As you probably know I’ve always said that I wouldn’t do the BLIM course mainly because I didn’t think I was good enough or didn’t have enough skills to be able to progress the course. The £500 was also a problem.
Over the last couple of weeks I have been having a bit of a rethink on this, although not 100% sure yet so have a few questions. Note that the BLIM FAQ seems to have disappeared from the JG website:
To those that have done the course. Was it worth it? Did you enjoy it? Did your overall skills/knowledge improve?
Can I do this on my own or do I need to be part of a sub-group?
Do I need to record and post videos?
Do I need to be able to improvise?
Do I need to be able to transcribe?
Will my hearing problems be an issue?
Can I pay for the course on the drip?
Can I get my money back if it’s not working for me?
Is this for acoustic or electric guitars or both?
All thoughts/comments welcome. TIA.
Absolutely worth every penny. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the course and feel that my knowledge and skills have improved. Though like everything there is a good bit of consolidation to be done after the course.
Yes, you can certainly do the course on your own but like every class you may find that through interaction with your fellow classmates that you become part of a little sub-group where you support and encourage each other and share your learning experience.
I’d highly recommend that you take the opportunity to record and post videos to share your progress and get feedback. Though, some folk didn’t share any videos, so entirely up to you but I would say at the very least record yourself for your own benefit to see the progress your making.
Not really as you will learn to improvise through the course as you build the foundation and develop a vocabulary.
I never transcribed before the course but found the transcribing exercises within BLIM to really help me develop this skill.
Absolutely not.
Not sure if you can pay on the drip but you can pay in 3 using paypal to purchase the course.
I think there is a refund option based on a number of days. It should say so within the BLIM page on the main website under the FAQ.
I agree 100% with what James said. I was in BLIM Class 1 and had kind of finished Grade 3 when I started BLIM. I struggled with some elements of play, but these were known to me before I started and not really related directly to the course content. I managed my through it and now have been working on those troubles with intent to work through the class content again.
If you can pay for the class on the drip, then you should be able to save up before diving into the class. if you can put away $20/ week over the duration of the class, you will be ready for the next class. If you cannot save that much, then trying to pay on credit is probably not the best decision.
Grade 4 has a good amount of the basics that BLIM has. The video presentation is older and I think Justin has improved his teaching for BLIM by enough to recommend BLIM. BLIM also gets you associated backing tracks in the price that you would otherwise buy to use in grade 4.
Hi Stuart,
Almost all reviews of the BLIM course here have been glowing, and that’s great On the other hand, I’m sure there have been some who felt it wasn’t really for them, and their views are just as relevant to you, as you’ve had some struggles in the past. Members are (quite rightly) less likely to leave a negative review
If I were in your shoes, before committing to a large payment, I’d consider a one-off lesson with one of the JG teachers who’s familiar with the course. You can discuss your goals, voice your concerns, and demonstrate your abilities, before making the leap. No doubt you’d benefit from the lesson itself as well.
Just my 2 cents
I was near the end of BG3 when I started BLIM, and 100% learnt a ton from the journey, and many of those things helped with non-blues guitar playing too… my fingers are more nimble, and stronger, I am a more disciplined learner, I can move around and know much more about the fretboard, I pay more attention to what I’m listening to, I have more confidence that I can learn difficult things, and so on.
Stuart, you may enjoy Blues Immersion more than G4 Major scale maestro course because you learn to improvise with a tab full of licks. You don’t have to come up with everything by yourself using your musical imagination and reactive listening.
If you decide to take it, don’t worry about trying to understand and master everything in it. It’s not the goal. For exemple, me, I put my focus on playing the licks medley with the tab.
The important part is not to try to finish all the exercices, focus instead on something that you like in the course. And it’s impossible to practice that thing you like for 6 months and not make any improvement. Tough, since it’s a difficult course, you have to be kind with yourself and be happy with any improvement. And not compare yourself with others. Everyone starts the course with a different level.
^^^^ This (especially the bit I’ve bolded).
With the utmost respect I expect that it’ll open up many (many!) more questions about your personal guitar journey - and I mean that in a positive sense.
If you do go for it, you’ll have access to the course material for life. It provides an amazing reference syllabus in one place that you’ll be dipping in and out of for absolute years. That alone made it worthwhile for me.
