Currently touring with his own band and as a solo guitarist and mandolinist, Andy Wood has toured professionally with a wide range of acts, including most recently Gary Allan, LOCASH, Rascal Flats, Scott Stapp, and Sebastian Bach. Known for blurring the lines of preconceived genres, Andy’s guitar and mandolin prowess explodes across a broad range of styles from fusion and rock, to metal and acoustic bluegrass, and virtually everything in between.
Widely acclaimed as “one of this generation’s top influential players,” we are thrilled to welcome Andy to the family with his first TrueFire course, ShapeShifter! You will likewise be thrilled when you dig deep into the shape-shifting techniques and creative approaches that Andy presents throughout his innovative curriculum.
"I’ve been in love with music my whole life! Not just one style - I love country, rock, jazz, blues and all forms of American music! I’ve been super lucky to have worked with so many great artists, over the years, across multiple genres. And to be able to do that, I’ve had to learn to shape shift - taking the fundamental harmonic and rhythmic knowledge -- that we all know -- and then twist it to fit appropriately into each style. I’m excited to share some of these concepts and techniques with you here in this course!”
Andy organized the course into three sections. In the first section, he demonstrates and explains 9 key techniques and concepts: Major Pentatonic Connections, Basic Harmony Foundations, Alternate Picking, Cross Picking, Basic Legato, Slides & Faux Slides, Vibrato & Bends, Blues Foundations: Licks & Tricks, and How to Approach Tone: The Gear & The Hands.
”This first section of the course is very "mindset" oriented - there's a lot of philosophical and conceptual things here that have to do with your headspace before you dive into a genre. There's a lot of harmonic overlap between different styles of music, so here we'll talk about the best way to approach a genre and some connections between them.”
Style Shapeshifting is the focus of the second section. Andy demonstrates how to ‘shapeshift’ the essential techniques and concepts presented in the first section to be able to play in other genres with more authenticity: Adding Country Flavor: 1, Adding Country Flavor: 2, Adding Rock Flavor: 1, Adding Rock Flavor: 2, Adding Jazz Flavor, and Musical Self Awareness Philosophical Approach.
”In this section, we're really going to get into the "shape shifting" - what you need to do in order to introduce the elements of country into a blues, or rock into country, or whatever you want! We'll be looking at specific techniques that will allow you to introduce other flavors into your music.”
In the third section, Andy guides you through 10 soloing performance studies, at various levels of complexity, to illustrate the way you can ‘shapeshift’ your own playing to invoke a particular style and sound.
”In the third section, we’ll apply the shape shifting to different genres. All solos were improvised on the spot! We use the same track throughout, so you can hear how to apply what we discussed above to shift into different genres over the same track.”
Andy will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way. You’ll get standard notation and tabs for each of performance studies. Plus, Andy includes all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own. In addition, you’ll be able to loop or slow down any of the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.
Grab your guitar and let’s shapeshift with Andy Wood!
What you'll learn
Use hybrid picking to create country-specific articulation
Use double stops with proper country phrasing
Transform blues/rock licks into authentic country phrasing
Incorporate pedal tones in country-style playing
Developing Rolling Stones-inspired guitar vocabulary
I've been in love with music my whole life! Not just one style - I love country, rock, jazz, blues and all forms of american music!
I've been super lucky to have worked with so many great artists, over the years, across multiple genres. And to be able to do that, I've had to learn to shape shift - what I mean by that is to take fundamental harmonic and rhythmic knowledge -- that we all know -- and twist it to fit appropriately into each style. I'm excited to share some of these concepts and techniques with you here in this course.
I've organized the course into three sections. In the first section, we'll cover fundamental approaches for scales, harmony, right and left hand techniques, and dialing in each appropriate tone.
In the second section, I'll show you how to shapeshift those fundamentals to play in other genres with more authenticity.
Finally in the third section of the course, I'll improvise ten solos, at various levels of complexity to illustrate the way I shapeshift my playing to invoke a particular style and sound.All of the key playing examples are tabbed and notated and you'll have all the backing tracks to work with. You can loop or slow down any of the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.
Grab your guitar and lets go.
2SECTION 1: Essential Concepts
This first section of the course is very "mindset" oriented - there's a lot of philosophical and conceptual things here that have to do with your headspace before you dive into a genre. There's a lot of harmonic overlap between different styles of music, so here we'll talk about the best way to approach a genre and some connections between them.
3Major Pentatonic Connections
To get us started, I go over how to connect major pentatonics across the fretboard and how to visualize them. This may seem basic, but I find this to be a great fundamental tool in helping to "connect the dots" within a major pentatonic scale.
4Minor Pentatonic Connections
So here is the evil twin to our major pentatonic fretboard visualization and connections. However, here we address the minor third of the scale and how to visualize some of the minor pentatonics connective tissue throughout the fretboard.
5Basic Harmony Foundations
This lesson expands on some harmonic ideas based around the minor third to the major third and how both notes function when used together. We look at how to use them both in chicken pickin', etc. But note! This only works in a MAJOR key. You cannot use both the minor third and major third in a minor context. Also, we talk about other alterations including 9, flat 5, etc.
6Alternate Picking
Ah yes, the foundation of my playing - alternate picking! Here I'm gonna give you an overview on how it's the basis of my approach to guitar, how I use it and what works for me.
7Cross Picking
Cross picking is a delightful technique that I lifted from my bluegrass background and apply to all sorts of other genres. We'll discuss the intrinsic issues, how to develop it and I'll also give you a few exercises to help you polish it up! Essentially, it's just a VERY deep and difficult version of alternate picking that involves crossing over strings to develop rolling sounds and sequenced arpeggios, etc.
I am loving the course. So far Andy Wood has demonstrated some tasty licks that have sent me off on a bit of a tangent. It is always cool to add some more tools to the box and this course is on track to fill it up.
R
rockjazz
Verified buyer
11/14/25
Andy Woods Shapeshifter
Andy Wood shapeshifter show cases impeccable picking chops with an aura of inspiration to practice and learn without hesitation. Looking forward to purchasing his remaining courses.
D
Don1Coyote
Verified buyer
04/06/25
Shapeshifter is filling in some gaps and adding insight to my skill set.
Thoroughly enjoying it.
B
BDHerndon
Verified buyer
02/13/25
Shapeshifter Heaven
This course has some really nice material that is fun to play and sounds really great. My wife even loves it.
D
dwa79
Verified buyer
11/13/23
Techniques plus Applications
Andy Wood is awesome. Love the lessons with great applications
