Guitar Tricks and ArtistWorks are two of the most well-known guitar lessons platforms online. Both websites have been training beginners how to play guitar and teaching advanced guitarists new tips and techniques for over a decade.
Each company has their own approach to teaching guitar and offers different bonuses. For instance, ArtistWorks has lessons on tons of different instruments– not just guitar.
In this review, we’ll compare Guitar Tricks vs ArtistWorks lessons side-by-side as well as their course features, videos, and instructors, so you can decide which one is better for you and what you want to learn.
GuitarTricks or ArtistWorks Compared
Contents
- 1 GuitarTricks or ArtistWorks Compared
- 2 Guitar Tricks versus ArtistWorks Website Format
- 3 Guitar Tricks vs. ArtistWorks Courses
- 4 ArtistWorks or Guitar Tricks Guitar Lessons
- 5 ArtistWorks and Guitar Tricks Video Lessons
- 6 GuitarTricks or ArtistWorks Guitar Instructors
- 7 Backing Tracks, Song Lists, and Guitar Styles
- 8 GuitarTricks versus ArtistWorks Cost & Price
- 9 Guitar Training Extra Features
- 10 Our Recommendation
Free Trial Offers
First, before we hop into comparing both of these lesson platforms, you need know that both ArtistWorks and Guitar Tricks have free trial offers that you can use to test drive their software completely for free.
This way if you have any questions or you aren’t sure about which lessons you’ll like better, you can try them for 2 weeks without paying anything. I recommend to everyone to sign up for both just to see what they are like and to learn a few new songs for free. It’s totally worth it!
GuitarTricks Overview
Founded in 1998, Guitar Tricks stands out from the online guitar-learning platform crowd because it offers a really large number of high-quality lessons, awesome instructors, great courses, and basically everything you as a guitar student will ever need. The platform is designed with you in mind, it is very simple and easy to use.
All of this can be checked with the free trial that Guitar Tricks offers – 14-day Free Trial will ensure you that you can learn a lot from the site.
The best thing about GuitarTricks is this – Most of the online platforms for learning guitar are loaded mostly with beginner lessons, and they lack a good number of lessons for advanced players – this is not the case with GuitarTricks.
With subscribing to guitartricks.com every guitar player with any skillset can benefit and learn a new skill or a technique.
ArtistWorks Overview
ArtistWorks was first introduced in 2008, and since then, it has established as one of the best learning platforms for musical instruments on the internet.
The story goes like this: David Butler, the chairman and co-founder at ArtistWorks, is a very smart guy who had an awesome career in computers and technology who always wanted to master the jazz guitar – this is why in 2008 he and his wife made ArtistWorks – a site that now employs thirty-five guitar teachers, has 5000+ videos, and that enables everybody to get a personal feedback from the instructor that they are taking lessons from.
ArtistWorks is a site that has lessons for a lot of instruments. It has lessons and courses for learning how to play Guitar, Bass, Piano, Vocal lessons, Mandolin, String instruments, Woodwinds instruments, Brass, Percussion, etc.
Guitar Tricks versus ArtistWorks Website Format
GuitarTricks Website Format
Everybody can navigate easily through Guitar Tricks, it doesn’t matter if you are seven or seventy-seven, the site is designed to appear simple and it is very easy to use.
Just go to the section that interests you: Beginner Lessons, Advanced Lessons, Song Lessons, and Learn Styles of Guitar.
You can get to all of the other features through the main navigation bar on the top or the right side navigation bar.
The video lessons are definitely something that GuitarTricks can be proud of too – they are simple, high-quality, and you won’t have any problem to navigate through the courses – just use your left click and the scroll button on your mouse, and you’ll get where you want to in seconds.
ArtistWorks Website Format
Even though ArtistWorks is not leaving an impression that is easy to use such as GuitarTricks, after spending a day or two on the platform you can easily find your way.
