The music universe is blessed with so many truly gifted guitarists. There are amazing performing guitarists, highly sought-after session guitarists, successful solo-recording guitarists, rock star guitarists, master educator guitarists, guitarist’s guitarists, and then there’s Andy Timmons — all of the above. Andy is the consummate guitarist.

Andy Timmons’ 30 Electric Expressions You Must Know is a select vocabulary of Andy’s expressive phrases and harmonic devices whatever style you play, and whatever level you play at, you’ll find something of significant musical value for you within this collection of Andy’s Electric Expressions.

”Melody is the central focus of everything that I do musically. While I’m not a licks player per se, I’m excited to share many of the melodic and expressive devices that course throughout my playing here in this collection. Feel free to learn them in their entirety, or cherry-pick parts of them and make them your own.”

Andy will demonstrate the lick over a backing track and then break it down for you emphasizing the key techniques and harmonic approaches in play.

Horizontal Pentatonic Slide: Lick 1
”For the first lick, this is an A major horizontal slide. This is something that I use all the time, and works great over the progression from my song “Resolution”, going from A major to D major.”

Descending Horizontal Triplets: Lick 2
”Lick 2 is a descending pentatonic pattern that will work over the A major chord and D major chord. I really love the sound of the pentatonic over the the I and IV chord.”

Positional Triplet Line: Lick 3
”Here’s another A major pentatonic that will work over our chord progression. This time I’ll be staying in position (I do stay in position sometimes!) and has a lovely triplet-falling-over-the-bar type of vibe.”

Aggressive Ascent: Lick 4
”Lick 4 is over a track called “Move On” from the Resolution record that the Andy Timmons Band put out. It’s a pretty aggressive ascending pentatonic lick.”

Hendrixy Wail: Lick 5
”This lick is also over the “Move On” A minor to F chord progression. We’ll be playing a very bluesy, crying, Hendrixian lick this time.”

Sixteenth Note Triad Outlines: Lick 6
”Lick 6 is also over the “Move On” progression, which is A minor to F. This is a line made up of 16th notes where I’m superimposing A minor, G and F over the A.”

Introductory Ascent: Lick 7
”Lick 7 is over a chord progression from “Beware Dark Days”, another Resolution track. This is essentially an introductory pentatonic lick – something that I do all the time.”

Melodic Artificial Slap: Lick 8
”For this lick we’ll be in the key of C# minor, playing over our progression for “Beware Dark Days” again. This time we’re dealing with artificial slap harmonics.”

Chromatic Blues Reps: Lick 9
”Lick 9 is a repetitive blues chromatic lick, also over our “Beware Dark Days” progression. We’re in C# minor, but this one sounds great played over any blues or minor chord.”

Sliding Shifty Fifths: Lick 10
”Here’s one more over the “Beware Dark Days” progression, in C# minor again. These are melodic shifting fifths, which are a nice way to voice lead the melody.”

Repetitive Fives: Lick 11
”The progression for Lick 11 is taken from “Deliver Us” from Resolution by the Andy Timmons Band. It’s essentially goes G minor, Bb major, to D minor, and then F major. We’re centered around a group of repetitive fives here.”

Widdly Diddlies: Lick 12
”Lick 12 is made up of some repetitive pull-offs, also over the chord progression from “Deliver Us”. Let’s dig in.”

Slippery Gypsy Lick: Lick 13
”This lick is a “slippy-slidy-Gypsy-lick”, as it’s taken from the main lick in “Electric Gypsy”. I’ve seen a lot of people play this tune, and this is the one lick that trips people up (including me).”

Open Harmonic Melody: Lick 14
”Lick 14 is an open harmonic melody over the chord changes for “Electric Gypsy”: D major, A major, B minor, to G major. Let’s take a look at how to do it.”

Hammer & Pull Arps: Lick 15
”This lick is over a track called “Beautiful Strange”, using hammer-ons, pull-offs and arpeggios. It’s basically centered around the chord of C7, but we’re starting on the Ab major, then going to F minor, and then C7.”

Speed Picking Arpeggio: Lick 16
”Lick 16 is a speed picking arpeggio lick, also over the track for “Beautiful Strange”. We’ll come in with a little bit of melody over the Ab major and F minor, and then we’ll get into the speed picking over the C7.”

Descending Flat Nine Line: Lick 17
”This is essentially a descending C7 with a b9 arpeggio. Again, we’re using the “Beautiful Strange” progression, which goes Ab major, F minor, to C7.”

Pitchwheel Hammer: Lick 18
”Lick 18 is what we’ll call the “pitchwheel Hammer” lick, as it’s something that Jan Hammer would do. It’s over the “Beautiful Strange” progression once again. Let’s dig in!”

Chromatic Riffage: Lick 19
”Our last lick dealing with “Beautiful Strange” is a chromatic riff over our progression.”

Groove or Die Arp: Lick 20
”This is the basic arpeggios taken from the tune “Groove or Die”. We’re playing an E minor arpeggio with a little bit of melody and then a D major arpeggio and some more melody.”

