Guitar Mastery

sdbrit68

Student Of The Blues
A little rant

If there is one thing I hate in the guitar learning community. its the cheesy Master the guitar stuff. Probably goes back to when I was a kid and every issue of Guitar Player magazines sold VHS tapes in how to become a guitar god in 90 days. (Yes, I am VHS tape old)

So, I saw this thing on Facebook from Guitar Mastery, one of their awesome instructors (insert pedigree here), has opened a few slots for online one on one training...................they will ALLOW you to apply and review your application.

It asks where you struggle, who your influences are, how motivated are you blah blah blah

Then it has a written paragraph on, I kid you not....................Why they should be willing to take your money and teach you, sayyyyyyyyyy whattttttttttttttt ?

Then it asks, do you have the ability to make a financial commitment to learning, and are you the person in charge of making the financial commitment decision.

After you fill out all that, they set you up with a 50 minute phone call interview, you know, to see if they will be willing to accept you. The comments on the facebook section are people saying thing like

"I hope I am good enough to be accepted"...............and they even respond with "Oh, we just looked at your application, I am excited for the counselor who gets to speak to you "

This reminds me so much of those travel club things that used to be popular, of course this one states you will understand the fret-board like never before in 90 days

With quality teachers online like @Griff , Marty, Justin, Steve Stine............all these guys give away free lessons so you can see if you gel with them, they treat the student with gratitude for willing to be learning from them, yet, some people will go through this interview BS, probably spend a ton of money, get frustrated and quit

No way on Gods Green Earth am I interviewing to see if they like me enough to take my money, unless it is Berkley college of Music of GIT
 

PapaBear

Guit Fiddlier
A little rant

If there is one thing I hate in the guitar learning community. its the cheesy Master the guitar stuff. Probably goes back to when I was a kid and every issue of Guitar Player magazines sold VHS tapes in how to become a guitar god in 90 days. (Yes, I am VHS tape old)

So, I saw this thing on Facebook from Guitar Mastery, one of their awesome instructors (insert pedigree here), has opened a few slots for online one on one training...................they will ALLOW you to apply and review your application.

It asks where you struggle, who your influences are, how motivated are you blah blah blah

Then it has a written paragraph on, I kid you not....................Why they should be willing to take your money and teach you, sayyyyyyyyyy whattttttttttttttt ?

Then it asks, do you have the ability to make a financial commitment to learning, and are you the person in charge of making the financial commitment decision.

After you fill out all that, they set you up with a 50 minute phone call interview, you know, to see if they will be willing to accept you. The comments on the facebook section are people saying thing like

"I hope I am good enough to be accepted"...............and they even respond with "Oh, we just looked at your application, I am excited for the counselor who gets to speak to you "

This reminds me so much of those travel club things that used to be popular, of course this one states you will understand the fret-board like never before in 90 days

With quality teachers online like @Griff , Marty, Justin, Steve Stine............all these guys give away free lessons so you can see if you gel with them, they treat the student with gratitude for willing to be learning from them, yet, some people will go through this interview BS, probably spend a ton of money, get frustrated and quit

No way on Gods Green Earth am I interviewing to see if they like me enough to take my money, unless it is Berkley college of Music of GIT
I find my blood pressure stays much more regulated if I avoid facebook adds and anything anyone ones to keep going
 

sdbrit68

Student Of The Blues
I find my blood pressure stays much more regulated if I avoid facebook adds and anything anyone ones to keep going
I had to look at it............as I learn more and more about what it really takes, my interest is always peaked
 

ChrisGSP

Blues Journeyman
such memories - you mentioned the ads for the VHS tapes. I've got a file of the little celluloid 7-inch records that came in the Guitar Player magazines for a couple of years. There's some classic stuff on those - one of these days I'll get around to re-recording them so I can actually listen.
 

sdbrit68

Student Of The Blues
such memories - you mentioned the ads for the VHS tapes. I've got a file of the little celluloid 7-inch records that came in the Guitar Player magazines for a couple of years. There's some classic stuff on those - one of these days I'll get around to re-recording them so I can actually listen.
Those advertisements were awful, I got more confused from those than trying to understand what the wife wants for dinner
 

snarf

making guitars wish they were still trees
No way on Gods Green Earth am I interviewing to see if they like me enough to take my money, unless it is Berkley college of Music of GIT
Reading what you were saying about the ad, that's exactly the thought that was going through my head. "Only way that I'm going through that kind of process to pay big money for lessons is if I'm trying to get into UNT or Berklee or a real, actual music school like them." And I don't ever see me trying to get into one of those.
 

Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
As an "internet marketer," you get inundated with a lot of this kind of stuff...

My business model has always been basically by accident - I pretend like I'm working with one person at a time, just like I always have, but I try to use the technology to get the message to many people at the same time.... so I'm basically trying to leverage myself.

It used to be, back in what seems like the dark ages now, there was only one person in the Blues Guitar world - me. Dan Denley (Guitarzoom) had a blues guitar course, and Marty had a blues guitar course, but I was the only person dedicated to blues guitar, specifically.

Why? Because that's who I taught in person, in private lessons... so I just kept doing what I'd been doing. Again, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here...

Over the years, a lot of "internet marketing gurus" have come and gone... and they all have the next best greatest way to get more customers, improve your advertising, etc., etc...

Fortunately, I've been doing this long enough to see through a lot of those things... though I've fallen for a few here and there along the way.

The best piece of advice I ever heard is still plastered on my wall today - "Prove to people that you can help them by actually helping them."

That's pretty much been my foundational approach since day 1 and not much has changed. Yes, I run advertisements, but most of my advertising dollars go to my videos so people can see for themselves if I can help them. If so, then they might see an ad for an actual course, or for the AAP, but they won't see those ads until they've either watched one of my videos already, or they are on my email list.

In either case, I'm careful not to market to "cold" people who don't know me... and that's the biggest difference between the way you see me do things and the way a lot of other businesses operate. They are focused on getting someone "cold," who doesn't know them, and converting them into a customer as quickly as possible. In my world, it takes, on average, 4 months for someone to get on my email list and decide to make a purchase.

Clearly, high pressure is not my thing, but I want people to feel good about the decision that they make. It keeps refunds very low, and it means that once someone has purchased one course, they are pretty likely to purchase more down the road. This forum is a big part of that because I'm accessible here, and that is unusual.

Anyway, that's probably more than you wanted to know, but periodically I get asked about how I do business. I've been asked to give a few talks about it over the years at various places because, apparently, it's unusual compared to more traditional "brick and mortar" businesses.

I laugh when I see a lot of those ads on Facebook and Youtube because I know exactly where they got the script, from which "guru," and I know exactly what the page is going to look like and exactly what the follow up will be.

Copying and pasting that stuff probably used to work, once upon a time, but the "guitar market" has gotten pretty sophisticated and is largely immune to that sort of thing now, which is good. It keeps the hacks at bay because you have to genuinely be good to compete now.
 

PapaRaptor

Father Vyvian O'Blivion
Staff member
A little rant

If there is one thing I hate in the guitar learning community. its the cheesy Master the guitar stuff. Probably goes back to when I was a kid and every issue of Guitar Player magazines sold VHS tapes in how to become a guitar god in 90 days. (Yes, I am VHS tape old)

So, I saw this thing on Facebook from Guitar Mastery, one of their awesome instructors (insert pedigree here), has opened a few slots for online one on one training...................they will ALLOW you to apply and review your application.

It asks where you struggle, who your influences are, how motivated are you blah blah blah

Then it has a written paragraph on, I kid you not....................Why they should be willing to take your money and teach you, sayyyyyyyyyy whattttttttttttttt ?

Then it asks, do you have the ability to make a financial commitment to learning, and are you the person in charge of making the financial commitment decision.