At ArtistWorks, first you take the lesson (or professional lesson as they call it), you learn from it, you practice, and then you can film yourself playing what you’ve just learned (if you choose the plan that allows this) – then you will get a video answer from the instructor, who will point out the things that you should work on, to further improve your playing. Even if you don’t get the plan that has the video-exchange feature all of the videos recorded by the students and the answers to those by the instructors are uploaded on the site – this way everybody can learn one from another. Cool, right?
Guitar Tricks vs. ArtistWorks Courses
Guitar Tricks Courses
We can recommend Guitar Tricks literally to any guitar player in the world – even the most advanced players can find lessons that will interest them. Guaranteed!
As we mentioned above, you can start by choosing one of these sections: Beginner Lessons, Experienced Lessons, Song Lessons, and Learn Styles of Guitar.
In these sections, you will find another set of paths you can go to, and in those – there are courses. Each course is divided by chapters, and each chapter has multiple lessons that take you by the hand on a step-by-step learning journey.
Each lesson on GuitarTricks comes with the appropriate info and a Tab/Notation.
Most of the lessons also have a backing track at the end, so you can jam your newly learned skill with drums and bass in the background.
ArtistWorks Guitar Courses
On ArtistWorks you can find video lessons for beginner and advanced guitar players, but there is more. Each course on ArtistWorks has a bunch of video lessons that let you learn the instrument step-by-step. There are three clusters of lessons for each course on ArtistWorks: beginner (or sometimes basic), intermediate, and advanced.
At ArtistWorks there are courses for electric, acoustic, and classical guitar; Dobro and Lap-Steel lessons, courses for Electric and Acoustic (Upright) Bass; courses for Classical, Jazz, and Popular Piano; Mandolin lessons; Bluegrass, Country, and General Voice (Vocal) lessons, there are courses for Banjo, Cello, Fiddle, Ukulele, and Violin; courses for Woodwinds (Flute, Clarinet, Saxophone, Harmonica,); lessons for French Horn and Trumpet lessons; Drums and Percussion lessons; and Hip-Hop Scratch lessons.
ArtistWorks or Guitar Tricks Guitar Lessons
GuitarTricks Lessons
Beginners are welcomed at guitartricks.com by the educator Lisa McCormick – she is a very friendly instructor and she will take you through the basics with a simple step-by-step learning system, after which you will be able to play your first songs.
Here is where GuitarTricks really shines – it offers one straightforward path for beginners that will surely teach you the basics the right way – not like some other sites where you have a ton of different courses for beginners in which you can easily lose your way.
Intermediate and advanced guitarists can use an awesome collection of technique lessons, Guitar Style training, Practice lessons, Artist Studies, Chord and Scale courses, and Gear info.
All of these Guitar Styles and are covered: Acoustic, Surf, Blues , Country, Jazz, Classical, Metal, Rock, Rockabilly, Bluegrass, Funk, and World.
Also, you can grow your repertoire with Guitar Tricks using their huge song lesson list. GT has over 700 officially licensed songs, which says enough – GuitarTricks are a serious guitar learning platform.
ArtistWorks Guitar Lessons
We are going to concentrate here on the guitar lessons because this is what we do. ArtistWorks has lessons for beginners, intermediate, and advanced players for each of these guitar styles:
- Electric Rock Guitar
- Electric Blues Guitar
- Acoustic Flatpick Guitar
- Electric Country Guitar
- Electric Jazz Guitar
- Electric Fingerstyle Guitar
- Acoustic Classical Guitar
- Acoustic Dobro & Lap Steel
- Electric Jazz Improv Guitar
ArtistWorks is short in song lessons – however, if you learn the techniques from ArtistWorks, it won’t be a problem for you to learn any song you like, however, if you think you need step-by-step song lessons – stay away from ArtistWorks.
Well, there are some song lessons in some courses on the site, but the number of them is too small compared to the other platforms, so yeah, if you just want to learn the songs by your favorite artist – try some of the other platforms that we cover.