Hi Stuart, I am a BLIM1 drop out: I was all excited when the course started because getting back into playing blues solos was one of the things I had on my focus list for 2024. But I found it was all a bit too much. I went along with it the first 1.5 months - but it takes time to watch the videos, getting the practise in, and then follow all the chats and discussions. To really profit from the course you have to be ready to fully immerse yourself into it for more than the advertised 30 mins practise time (I’ve forgot how many days a week was mentioned, it was not daily). During the second month of the course I had to decide whether I was ready to throw more of my guitar time at the course - I wasn’t feeling that I was keeping up with the course with the time I was spending on it - and I wasn’t ready for an “all-in”. Developing blues solo-ing was only one of my goals for the year but not the one goal. So I stepped back and focused on my other guitar areas who at the time and under pressure (not enough time in the day and a stressful job) were more important to me.
All that said BLIM is a great course. It is incredibly well designed and takes you on a real journey. So I don’t regret a penny I have spent on it. After I stepped away from it I was still following the videos as they were released every month. I have seen everyone who stayed on till the end improve. And one day I will get back to it and complete the journey myself.
So the questions you need to answer is this the journey you want to take and is now the right time for you? @brianlarsen made an excellent suggestion to discuss this with one of the teachers involved.
It helps a lot to have been through grade 3. Many of the early concepts in BLIM are in the first three grades and Justin does not go over them in detail in BLIM, so familiarity and some competence through G3 is a good idea.
As I mentioned earlier, I was cleaning up some G3 stuff and had looked at G4 lessons when my BLIM class started. I made it 4-1/2 months before I just could not keep up. At that point, I had various birthdays, anniversary, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all happening. I still have the material and plan to revisit that once I have much better skill levels with the first 2-3 months of BLIM.
So, basically, you want to be at least through G3 and likely well consolidated before you take on BLIM unless Blues is your main goal or you have a lot of time to include BLIM along side your basic grade classes.
It’s great to hear about your journey Molly which I’m sure many share.
Stuart, that question makes a lot of sense. Do you see yourself playing mostly blues solo-ing for the next year ? If you would prefer to do something else in the next 1-2 years, you should think about it now. Because when you will be fully immersed into the blues, you might not have the time to try a completely different genre before sometime.
When I see @Carreta doing some really nice fingerstyle covers of Hallelujah, I miss a little bit my rock and fingerstyle journey, but since I invested so much time into that blues solo-ing practice, I want to get to the bottom of it ahah !
Thanks @sequences
I was afraid it would be the answer
Im a bit afraid that the BLIM classes stops one day and missing it
is it supposed to run every year ?
I can only echo the positive comments made here. I got a heck of a lot out of it and it raised the level of my playing and knowledge, so worth every penny.
But . . . . . . I also fully understand where @brianlarsen is coming from. It’s not for everyone and was pretty intense. Can you take your time once you have the material, yes you can take a life time. But I would agree, worth booking yourself in for an MOT especially with someone like @Richard_close2u who has been heavily involved with both classes.
Like a lot of things around here, BLIM is one where you need to look at the criteria required to enter the course when it is announced and to be honest with yourself and as already said seek advice.
It’s certainly G3 + and needs an electric guitar, as stated up front. My observation on the negative side of C1 ? Folks signed up expecting to do it on acoustic, must have missed a meeting. Some folks were still at a relative beginner stage but wanted to learn the Blues, without the groundwork first. So as C1 went on folks started to go MIA. But as the saying goes you pays your money and take or chances.
But go into the course with your eyes open and at the expected entry standard, you’ll enjoy every minute and wonder what all the fuss was about.
Did they go MIA or did they simply stop discussing the course in the community?
I know you won’t be able to answer that because they probably didn’t say.
Scrolling through the BLIM2 members list shows that the majority of them aren’t engaging with the community group.
Those are just observations but it brings me to another question. I know you had your own private BLIM group, but what about the BLIM community in general. Did you (and others) find it a big help to discuss the course as a larger group?
We had a study group which was encouraged by Justin as part of the course and there were quite a few others from what you could tell from the BLIM Community boards. Those boards were fairly active for the first couple of months but naturally no where near as busy as the core grade related categories here. But for the course material they proved beneficial for those that used them.
I’ve more or less decided that I’m going to sign up for BLIM3
I’ve already put myself on the waiting list, although that was more about giving me a kick up the backside to incentivise myself to pick up guitar after a couple of months of being busy with life stuff!
