Why is there no SEARCH function?

ChicagoNed

Blues Newbie
I was doing a lesson, it was a riff-by-riff of a take off of Sweet Home Chicago, I think it was titled I Believe? I had to close my browser and log off, now I can't find it. Super frustrating. The only search box I have come across is in Forums, which is no help.

I spose they have a good problem to have: Too much content. But how do I find it? I have drilled down and into so many courses I don't remember where I came across it. It was in the Key of E, a shuffle. I wrote down the time I made it to and the words "I Believe" but there is soooo much content I can't find it. I don't want to have to go into the Practice Tool every time I do something in a course, mainly because I bop all around depending on my mood.

If I could get the email of the website master I have a lot of suggestions. Great content but its really buried...
 

ChicagoNed

Blues Newbie
Here's a partial index...
https://bluesguitarunleashed.com/fo...griffs-solos-where-they-work-protected.12812/

Addition suggestions are welcome. Jus put them in a format that I can actually use:
Course, Solo, Song, Member ID, Notes

Thanks Mike for the spreadsheets! When they started to put in the Key, that's where I'll start. Very helpful to have the key for me.

As to suggestions regarding searching, OK will do in next couple of days. It's frustrating nowadays to be in a site where one can not search. I feel being able to put the song/riff/class title would be a primary search benefit. Then in general, looking up styles by keyword: Delta, Memphis, Texas, Chicago (style), 12 Bar, etc., would really help. I also search acoustic blues but avoid non-pick finger style so it would be great to label the acoustic blues keyword parameters as finger style or pick. Of course the word Solo is useful although I do see that word in the drop down main menu. I'm not even sure if there is a difference between Riff-Solo-Lead definitions. Oh yeah, the keywords, fast or slow, unless it's easy for you to have BPM? You had mentioned that Griff always starts a lesson in G but it would be really great to keyword search jam tracks by key (I gravitate to E and A, E mainly for acoustic for the open strings.) Some days I just want to work on my rhythm so being able to keyword search that word would be nice. Or when I don't feel like expending the brain power for a lesson, pop open a beer and keyword search: Blues, 12 bar shuffle, Key E, slow, just to jam with. Presently I have to "work" to find them individually. Friction.

I've been a member of about 6-8 online sites and some have this fantastic feature of when you log back on you can see what classes you've been in and then it takes you to where you left off (if you didn't complete it), kind of like when you sign back into Netflix it takes you to where you left off.

Here's an idea, you and Griff sit down, pretend you've never been to the BGU site before, look at in from the moccasins of a new visitor, in which case you will feel overwhelmed. All the competitor sites cost about $30, a month so if you sign up for 6 for a cost around $180, instead of recreating the wheel you can cherry pick the best features that make their sites user friendly and categorize their content efficiently for the searcher. TrueFire claims to have 40K classes, if true I can't fathom how they keep track of them! I'd suggest: JamPlay, GuitarTricks, TrueFire, ActiveMelody, Fender, I forget the others at the moment.

As to the daunting task of going through every lesson, thanks to the pandemic you probably can hire geeks who play guitar very cheaply to go through them, classify all the keywords based on the parameters you choose. Presently what you have, which I experience as a newbie here, is the member has to drill down into almost every icon to see if what's there and if it is what they would like to learn. There's a fear that if one doesn't explore each icon (except the OBVIOUS titles one doesn't want to deal with), that he'll miss something important. When coming across an exciting class to take it'd be super groovy to be able to check it, or bookmark it, click as a Favorite, etc. to come back to it.

The one benefit you have with having the site being opaque is that the user will say, screw it, I might as well sign up for a year since it will take that long to get through all this! That's where I'm at, I'll probably sign up for the year before my 3rd monthly payment kicks in to save money. I usually stick with a site for 1-3 months but your site (and TrueFire) has sooooo much content a year is needed (except TrueFire is for the very advanced). And as I mentioned before I'd like to buy and download individual jam tracks instead of dealing with the Golden Ticket, but that's another subject.

See ya,

Ned
 

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
Figuring out the key is something you really need to learn to do. (Give a man a fish vs Teach a man to fish)
It's not really that hard, I just slide my finger along the low E string while the I chord is playing until it sounds right. If it only sounds kinda right I try playing a minor chord. That usually does the trick.
Within each course, if you look at the manual, you will see the chords that are played, which gives you the key.

