Infinite Guitar Review

InfiniteGuitar.com is a subscription-based guitar learning site that boasts a database of over 1,200 video lessons with more being added periodically. The lessons are created by a team of 11 guitar instructors. Having a variety of teachers to learn from is a great feature of online video lesson sites as it exposes you to different playing styles and teaching methods. Keep in mind though that while Infinite Guitar does have 11 contributing teachers listed on their site, the bulk of their lessons are from just a few of the instructors.

We were surprised to find that while Infinite Guitar has wide variety of lessons which will appeal to all skill levels, the site actually has many more lessons intended for the intermediate and advanced guitarist than for guitar newbies.

Infinite Guitar is similar to other online guitar membership sites that have been around for a while such as Guitar Tricks and Jamplay. However, one element that differentiates Infinite Guitar is their policy of making their lessons more affordable than their competition.

If you are interested in surfing by InfiniteGuitar.com, they do have a free basic membership that grants access to 26 free guitar lessons as well as to their general forum area.

Screenshots

InfiniteGuitar.com screenshots.

Features

Since Infinite Guitar is a video learning site, we’ll begin with the video. As the lessons aren't recorded in a common studio, both video and audio quality varies significantly from instructor to instructor. Generally speaking, video quality is so-so, though many of the newer lessons are filmed in HD and are done quite well. Some videos do include multiple camera angles, but split views that show both the right and left hands simultaneously are sorely missing. Infinite Guitar’s video player has minimal features but does possess full-screen mode which is essential when trying to play along 5 feet away from the screen. It's also worth noting that InfiniteGuitar.com is HTML5 compatible which for the average consumer means that your device doesn't require Adobe's Flash player to view the video lessons. This is great for someone who want to watch the lessons using a device like Apple's iPad, which can't utilize Flash.

Unlike several guitar membership sites, you can’t download these lessons to your computer, likely due to piracy concerns, which is completely understandable. Therefore If you want to repeat a particular lesson, your browser will have to re-download the video to your browser upon each revisit. Having a hi-speed connection is required as video lessons are not available in multiple resolutions.

Besides the video, many lessons contain supplemental content such as lesson text, tablature, diagrams and other visual aids to better illustrate what is being taught. If you want to print this supplemental material, you can easily do so from right within the lesson.

One thing that makes online membership sites so great is the interaction that’s encouraged between the guitarists and the instructors. Infinite Guitar has a private “Ask the Instructor” forum that’s designed for just such interaction and allows members to ask specific questions of their teachers.

Infinite Guitar supplies a couple basic online tools to help you along with your playing; A metronome and a Chord Finder. The Chord Finder is a piece of online software that allows you to display various guitar chords on a virtual fretboard and have them played using either a “clean” acoustic sound or a heavier electric guitar sound.

Site Navigation: Whenever you have a large collection of video guitar lessons in once place, a common problem is that it becomes difficult to locate lessons you want to watch. Infinite Guitar has addressed this in several ways.

Firstly, you can easily sort by lesson category, such as style, topic, skill level, instructor, tutorial types and so on. For more precise results though, it's best to use their advanced search feature that allows you to fine-tune your results using multiple filters. For example, you could search for all beginner video lessons that teach blues chords. The number of lessons available using the current search filters change in real-time which is a neat feature. Kudos to Infinite Guitar for making it easy for their members to find lessons that appeal to them. If you find a video that you want to revisit later, you can easily “favorite” it for easy access later.

Intermediate and more advanced guitarists may want to start by learning music in a particular genre. Infinite Guitar covers quite a few mainstream styles of guitar including rock, jazz, metal, blues, classical, funk, acoustic, fusion, Latin, and country. They also have some song tutorials and “in the style of…” lessons posted, though there aren't all that many popular songs available (likely due to copyright issues).

If you want a more structured approach to your learning, you can use Infinite Guitar’s “lesson plans” that collect individual lessons and tutorials (small grouping of lessons) and lays out a loose curriculum for you to follow. They have beginner, intermediate, as well as advanced lessons plans available. For example, the beginner lesson plan is divided up into sections such as, “First things to know”, “Your First Techniques”, “Let’s Learn Chords” “Scales and Exercises”, and “Basic Music Theory”. If you are a beginner this is definitely the place to start. Having said that, Infinite Guitar's approach is not without its problems. Sometimes the lessons can lack in continuity (especially when there are multiple instructors in the mix) and reveal gaps or holes in the teaching. Regardless, the lesson plans are a useful (and quite necessary) feature.

Site Requirements: To fully utilize InfiniteGuitar.com, you’ll need a computer with an high-speed internet connection and the latest version of Adobe Flash ® player to view the videos and use the online guitar tools.

Support

We noticed that Infinite Guitar's team of instructors are generally quite responsive to member inquiries and requests. For example, in the “Ask the Instructors” private forum most topics were replied to in a matter of hours.

We didn’t find a phone number on the site but they do supply an contact form which can be used if the need arises.

Ordering Information

Infinite Guitar is supported by membership fees. You can purchase either a monthly, quarterly, or yearly plan and as you might expect, the effective price per month decreases the longer the duration of the plan.  A monthly membership is $12, a quarterly membership works out to $10/mo., and a yearly membership equates to $9/mo.

Purchases can be made via all major credit cards as well as through popular online payment processor PayPal.

Infinite Guitar’s refund policy is much more stringent than virtually every other guitar course reviewed on this site. If you order a Premium membership and decide it’s not for you, you have only 3 days to ask for a refund.

Conclusion

Let’s be honest here. Infinite Guitar has a lot of good thing going for it. Great customer service, decent quality video lessons, and an inexpensive price-point come together to make Infinite Guitar a good resource to increase your “playing power” on the cheap. Just keep in mind that guitar newbies will find their lesson options somewhat limited, as less than 20% of the site content is suitable for beginner guitarists.

However, the only thing that keeps us from giving Infinite Guitar a higher rating is that there are other online membership sites that do the same thing, only better. (By "better" we mean superior content, quality, instruction, teacher-diversification, online tools, and additional site features.) If you want a better idea of what we mean, read our comparison of the “Big Three” guitar lesson membership sites below.

InfiniteGuitar.com vs. GuitarTricks.com vs. Jamplay.com
Here is a simplistic comparison between the 3 major online guitar video lesson membership websites. We hope to have a more detailed site-by-site comparison page up in the near future.

Pricing: On a monthly basis for both the monthly and yearly plans, Infinite Guitar is a couple dollars cheaper than Guitar Tricks per month, and substantially less than Jamplay. However, Jamplay’s yearly subscription price is not much more expensive than Infinite Guitar’s.

Lesson Material and Instructors: Guitar Tricks has roughly 3x the quantity of lessons that Infinite Guitar provides, and Jamplay.com has roughly 12x that amount. Jamplay also provides the largest and most diverse pool of instructors that you’ll find on one site. Guitar Tricks comes second while Infinite Guitar currently only has 11 instructors.

Lesson Quality: Infinite Guitar has decent video and lesson quality. GuitarTricks.com’s lessons vary greatly from lesson to lesson though they are becoming more picky in terms of adding quality lessons to their database. Jamplay wins big in this category as their lesson are filmed in HD and are with multiple camera angles and split views – an essential part of learning guitar.