ArtistWorks and Guitar Tricks Video Lessons
GuitarTricks Video Lessons
The video guitar lessons on guitartricks.com are probably the number one – they are shot in HD with multiple cameras, they are flexible and easy to navigate through.
The videos are usually filmed from three angles and in high-quality. You can change the quality of the resolution of the video – it goes up to 4K on most of the videos, but yeah, it depends on what kind of device you are using for watching these – if you are watching them on your phone, you will probably want to lower the quality a bit.
Also, you can loop a part in the lesson using the loop feature – this is done very easily just set your starting point (A) and the end-point (B) at the place you want them to be in the video, and you are good to go.
You can also slow down the video up to half-speed, and sped-up the video up to twice the speed of the original – this won’t change the pitch and will only affect the speed of the video and the audio.
You can find the Tab/Notation, the Info about the lesson, and even lyrics (on song lessons) below the video. Also, you can go to the previous lesson or the next lesson with just a click, and all the contents of the lesson are laid on the right side of your screen, so you can jump there quickly if you need to – if you want to refresh your memory or something like that.
ArtistWorks Guitar Lesson Videos
The videos on ArtistWorks are simple and short, and the instructors give you an in-depth view of the technique that you set yourself to learn.
The video player is pretty simple, and while it doesn’t have a ton of features like the video players on some of the other sites that we review, it is still a very good one and smooth enough. A large portion of the video lessons also gives you the option to watch a slowed down a segment of the video, which is, of course, a very important thing when you are learning from videos. Also, you can change the quality of the resolution of the video, and you can loop a certain part of the video that you want to.
With each lesson, ArtistWorks gives you the guitar tab and the music notation, so you’ll know exactly where and how you should lay your finger on the strings.
GuitarTricks or ArtistWorks Guitar Instructors
Guitar Tricks Guitar Teachers
GuitarTricks has 32 active guitar instructors. While most of them have been teaching the craft for 20+ years, some of have become well-known in the music industry working as a side-musicians and studio guitarists.
Every one of them is an expert in a genre, and some of them are experts in more genres.
For example, you can get Blues, Rock, and Classical lessons from the instructor Christopher Schlegel. All of the instructors at GuitarTricks are friendly and enthusiastic, but also very knowledgeable and professional at the same time.
ArtistWorks Guitar Instructors
There are not so many guitar teachers on ArtistWorks as there are on Guitar Tricks or TrueFire, but the ones who teach on ArtistWorks are definitely one of those that will grab your attention as soon as you hear about them!
For example, how do you feel when I tell you that Rock Guitar is taught by Paul Gilbert on ArtistWorks? And he is not the only well-known guitar player there! There are also a lot of great artists that have made courses for ArtistWorks such as Bryan Sutton, Chuck Loeb, Guthrie Trapp, etc.
Oh, and guess who teaches bass on ArtistWorks? – You can get bass lessons from two of the greatest when it comes to the low-end – John Patitucci and Nathan East! All of the instructors on ArtistWorks are friendly, enthusiastic, charismatic – and most important – extremely knowledgeable and willing to teach you their hard-earned skills and techniques.
Backing Tracks, Song Lists, and Guitar Styles
Guitar Tricks – Like I said earlier, there are over 700 officially licensed songs on GuitarTricks. They add at least one new song every week. The song lessons are usually step-by-step lessons teaching you the song from its beginning to the end.
All of the lessons include a Tablature and a Notation, and a backing-track to jam on your newly learned technique or song with drums and bass in the background.
However, you probably cannot find lessons from all of the artists that you like, but there are a lot of technique lessons that will later help you learning new songs – even by ear.
These are called “In the style of” lessons and they teach you certain techniques from artists that are not covered with song lessons on Guitar Tricks.
A great feature is the jam tracks that are available on GuitarTricks – there are more than twelve hundred jam tracks. These genres are covered: Acoustic, Bluegrass, Blues, Classical, Country, Funk, Jazz, Metal, Rock, Rockabilly, Surf, and World.
