'd still be pointing you to a number of alternatives, like those I previously referenced. I think it's also worth mentioning, by way of comparison, that Guitar Tricks , which has been around since , has over 11, video lessons and over full song tutorials, the quality of which absolutely blows the doors off of Fender Play.

In fact, we've put together a list of excellent online guitar lesson resources , including YouTube channels that we can recommend with a clear conscience. If you have questions or concerns about this review, please feel free to get in touch and we'd be happy to chat. Thanks for reading. You can shoot him an email to get in touch. First off, I am so happy to see this article still keeping the conversation alive. Second, after my initial reply back in , and at that time I was a happy Fender Play student, I can say I have still stuck with my desire to learn guitar.

I have to apologize to Mr. Fender Play is an attractive platform because of its simplicity and approachability. TrueFire can be a bit intimidating to a beginner because of the wealth of knowledge. Not to mention that the tools TrueFire utilizes are above and beyond anything FenderPlay has. I could go on but just needed to say this.

Typically this is the case, even when people start out with something like Guitar Tricks. Anyways, thanks again for sharing! I was just looking into Fender Play, which is how I stumbled across this article. Definitely appreciate the insight. Just dusted it off, hopefully I get around to playing a bit tomorrow! So one thing that was attracting me to Fender Play is that they offer both guitar and ukulele lessons for no extra charge, as far as I can gather.

And do you know of any other sites where I could get both good-quality guitar and ukulele lessons? Hope this is helpful! Good luck, Amanda. I think what Fender is trying to accomplish here is to motivate a new player to keep playing. Fender wants to give the new player the basics and instant gratification of making music. Hopefully it will inspire the person to study more in depth if the dedication is there. Is Fender Play a comprehensive platform? In a way it is marketing.

If they can motivate players to stick with it instead of quitting, they can sell more stuff. Getting a novice to continue playing past the point of frustration and boredom is a positive thing. Most who stick with it are inspired to delve deeper into theory. That makes one more player and one less quitter. Both sharpened skills, but instant gratification kept them interested in learning.

Mike — why would monetization from products I like better nullify my credibility with the review? Otherwise, I appreciate your perspective and I do think you make some good points. Great review as I was tempted by the slick ads , but as you say, it appears very much style over substance and this whole site has really helped me decide on my route of who is going to be taking my monthly money now ;. You totally tap into those demons on the my shoulder that I try to ignore and help me make the best informed choice I can.

I applaud you. Thank you so much! And glad I could help on FP. A disappointing thing to see from Fender, to say the least. Great review. Saved me money but, more importantly, saved me from wasting my time. I see that JustinGuitar has a recommendation from Mark Knopfler. Hey Mike — thanks for commenting. Sandercoe has put together a fantastic program.

I sign up for 2 weeks done a 1 sub lesson. In the name of transparency I have to ask, are you in any way, compensated in any way, by the alternatives you show as superior to Fender Play? Hey, Michael — yes, we are. Hi Bobby. Great review above.