After you fill out all that, they set you up with a 50 minute phone call interview, you know, to see if they will be willing to accept you. The comments on the facebook section are people saying thing like

"I hope I am good enough to be accepted"...............and they even respond with "Oh, we just looked at your application, I am excited for the counselor who gets to speak to you "

This reminds me so much of those travel club things that used to be popular, of course this one states you will understand the fret-board like never before in 90 days

With quality teachers online like @Griff , Marty, Justin, Steve Stine............all these guys give away free lessons so you can see if you gel with them, they treat the student with gratitude for willing to be learning from them, yet, some people will go through this interview BS, probably spend a ton of money, get frustrated and quit

No way on Gods Green Earth am I interviewing to see if they like me enough to take my money, unless it is Berkley college of Music of GIT

Is this the company based out of New Zealand? There are several "Guitar Mastery" sites, it's scary.

If it is, I watched the testimonial video on their website just to see if I saw any familiar faces. There is one guy on the testimonial who is currently posting himself playing over jam tracks on @MikeS Facebook group "Blues Guitar Unleashed Students," on a pretty regular basis.
 

sdbrit68

Student Of The Blues
Is this the company based out of New Zealand? There are several "Guitar Mastery" sites, it's scary.

If it is, I watched the testimonial video on their website just to see if I saw any familiar faces. There is one guy on the testimonial who is currently posting himself playing over jam tracks on @MikeS Facebook group "Blues Guitar Unleashed Students," on a pretty regular basis.
this one was labeled as guitar mastery inovation or something like thagt
 

sdbrit68

Student Of The Blues
As an "internet marketer," you get inundated with a lot of this kind of stuff...



It keeps refunds very low, and it means that once someone has purchased one course, they are pretty likely to purchase more down the road.

So true, I have two courses that were really not useful to me, but I kept them. WHy ?
Well for one thing, like "Begining Blues Guitar" I go back to it to do more simple things to keep my head straight and practice those items
 

Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
Is this the company based out of New Zealand? There are several "Guitar Mastery" sites, it's scary.

If it is, I watched the testimonial video on their website just to see if I saw any familiar faces. There is one guy on the testimonial who is currently posting himself playing over jam tracks on @MikeS Facebook group "Blues Guitar Unleashed Students," on a pretty regular basis.
Admittedly, this happens a lot. I've said before that I'm not so naive as to think that my students are only mine... many of them subscribe to several teachers. My only concern with that is the potential confusion it can cause when things are explained differently.

I've seen situations where other teachers use different labels for the "boxes" and I've seen a lot of pretty horrific transcriptions (like, not even having enough beats in the measure!) that led to some pretty serious confusion that we had to work out over the course of a few private lessons.

I've edited the TABS from a lot more lesson websites than I care to admit in my life :(
 

MikeR

Guitar Challenged
Staff member
Is this the company based out of New Zealand? There are several "Guitar Mastery" sites, it's scary.

If it is, I watched the testimonial video on their website just to see if I saw any familiar faces. There is one guy on the testimonial who is currently posting himself playing over jam tracks on @MikeS Facebook group "Blues Guitar Unleashed Students," on a pretty regular basis.

That's Charlie Wallace, Guitar Mastery Method. He had an "All Access Pass" type of thing with a 14 day trial for $1, so I checked it out. He's pretty decent, but nothing I hadn't already seen from Griff. Some of his other "instructors" suck though. You can tell they've never taught anyone in person. Got a few lick tabs and backing tracks that made it worth the buck. :whistle:
 

sdbrit68

Student Of The Blues
I know what @Griff is saying about corrections. I remember when I first went to the jams, I got lit up like a Christmas tree in the first 2 barres. Went back, and started following the instructions on counting, found it made the old stuff harder to play since I want so random, but eventually, it turned into being able to listen to songs and get it in beat correctly and actually learn it correctly.

I have described BGU vs other courses this way. Some are an after school program, you get up and running and making music quickly, understand a few basics, and can make pull a campfire type thing, which is fantastic, its fun and enjoyable.

But, when you want to go beyond and write , or be able to jump in with a band, then you have to go to actual school classes and do the homework and take the tests.

Personally, I still do both, on Sundays, I grab strummer songs and play around, the rest of the week I sit with the book and DVD and study
 

sdbrit68

Student Of The Blues
Admittedly, this happens a lot. I've said before that I'm not so naive as to think that my students are only mine... many of them subscribe to several teachers. My only concern with that is the potential confusion it can cause when things are explained differently.