Index & keywords. Great stuff to have, and I'm pretty sure that's on the To Do list, but it gets bumped down because of new content.
@Griff is a one man shop. Sure he farms out some stuff to a programmer and he has one customer service person, but that's it.
Many of us have had the discussion before regarding ease of use vs content. he general consensus is a resounding CONTENT.

Don't forget that these courses are not meant to be pick-a-lesson. They were designed to be followed lesson 1 through lesson N.
Think of them as a concept album like Quadraphenia. It was meant to be played from start to finish almost like an opera.
Now, no one is calling the courses an opera, but there is a plan to get you from point a to point B and if you skip some of the in between, you may not get the full value of the course.

None of this is intended to make light of your request, and I know that Griff wants to improve the customer experience whenever he can. I'm just explaining why it isn't there now and you may not see it any time soon.
 

ChicagoNed

Blues Newbie
Oh! I didn't think he is doing his own website maintenance, doesn't seem like he'd have time with kids and all. He has so much content now he needs a geek just for that! While I have your attention might I ask what you mean by:

Courses were designed to be followed lesson 1 through lesson N.

I did not know that. My home page is the My Courses page and I thought it was a smorgasbord, no? Could you please clarify and I will start over. I began with Beginning Blues, and then started to pick and choose lessons after that, I attempted to learn the mixing of Major & Minors but my brain ain't big enough, at least to memorize his Box 2 major scales for each key. I didn't know there's a path. I do know how to find the key a song is in, I just prefer E & A, probably because I am dependent on the dots. Also, I like E on the acoustic for the open strings sounds.

Today I was learning I Believe for a couple of hours and ran into a bummer. I learned the first 12 bars of solos and couldn't wait to practice them, scrolled down and the backing track is not on the page, meaning the one Griff played over. There's just him doing it fast and slow. So that's a major suggestion and he doesn't have to hire people for it: Please have the relevant backing track on the page of the lesson. I had to go to YouTube to find something similar.

I do like the loop feature. Helps a lot.

Thanks,

Ned
 

snarf

making guitars wish they were still trees
Please have the relevant backing track on the page of the lesson. I had to go to YouTube to find something similar.
Here's what I do that might help. While you're on a lesson page, if you scroll back to the top to Course navigation, expand that, and then right click on Home and choose Open in New Tab. That takes you back to the page with all the jam tracks for the course, and all you have to do is jump between tabs. May not be the same page, but it sure beats searching youtube for something similar.
 

Paleo

Student Of The Blues
Please have the relevant backing track on the page of the lesson. I had to go to YouTube to find something similar.

Why go to YouTube?

All relevant audio tracks for a course are provided in a player on the intro page of the course.

He always provides backing tracks.

You're just not gonna find a separate player on each page.:rolleyes:

I believe.jpg
 
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Elio

Student Of The Blues
Here's what I do that might help. While you're on a lesson page, if you scroll back to the top to Course navigation, expand that, and then right click on Home and choose Open in New Tab. That takes you back to the page with all the jam tracks for the course, and all you have to do is jump between tabs. May not be the same page, but it sure beats searching youtube for something similar.

That's exactly what I do if I need to refer back to tablature or the backing track player -- I just open it in a second tab. If it is something I will be working on for a while and I have purchased the course, I just download all the relevant materials into a folder so that I have local access.
 

Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
Courses were designed to be followed lesson 1 through lesson N.
This is sort of, I guess, the legacy of BGU and moving it into the modern era. For many years, there was no member area, and it was only DVDs, so when I migrated to digital, I simply moved the courses into place.

Things like searching and keywords are probably do-able. I use them in the All Access archives, I'm sure that can be ported over to the main lesson site.

I have a few other suggestions I've received lately, so I'll see how many of these we can get implemented. As always, I appreciate the suggestions and will work to get them implemented for you.
 

ChicagoNed

Blues Newbie
Here's what I do that might help. While you're on a lesson page, if you scroll back to the top to Course navigation, expand that, and then right click on Home and choose Open in New Tab. That takes you back to the page with all the jam tracks for the course, and all you have to do is jump between tabs. May not be the same page, but it sure beats searching youtube for something similar.

Thanks Snarf & Paleo
. I would not have remembered in a million years that the jam tracks were in Course Navigation. Thank you!
 

ChicagoNed

Blues Newbie
That's exactly what I do if I need to refer back to tablature or the backing track player -- I just open it in a second tab. If it is something I will be working on for a while and I have purchased the course, I just download all the relevant materials into a folder so that I have local access.

