Struggling to find content

[john256]

I really like the new site starting to group things and organise them, but every time I want to look up something specific, I can't find a lesson - even though I'm sure it's there somewhere.

A couple of for-instances...

• Pentatonic scales - I can find a bunch of lessons on this. But I don't find an introductory video lesson explaining where this scale comes from and how to use it. I find non-video lessons explaining the theory, and I find video lessons which start "we're going to use the pentatonic scale, which I hope you already know" or zoom through "the 5 patterns" assuming you already know what is going on. I'm guessing there's a lesson in one of the earlier courses, but I can't see it
• Soloing. I know there is the blues lead course - which is great - but I'm not that into blues. If I search "solo" in the lesson archive there is only one result and that's about transcribing. If I decide I'd like to learn about how people learn to improvise guitar solos, it seems I just have to page through all the lessons until I find it. Are there not lessons on generic lead guitar in there?
• Circle of fifths... I can't believe there isn't a lesson on this. There might even be a whole series because it's so useful. But I cannot see it

Is everything geared around the idea you'd start at the very beginning and work through every lesson? If not, being able to find topics would be SO useful. For instance I just happened to click into the Intermediate Foundation course and saw "E barre", "A barre" and nearly stopped, before I saw in the detailed text that one lesson covers the major scale, the next some cool blues tricks, etc. All this gold is buried "in the small print" which makes using the site when you want a lesson on a specific thing hard work.

How cool would it be if on the Lesson Map page you had a little '+' button next to each item that would pop down a list of topics covered? Or that in the "Scales" section it doesn't just list lessons with "scale" in the title but all the lessons which cover scales. Or a kind of tagging system so a given lesson can be tagged in multiple sections (blues, lead guitar, soloing, minor pentatonic).

This is probably coming across like a big sulk but it's really not. I'm always amazed and excited seeing how much STUFF there is here. It's such a wonderful resource. But if I, as a techy guy with a fair amount of theory and guitar experience struggle, it makes me sad others must be missing out too.
This is sort of what I do for my job so if I could help in some way, I'd love to.

What do site old hands and newer members think? Any tips for finding stuff, or do you tend to work through from the start and discover everything that way? Am I just too old for this new site?!

[stitch101]

I don't understand what your not finding.
In the site map under scales there is
Minor pentatonic with 4 lessons
Major pentatonic with 2 lesons
Major scale with 8 lessons
Major scale modes  15 lessons
Harmonic minor  2 lessons
And 6 other lesson coures on scales.

So you don't like the blues even though it is ths foundation to Rock. Jazz, Country and
Most other modern music.
There is a whole section on Rock Techniques.11 lessons
Theres the awesome likes section about 20 lesson

If you want the circle of 5th I believe it in the Practical Music Theory course.

So what exactly is it you are looking for?
The first lesson on the minor pentatonic is in the beginner course BC-185.

And yes Justin Guitar is a course that you start at the beginning and work your
way though. If your not a total beginner you can start with the Intermediate Foundation

[john256]

I think you kind of demonstrated my point. You told me the:

The first lesson on the minor pentatonic is in the beginner course BC-185.

In the site map under scales there is
Minor pentatonic with 4 lessons

So, firstly, BC-185 is about pentatonic scales (MINOR PENTATONIC PICKING EXERCISE).

But it is not listed in that set of 4 minor pentatonic scales lessons on the site map.
If I go to "all lessons" and search for "pentatonic" it isn't listed there either.
It is actually the 5th lesson of "Beginner 8: Blues & Fingerstyle" course
I couldn't find "BC-185" anywhere on the site, only by going to Google "BC185 justin guitar".

This is exactly what I mean - the only way someone would find BC-185 as a lesson on the pentatonic scale is by scrolling through every lesson in every course, as far as I can tell. How many other lessons covering this topic are there not coming up when I search?
If you hadn't told me "BC-185" I'm not sure I'd ever have spotted it, and it's not ideal I rely on someone having an encyclopedic knowledge of the site to find things.

On a similar note, that lesson is not included if you go to site map->fingerstyle either

I think even if I had done all the lessons in order and I was thinking "hmm, I'd like to find the lesson where Justin introduced pentatonic minor scale" I'd struggle.

I'd really love it if there was some sort of tagging system. It could even be community run.