Thanks to everyone for some constructive feedback. I’m very interested in the course but I don’t think I’m quite ready for it. I probably meet the minimum requirements, in that I’m at about grade 3 level in my playing, but I’m fairly sure I would struggle with some aspects of it and likely get flustered about not keeping up with the pace of the course. By the sound of it, it’s a fairly intense program. I think I’ll spend another 6 months on my current path and consider BLIM in the following intake.
I hope @Stuartw the OP hopefully excuses when I step into his thread.
Since BLIM was mentioned for the first time it’s giving me lots of thoughts. Firstly it was more about questions like “why does it start now, when I’m not ready yet to participate”, “will I miss a chance if I don’t participate”, “will there be further courses”, “at which point will I meet the criteria to participate”, etc.
The aspect, I’m reflecting the most since the very beginning is the “Immersion” part of the whole course. The whole concept is based on the willingness and ability to immers oneself up to a very high degree into the course and Blues for months. I totally see the benefit of this and I can totally understand the intension - BUT: I immediatelly had kind of a weird feeling inside, because I know, I simply can’t do that. Following the Course, watching the videos, practicing, being active part on the BLIM plattform to get the most out of it, active listening to tons of Blues music, simply said: keeping up with the course…
For me it’s primarily due to serious health reasons, but to be honest also due to other obligations I can’t pause for 6 months. Honestly said, this made me really thoughtful for a while, even massively reduced my motivation to take the Blues route.
I’m not in a hurry, I think, it helps to get a serious foundation on the Blues stuff of Grade 4 first, so a lot of water will be running down the rivers before I have to make a final decision anyway. But I’m not sure at this point, if it still makes sense for me.
I think, I’m maybe not alone with this. I guess, lots of people would happily participate but couldn’t immerse themselves to 100% due to various reasons (familiy, job, caring, etc.) for months into the course.
I would be interested in experiences of those who already took part or are taking part in BLIM 2:
Do you think, the 100% immersion aspect is absolutely necessary? Is it a satisfying experience to do the course with one’s own pace?
Will those people miss “all the fun” or important input because they probably can’t follow in time?
Would you recommend to just leave it and search for other, less demanding options?
And maybe @Richard_close2u could help on this:
What’s about all those serious students who simply can’t take the effort of a BLIM? Will there be other options at JG in the future to advance in Blues? Maybe such as a trimmed down “light version” or additional lessons (I don’t mean for free, could also be a premium paid offer) for those who are seriously interested in Blues, but simply can’t go “all in”?
absolutely not…I did it at much less than 50% and liked it
It’s the only way in life I like…my own pace…sometimes running (figuratively now )…and sometimes at a snail’s pace …or slower
No … Some a little but there is still plenty of fun left
This is a biggie …I have to choose wise…
Edit : well uh…wise ??? I don`t know but I hope this gives some light
And to say something sensible in response to Stuart’s questions… off the top of my head I say that most people haven’t posted videos, something I don’t understand because it helps your process enormously in many ways…
quite a few students did not meet the minimum advice that Justin gave to participate …and not even have the skills after 6 months of the course (and that is/was no problem at all as long as everyone likes it, it’s great of course and I assume that they were aware of the required level ), and I am sure that for many people there is still a lot to learn and improve on the free justinguitar site … preferably supplemented with one of the cheap blues courses … Hey, I think I could certainly have learned something (or quite a lot) without doing this great big and fun BLIM,
It is of course a huge boost for many people to fully immerse yourself in this course and will really benefit your learning curve, but for me it is impossible to work on that every day because there is so much more that I like and also other blues arrangements on the site that I am working on…
I thought it was worth every cent and I really saw it as a big donation for the site for which I also received a lot really a lot videos in return and that I really like , but I see and know that for many people there is still a long way to go for and learn on the justinguitar site … just mastering the Solo Blues 1 Lick-in’ Riff in grade 3 … getting a taste of the big blues things in grade 4 and watching/learning the first 3 music theory modules … just to name a few things…
On the other hand, I’m sure there have been some who felt it wasn’t really for them, and their views are just as relevant to you, as you’ve had some struggles in the past. Members are (quite rightly) less likely to leave a negative review 
)…and sometimes at a snail’s pace …or slower 
Some a little but there is still plenty of fun left