Sixteenth Note Chordal Runs: Lick 21
”Lick 21 takes us back to EAR X-TACY 2, using the progression for a song called “Last One”. This is basically a 16th note chordal run.”

Gone with the Lick: Lick 22
”We’ve deemed this one “Gone with the Lick”, it’s a ascending pentatonic sliding lick that I love to play. It’s all over the G minor to Eb7 in the solo section of the song “Gone”.”

Stair Step: Lick 23
”Lick 23 is over the “Gone” chord progression again. This is what I call a “stair step” lick. I think you’ll understand why!”

Descending Bending: Lick 24
”Lick 24 is over the “Gone” changes again. This is a descending bending lick, and a really cool exercise for playing some scalar bends.”

Ascending Bending: Lick 25
”For this one we’re still playing over the song “Gone”. We’ll be playing contrapuntally to our descending bends in the previous lick, now ascending while bending and sliding with each note to give them a great sound.”

Funky Chromatica: Lick 26
”Lick 26 is over a static, funky groove in D minor, utilizing some chromatic outlining of triads.”

Charlie’s Chromatic Line: Lick 27
”Lick 27 involves some more chromaticism. This stems from a Charlie Parker lick I heard years ago, and here I’m adding onto it. We’re again staying static over D minor.”

The Puppet Show Lick: Lick 28
”This is another one over our D minor groove that we’re calling the “puppet show” chromatic lick, taken from my old Danger Danger years. Let’s take a look.”

Homage to Mike: Lick 29
”Lick 29 features some Mike Stern-esque chromaticism over the same D minor groove.”

Descending Chromatic Loveliness: Lick 30
”Our final lick is called “Descending Chromatic Loveliness”, and features it’s namesake! It’s over an A minor, to G major, to F major funky progression.”

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 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.

Whether your composing or improvising, the ability to create a compelling melody is always the key to making your music distinctive, emotional, and memorable. You do that by tapping into your ‘melodic muse’ — a craft that every musician needs to develop and continuously be fine-tuning.

Andy Timmons’ Melodic Muse presents a simple, step-by-step approach for creating melodic lines by fusing what you already know about guitar with your ear’s creative instincts. No tedious theory or boring exercises to struggle through — you will play your way through Andy’s ear-opening curriculum to ignite your own ‘melodic muse.’

”When we talk about playing melodically on the guitar, we’re usually thinking of improvising, but this also applies to songwriting. It’s really the same “muse” or driving force that helps us create melodies whether we’re improvising or trying to write a tune. I’ve designed this course to help you discover, feed, and nourish your ‘melodic muse’ by bridging the intellectual with what I call the ‘auralectual’ — a term I created to describe the creative direction that your ear leads you towards.”

Melodic Muse is organized the course into 3 sections. In the first section, Andy presents a melody primer describing all of he elements that comprise melodic playing and composing. Andy will also explain how the ‘auralectual’ connects with the intellectual within your own melodic muse.

”In this course, we’ll approach everything we work on using both our intellect and our auralect. We’ll analyze chord progressions and identify the scale and note choices that we might use with those chords — that’s the intellect at work. The “auralect” side of things has to deal with learning through our ears and eyes. Music is an “aural” experience. It’s meant to be taken in through those mediums primarily, so we feel it most through these ways. The ear develops instincts based on everything you’ve taken in. I consider it like a library of ideas collected throughout our lives.

When we’re improvising or composing, we’re drawing on these experiences as the benchmark of what we’d like to hear. We’re really trying to connect these two things — the “auralect” and intellect. And more so, we’re applying the intellectual side after the fact, trying to describe the things that we feel first.”

In the second section, Andy guides you through a series of Melody Studies and Key Concepts, each featuring an explanation, a demonstration and then a playalong where you apply the concept in a musical context. You’ll learn and play through 10 studies: One Finger, One String, Play One Note Per Chord, Play Two Notes Per Chord, Target the 3rd of Each Chord, Visualize Simple Triads, Find Melodies in Triads, Train Your Ear, Call & Response Statements, Phrase It Like You Sing It, and Motivic Repetition.

The third section features 2 bonus studies and performances demonstrating Andy’s Melodic Muse principles at work. ”In the final section, we’re going to take all these ideas that we’ve been working on and apply them to a couple of extra tracks. I’m going to take a spin through them but play on them yourself and practice working on these concepts. We’ll work with a progression taken from one of my tracks called All is Forgiven and then we’ll play over a ballad in D minor based around another one of my songs, Cry for You.”

Whatever style of music you play, at whatever level, from beginner to advanced — this is a must-have course of study that you will reference and work with across your entire guitar-playing lifetime.

All of the performance studies are tabbed and notated, plus you’ll have the backing tracks to work with on your own. You can loop and slow down the videos to work with the any of the lessons at your own pace.

The music universe is blessed with so many truly gifted guitarists. There are amazing performing guitarists, highly sought-after session guitarists, successful solo-recording guitarists, rock star guitarists, master educator guitarists, guitarist’s guitarists, and then there’s Andy Timmons — all of the above.