ArtistWorks – Some of you reading this article may be disappointed when you hear that there is not a large song playlist on ArtistWorks. If you are the kind of guitar player who only wants to learn a bunch of songs – ArtistWorks is not the platform you should subscribe for.
But hey, just like we mentioned above – if you learn the techniques from the courses on this platform you won’t have a problem learning any song that you want to.
Also mentioned earlier in the article are the genres and styles that are covered on ArtistWorks: Rock, Blues, Flatpick, Country, Jazz, Fingerstyle, Acoustic, and Classical.
There are backing tracks on ArtistWorks for each style that they cover on the site. On your “Learn” page under the “Study Materials”, you can find the backing tracks – all of them can be sped up or slowed down, they come with a Tablature and Notation, and they can be downloaded so you can play with them whenever you like to. However, they are not available with the three-month plan – if you choose the six-months plan you will get twenty-five of them, while if you choose the annual plan you will get all of them.
GuitarTricks versus ArtistWorks Cost & Price
Guitar Tricks Price
The monthly subscription to Guitar Tricks costs $19.95, while the annual plan costs $179.
You can use the promo code “SAVE20” to get a 20% discount on either plan that you want to subscribe to. There is also a 14-day free trial, so you can get a sneak peek of what Guitar Tricks offers, and a 60-day Money Back Guarantee, if anyhow the site doesn’t work for you.
ArtistWorks Lessons Cost
Three plans are available for subscribing to ArtistWorks, a three-month plan ($105.00), a six-month plan ($179.00) and an annual plan ($279.00).
With the three-month plan, you’ll get Unlimited Access to Lessons, Limited Access to Video Exchange Library, Up to 5 Video Submissions to Teacher, and Music Theory Workshop.
With the six-month plan you will get Unlimited Access to Lessons, Unlimited Access to Video Exchange Library, Up to 12 Video Submissions to Teacher, Music Theory Workshop, and 25 Backing Tracks across Instruments.
With the annual plan, you will get Unlimited Access to Lessons, Unlimited Access to Video Exchange Library, Unlimited Video Submissions to Teacher, Music Theory Workshop, Backing Tracks across Instruments, “AW Live!” Monthly Broadcast, and VIP Bonus Content.
Guitar Training Extra Features
GuitarTricks Lesson Bonuses
With subscribing to Guitar Tricks, you get everything that you will need to learn how to play guitar or improve your guitar skills. It works for everyone at all skill levels!
This includes:
- Jam Station
- Scale Finder
- Chord Finder
- Metronome
- Fretboard Trainer
- Reference Tuner
- Chord Charts
- Guitar Glossary
- Guitar Tab Guide
At Guitar Tricks, there is also a Student Forum and a News Page. Also, you can subscribe to the Guitar Tricks YouTube channel – there you can get some free lessons and watch some videos that will surely interest you as a guitarist.
There are also huge communities on social media. We also must mention that GuitarTricks has an iOS/Android app, so you can use your lessons remotely.
ArtistWorks Guitar Learning Platform Features
ArtistWorks offers some extra features like a blog with a bunch of articles concerning music stuff, a news page, a chat room (Shoutbox), forums with all the students and a forum where you can ask the instructor and he will reply to your question, and an ArtistWorks Facebook community group with more than 50.000 members from all around the world.
One of the greatest features of ArtistWorks is the Video Exchange feature that will help you improve your playing. You film yourself playing the technique or the song you’ve just learned and then you get a detailed video answer from the instructor pointing out the things that you’ve done well, and the things that you should work on.
Unfortunately, ArtistWorks doesn’t offer stuff like a metronome and a tuner, but you will find these things for free on the internet without any problem.
Also, there are no apps for using the platform on your iOs/Android device.
Our Recommendation
We recommend Guitar Tricks! Why? Because it is the best one. It has a huge number of lessons, it covers a lot of genres, styles, songs, and techniques, and it has everything that you will need to learn guitar playing or improve even as an advanced player.
Good job, Guitar Tricks!
