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Shapeshifter: Creative Applications

10 Creative Approaches for Improvisation and Composition

Marty FriedmanTommy EmmanuelSteve VaiEric GalesEric Johnson

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Shapeshifter: Creative Applications
Andy Wood

Andy Wood

Educator

country, blues, rock

Genres

About this course

In the first edition of Shape Shifter, Andy Wood showed you how to take the fundamental harmonic and rhythmic knowledge that you already know and stylize it to fit into virtually any style.

In this Creative Applications edition, Andy dives deeper into 10 creative Shape Shifter approaches that you can put to use immediately in your own playing, improvisations, and compositions.

”For each of these Shape Shifter approaches, I’ll present a performance study and then break it down to clearly illustrate the creative application.

We’ll look at Hybrid Picking Riffs, Cross Picking Lines, and Rolling Licks, Interval-Based Melodies, Arpeggio-Based Melodies, Key Centers & Colors, Note & Tone Manipulation, and Navigating the Changes. I’ll also share some Faux Slide Licks with you and we’ll focus on Shapeshifting Country, Rock, Blues, and Jazz.”

In the final section of the course, Andy gives you a commentary for five of the songs off his Junktown record examining their origin and pointing out some of the creative and compositional approaches that he used himself.

Andy will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way. You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the key examples and performance studies. Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to the video lesson. You can also loop or slow down the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace. All of the backing tracks are included to work with on your own as well.

Grab your guitar and let’s Shape Shift with Andy Wood!

What you'll learn

  • Navigate chord changes that don't share common harmony
  • Target chord tones (especially thirds) when soloing over chord changes
  • Executing microtone bends that start slightly sharp to mimic slide placement
  • Creating melodic hooks using faux slide techniques
  • Building texture through selective string voicing in chord progressions
Release date: 12/13/2019 • 2h 01m runtime
late intermediateadvancedguitarelectric guitarsoloingimprovisation
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Sample lessons
Hybrid Picking Riffs
Hybrid Picking Riffs
Creative Concept 1
Hybrid Picking Riffs
Hybrid Picking Riffs
Performance
Hybrid Picking Riffs
Hybrid Picking Riffs
Breakdown
Shapeshifting Country & Rock
Shapeshifting Country & Rock
Creative Concept 10

What's included

36 lessons • 20 charts • 10 Jam Tracks

ShapeShifter: Creative Applications
Hey, it's Andy Wood! Welcome to the Creative Applications edition of my ShapeShifter. In the original ShapeShifter course, we explored a ton of the techniques and concepts that make up the way I approach music. Here in this course, we're going to take a look at how I apply a lot of those concepts in my own compositions, improvisation, and songs from my records - but we'll also dig into a few new approaches and couple more tricks in my bag I use to blur the lines between different styles. On top of that, we'll also go through five of the songs from my "Junk Town" record and I'll give you my creative commentary - some backstory behind the conception of the song, and of course a lot of cool info about the melodic and harmonic applications in my playing. This is gonna be a ton of fun, so let's go ahead and dig into the course.
Hybrid Picking Riffs
Hybrid Picking is a huge part of my playing. Basically, it refers to the technique of combining the fingers of the right hand with the pick. I love combining this approach with a little dirt from overdriving the amp. It adds a different tone, and makes double stop lines come together, chicken pickin' sounds come out with a bit more pop, and using hybrid picking also helps me get more wide interval lines and licks out of the guitar
Hybrid Picking Riffs
Here we're going to take a look at the performance of my song "Junk Town". This is a great example of my use of hybrid picking as you'll notice the main riff is essentially a hybrid picked line that includes plenty of double-stops and some alternate picking mixed in as well
Hybrid Picking Riffs
In this video I'll break down my performance from the song "Junk Town" and point out all the details you need to know to put this thing together. Let's run through this one together and figure out how we can work some hybrid picking into your playing.
Cross Picking Lines
Another big technique that I spend a lot of time working on is expanding my use of alternate and cross picking. One of the things I try to do is incorporate more alternate picking as I cross my way over the strings of the guitar. This creates an almost banjo sounding effect - like a Bela Fleck inspired sort of sound. Try and play around with the way you sequence your alternate and cross picking approach to drastically change the way your lines sound.
Cross Picking Lines
Now we're going to take a look at another section of my song "Junk Town" which incorporates a lot of alternate and cross picking. Take a look and I'll break it down for you in a bit.
Cross Picking Lines
In this video I'll break down this second performance from the song "Junk Town" and point out all the details you need to know to put this thing together. Take some of this approach and work it into your own playing. You don't need to come up with any new lines to put this one to work, just think through the directional picking approach you use and I think you'll see how much impact it makes on your go-to lines and phrases

+ 29 more lessons

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Reviews

10 results

Osokin

Verified buyer

05/25/23

Shapeshifting Inspiration!

If you haven't yet discovered the brilliant guitar playing of Andy Wood, then you would certainly benefit from working through this course (and all the others that he has done for TrueFire). In addition to being a tremendously inspiring player, the redoubtable Mr Wood is also an excellent teacher - so don't be at all surprised to discover that you become a better player after working through these lessons.

SongYY

Verified buyer

12/26/21

Nice course

Andy is a fantastic guitar player with no doubt, unique tele rock sounds and skill really provides a lot guide information as we needed. Following the each lesson to build up rock improvisation vocabulary!

SWB79

Verified buyer

11/01/21

Great

Andy is a great teacher and shares his knowledge and amazing solid and easy to follow. Thanks for this amazing course

Sneumann

06/04/20

Keep Coming Back to This Material

Some of the coolest stuff I am working on right now!

freakshowman

Verified buyer

05/27/20

Andy's amaaaazing!

This course is so chock full of great nuggets that I can see myself learning from it for years to come. I wish I had a guitar teacher that taught me this stuff in such a versatile way that Andy does, and I learn lots of cool stuff just watching him play. This course is worth any investment, you won't be disappointed!

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