The Woodshed: Andy Wood on Guitar Practice, Auditions and Your Brand (Episode 127)

Luck = preparation + opportunity.

Andy Wood is a guitarist and mandolinist known for blurring the lines between genres. He has toured with Rascal Flatts, Gary Allan, LOCASH, Scott Stapp and Sebastian Bach, is a founding member of the rock band Down From Up, and hosts The Woodshed Guitar Experience, a three-night retreat where players learn from guitarists like Robben Ford, Brent Mason and Andy Timmons.

In Episode 127 of The Career Musician, Nomad and Andy get into how he learned to play without exercises, how a grassroots path led to A-list tours, and why building your own brand is the best career insurance a guitarist can have. Here is what stood out.

He never practiced exercises

This is the part that made Nomad stop the conversation. Andy's right hand technique is famous, and he says he never did exercises. He learned songs. As a kid he played fiddle tunes on mandolin with his granddad, and those tunes constantly change how many notes you play on each string. That forced him to master the switch between outside and inside picking, which is exactly where most guitar players struggle. Banjo rolls did the rest.

"Practicing and learning aren't the same thing, in my opinion."

Andy Wood, 15:15

He compared drilling scales for hours to memorizing every word in the dictionary and expecting to speak English. You may have the tools, but you are not forming sentences. Speed, he said, became a byproduct of wanting to be precise and get a good tone. Control comes first. Fast happens on its own.

You have to listen to the music you want to play

People ask Andy how to learn country guitar and chicken picking. His answer is a question: who are your eight favorite players in that style? If you can't name two, there's your problem. It is not a mechanical issue. You cannot absorb a style you aren't listening to.

The same goes for every genre. A great bebop player who has never listened to metal will not nail a metal session, and the reverse is true too. Andy learns melodies from singers, film scores and other instruments, not just guitar. He also makes decisions before his hands touch the instrument: what key, what time signature, major seventh or dominant. That pulls him out of the same old licks.

Nomad agreed completely: listen to everything else but guitar, especially melody.

Knowing 400 songs was the real training

As a teenager, Andy played in the big theater shows in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, then went out to bars and clubs at night. In college he was gigging five nights a week anywhere he could get on a stage. A country gig might be 60 country tunes. A frat party might be 40 more. He ended up with a catalog of around 400 songs, and he says that mattered far more than he realized at the time.

His rock band, Down From Up, opened tours for bands like Sevendust and 10 Years. They came close to a big label deal, and it did not happen. He was bummed. He did not realize a whole other world was waiting on the other side.

The career grew by word of mouth

A local producer threw him sessions and showed him how the studio world worked. The headliners he opened for liked his playing. A call to be the house guitarist at a benefit show put him on stage with a drummer who was soon hired for Scott Stapp's solo tour, and that drummer brought Andy along. It was his first A-list tour.

Later, when Rascal Flatts changed some band members, each remaining player got to pick someone to audition. A steel player Andy had met at a guitar event picked him. He has worked with the band's camp on and off ever since.

Nomad's takeaway is the TCM playbook: it is all relationships. Be a good person, be responsible, reliable, organized and on time, know the music, do your homework, be a fun hang. Reliability beats virtuosity, and it is going to happen.

Even a great audition can start rough

The Rascal Flatts audition itself went really well. The first two days of rehearsals did not. Those records have walls of layered guitars, and the band did not hand out stems. They said, download it on Spotify. When there are four guitar parts, the one you learned is often not the one they want to hear. By day three he found his footing, thanks in part to a bandmate who rode him hard and then helped him level out.

"Don't ever think that if you don't get the gig you're auditioning for, that you failed. Your name's in the loop."

Andy Wood, 45:54

Nomad flagged the ego part. Plenty of players would have taken that pushback badly. Andy took it, and he is still working with those people. Everything you do is an audition, including how you take a note.

Build a brand stronger than the gig

Andy is careful about social media. It has helped him get gigs. But he warns against judging players by follower counts, since some of the best session players have played on more hits than they have followers, and some viral clips are not what they seem. Get the player in the room.

What you can control is your own brand. He quoted Steve Vai: the best way to sound like me is to sound like you. Andy now runs a Patreon community, signature gear and a guitar camp, and he can pick the tours he wants. When an artist stops touring or a pandemic shuts everything down, that brand is what lets you weather the storm. His practical rule: if you spend 10 grand on studio gear, spend at least half that on your website, because platforms come and go, and your own domain is yours.

That is Diversify or Die, and Make Music Your Business.

The takeaway

Andy's words of wisdom are simple: love it. If you are in it for the long haul, stay inspired, and the best way to do that is to play your favorite songs. For him it is still fiddle tunes. Learn music, not exercises. Say yes, show up ready, and be the best version of you.

And if you have an audition coming up, prepare like a pro with the free Audition Secrets guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

Watch on YouTube or find every episode on the TCM Podcast page.