I've seen situations where other teachers use different labels for the "boxes" and I've seen a lot of pretty horrific transcriptions (like, not even having enough beats in the measure!) that led to some pretty serious confusion that we had to work out over the course of a few private lessons.

I've edited the TABS from a lot more lesson websites than I care to admit in my life :(
it may be different, here is their facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/guitarmast...position]=2&ft[ordinal_position]=3:1&__md__=1
 

Crossroads

Thump the Bottom
That's not Charlie's FB Page this is

https://www.facebook.com/groups/guitarmasterymethod/

Never seen that before

I did Charlie's CAGED course and it was pretty comprehensive. I would recommend it.

Charlie used to do the same thing with the "I don't know i you"ll qualify for AAP nonsense", but never got a phone call.

Charlie will send you almost as many emails as "I'm shutting it Down Steve Stine".

I wish I had a nickel for every discount Steve has shut down, :ROFLMAO:
 

Crossroads

Thump the Bottom
Sorry don't mean to hijack this, but when I checked my email Steve sent me anther

And your $80 members-only discount will be…
SUSPENDED

NOOOOOOOH! My $80 discount for something I wasn't going to buy is now suspended.

I like Steve. seems ike a nice guy. I have a few of his courses. but his marketing is just so damn disingenuous.

@Griff if anyone ever recommends this type of marketing to you, fire them. Even if it's Hot Lips. :)
 
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Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
Sorry don't mean to hijack this, but when I checked my email Steve sent me anther

And your $80 members-only discount will be…
SUSPENDED

NOOOOOOOH! My $80 discount for something I wasn't going to buy is now suspended.

I like Steve. seems ike a nice guy. I have a few of his courses. but his marketing is just so damn disingenuous.

@Griff if anyone ever recommends this type of marketing to you, fire them. Even if it's Hot Lips.
HA!! You know Hot Lips would NEVER go for that ;)
 

PapaRaptor

Father Vyvian O'Blivion
Staff member
I just got a bad taste from watching the ad Charlie ran on Youtube with the instructor shouting "Again" every two seconds. I've come to believe YT knows what really grates on one's nerves and runs that ad over and over.
In a slight thread hijack, my current peeve is the video of the guy (Michael Dawes) dressed up as some cross between a druid and the wicked witch of the west pimping the Woodtone amp with the Captain from Anderton's. Yes, I watch a lot of Youtube...
 

snarf

making guitars wish they were still trees
but his marketing is just so damn disingenuous.
I tried to follow a guy like that for a while several years ago. He wasn't teaching blues, so I didn't figure it would cut into what I was buying from Griff. I had bought 2 or 3 courses from him when he advertised a really interesting new course that was being developed and "at completion it will be 3 modules, all downloadable, with extras." Problem was only the first module had been written and videoed when he started advertising it. I bought it anyway. Figured I was safe because I had bought from the guy previously and he had some really good ideas in what I had seen. Several years later I still have only seen 2 of the 3 modules, only the first is downloadable, and the extras ended up being a potato video of his band playing in a bar somewhere. Fool me once... Haven't bought from him since.

Fast forward to the end of last year and about every other weekend I wake up to 3 or 4 emails from him (that were all sent between midnight and about 6a) on Sat and Sun mornings telling me that I better hurry or I'm going to miss out on his entire lesson catalog that he's making available for less than $100. The emails also mention (depending on which line he's using at the time) that the sale goes away either after an arbitrary amount of people sign up (usually a single digit number) or in 2 hours. (Wait - you send me the email at 3 in the morning, and tell me that the sale is done in 2 hours? Really?!?) Between getting burned on the one course and the disingenuous emails, I'm not interested anymore. Decided after deleting his last round of emails that, when I get the next deluge from him, I'm unsubscribing. I still have an account on his student hub that I'll leave in place just in case he ever finishes that one course he forgot he was making, but I'm not spending money in his shop again.
 
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