Andy is the consummate guitarist. He’s done it all and he continues to do so. If you were lucky enough to see him live in Danger Danger, he blew your mind. His highly acclaimed session work and solo recording projects speak for themselves. He’s served as Olivia Newton John’s musical director for many, many tours. He’s an international rock star.

Most impressive of all? Ask any top guitarist to name five of their own favorite players and Andy’s name will make every list.

You’re in for a treat because Andy is also one of the most naturally talented educators that we’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, and we’ve worked with a lot. We’re thrilled to welcome Andy to the TrueFire family with the launch of his first interactive video course, Electric Expression!

Whatever style you play, and whatever level you play at, you’ll find something of significant musical value for you within Andy’s Electric Expression curriculum. In fact, we suggest you just sit back and watch the entire course before you even pick up your guitar. Then go ahead, plug in and dive deep into this truly remarkable learning experience.

Andy’s organized the course into two main sections. In the first section, Essential Concepts, Andy presents 17 key concepts, techniques and approaches that he considers to be the essential building blocks for any contemporary electric guitarist: Focusing On The Third, Eliminating Blind Spots, Tension and Release, Hybrid Picking, Double Stops, Dynamics Within Soloing Lines, Arpeggios, Chromaticism, Vibrato, Bending, Playing Melodically, Horizontal vs Vertical Soloing, Tap Harmonics, Artificial (Pick) Harmonics, Ornamentation, Time and Feel, Phrasing and Motivic Development. Andy also presents a Rig Rundown to show you his amp and pedals and how he dials in his tone.

In the second section, Performance Studies, Andy puts all 17 of the key concepts and techniques to work over a series of chord progressions and rhythm tracks that he cherry-picked from his previous recordings for this project: Electric Gypsy Progression, Cry For You Progressions, Carpe Diem Progression, Farmer Sez Progression, and the A Night To Remember Progression.

After each performance, Andy steps you through the key concepts, techniques and creative approaches he used to improvise the solo in the performance study. It’s here where you’ll glean the most impactful insights for crafting interesting and engaging solos of your own. Andy’s goal here is just that — take what he passes on from his own mentors and learning experiences and help you make your own music.

All of the key demonstrations, performances and examples are tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes. You’ll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can loop and/or slow any section down as you work through the lessons. Plus, Andy generously includes all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own.

Get Electric. Express yourself…

Blues is a mysterious series of contradictions. It’s one of the easiest styles to learn how to play, but its also one of the hardest styles to play really well. There are great guitar players that can play the blues really well, but there are also great guitar players that couldn’t play the blues really well if their life depended on it. Everyone uses the same simple progressions, chords and basic vocabulary of licks, yet everyone sounds so different doing it.

That’s why we love the blues here at TrueFire. There’s something new to learn from every educator! The basic harmonic framework is identical from blues course to blues course, but each individual educator brings their own approach, influences and vibe to the learning table.

One of the truly gifted guitar players, across a variety of styles, that can also play the blues really well is Andy Timmons. He rocked your world with his first TrueFire course, Electric Expression. We’re pretty confident that he will now blow your mind with his educational take on the blues, here in Electric Expression: Blues. At the very least, we’ll guarantee you a fresh collection of head-turning blues moves and improvisational approaches to take to your next blues jam.

“Blues is a great place to start playing guitar because the basics are easy, however it takes a lifetime to master. I’ve found that the journey has been the most amazing part! There’s several players that have been a huge influence on my playing from all different genres; rock guitarists like Ace Frehley and Joe Satriani, blues and jazz players such as Robben Ford and Larry Carlton, as well as country players like Danny Gatton and Albert Lee. They’ve all influenced my approach to the blues and I’m excited to have this opportunity to share it with you!”

Andy organized the course into two sections. In the first section, he presents and demonstrates 14 key concepts and techniques: Blues Comping Approaches, Bluesy Double Stops, Finding Roots & Going Home, Expressive Blues Note Ideas, Focusing on 3rds and 7ths, Power Of The Sixth, Modal Blues Playing, Open String Lines & Drones, Passing Tones & Outlining Chords, Expressive Bending & Vibrato, Building Blues Motifs, Using Rhythm In Your Leads, Single & Two String Groups, and Blues Influences.

In the second section, you’ll put everything you learned from the first section to work over 6 Blues Performance Studies: Comping In G, Sixths & Thirds, A.T. Home Tone, Get Ready To Rhumba, A Modal Blues and Floydian Slip. After each performance, Andy steps you through the key concepts, techniques and creative approaches he used to improvise the solo in the Performance Study. It’s here where you’ll glean the most impactful insights for crafting interesting and engaging blues solos of your own.

All of the key demonstrations, performances and examples are tabbed and notated for your practice, reference and study purposes. You’ll also get Guitar Pro files so that you can loop and/or slow any section down as you work through the lessons. Plus, Andy generously includes all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own.

Dig the blues? Get Electric. Express yourself…