Hi Elio,
Are you on a Mac using Safari? For me to open a New Tab gives me a new browser tab, not a new tab of BGU.com. The problem I have, and it may be a glitch with Safari is, if I leave the lesson to go anywhere, when I return to that lesson page the lesson is back at the beginning which is a PITA. My work around thus far is to have many BGU pages open on my laptop which is visually confusing. So, how do you (on a Mac) open a new tab within BGU.com? If I can do that I won't have to constantly write down the time counter number.

Thanks,

Ned
 

ChicagoNed

Blues Newbie
This is sort of, I guess, the legacy of BGU and moving it into the modern era. For many years, there was no member area, and it was only DVDs, so when I migrated to digital, I simply moved the courses into place.

Things like searching and keywords are probably do-able. I use them in the All Access archives, I'm sure that can be ported over to the main lesson site.

I have a few other suggestions I've received lately, so I'll see how many of these we can get implemented. As always, I appreciate the suggestions and will work to get them implemented for you.

Thanks Griff. Besides a search function, an index, downloadable individual jam tracks for sale and the 10 seconds back button, perhaps an introductory video as to how to best use the site? Maybe I missed one? Posters have told me there are paths but I just have a My Courses page which leads me to think I'm suppose to randomly pick what I find interesting. I like the site so far, spending all my time on I Believe.

Best,

Ned
 

Elio

Student Of The Blues
Hi Elio,
Are you on a Mac using Safari? For me to open a New Tab gives me a new browser tab, not a new tab of BGU.com. The problem I have, and it may be a glitch with Safari is, if I leave the lesson to go anywhere, when I return to that lesson page the lesson is back at the beginning which is a PITA. My work around thus far is to have many BGU pages open on my laptop which is visually confusing. So, how do you (on a Mac) open a new tab within BGU.com? If I can do that I won't have to constantly write down the time counter number.

Thanks,

Ned

I usually use Chrome or Brave as a browser, which allows you to right-click a link and then offers the option to open it in a new tab. I just tried it on my version of Safari on the Mac and I don't see that option. The next best thing to do is to right click on the hyperlink and select the "Copy Link" option, open a new tab, and then right-click in the address bar of the new tab to paste the link into it. There are a couple extra steps involved but it is still pretty quick and easy.
 

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
Thanks Griff. Besides a search function, an index, downloadable individual jam tracks for sale and the 10 seconds back button, perhaps an introductory video as to how to best use the site? Maybe I missed one? Posters have told me there are paths but I just have a My Courses page which leads me to think I'm suppose to randomly pick what I find interesting. I like the site so far, spending all my time on I Believe.

Best,

Ned


When I mentioned "Paths" I meant within ONE course (from Lesson to Lesson)
EG In BGU 2 work on Lessons 1 through 31 in order (path)

After that (or during that)... Yes find where you learning/experience holes are and take THAT course Lesson 1 through Lesson N.
EG If you find that during or after BGU 2 you feel like you don't have very many rhythm figures in your arsenal, then try 52 Rhythm fills Sections 1-4 IN order (path again) or Strumming and Rhythm Mastery v2 Lessons 1-19.

Once you have completed (or nearly completed) BGU 2 your next path can only be determined by YOU since only YOU know where the holes in your education are.

Selling Individual jam tracks...
Selling individual jam tracks (or song tracks) is now the norm. It wasn't when Griff started this.
If you are talking about the Jam Track Packages (5x5 Jam Tracks, 29 Blues Jam Tracks or the two Ultimate Blues Jam racks)
I personally would never buy just one track from him, just because I like to play the licks I'm trying to learn over many keys and styles, but that's just me YMMV. Plus it's cheaper to by the whole set.

If you are talking about the tracks within courses, that's a marketing decision. There needs to be incentive to buy the whole course right?
 

Miles

Blues Newbie
Can I chime in here and say that there are software applications out there that can change the tempo and transpose mp3 (and other audio/video) files. Justin Sandercoe of justinguitar.com recommends Transpose (which is my preferred tool). SongSurgeon is also a tool which can do this. I think this is Griff's tool of choice. You can sometimes get a discount for these.

With these tools you can get a jam track in the 'wrong' key and change it. If the tempo is 'wrong', you can change it. It turns your favourite jam track into dozens. You can also select a part of the track and loop it, and loop it, and loop it, and ...you get the idea.
 
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