If you have ever opened TrueFire, scrolled for ten minutes, and closed the tab without playing anything, this one is for you.
Meet Riff. It is your guide to the TrueFire library. Tell Riff what you are working on, what you are stuck on, or how much time you have today, and it comes back with specific lessons to start on. Not a category to browse. Actual lessons, in an order that makes sense for where you are.
Riff is live right now, and it is included in your All Access membership at no extra cost. There is nothing to buy and nothing to turn on.
Why we built it
When we ask members what gets in the way of their playing, one answer comes up again and again, right behind not having enough time: not knowing what to work on next.
That is a strange problem to have when your membership includes 85,000+ lessons from 400+ educators. But it makes sense. A library that deep is only useful if you can find the one lesson that fits you today. A teacher solves that in about nine seconds. Until now, you had to solve it with a search bar.
Riff is our answer. It knows the whole library, and its only job is to get you to the right lesson faster.
What Riff actually does
It recommends specific lessons, not categories. Ask about a goal, a style, a technique or a song, and Riff comes back with courses and lessons you can open and start.
It works from where you are. Tell it your level, how long you have been playing, or what you just finished, and the recommendations change with it.
It picks up the thread. Finished a course? Short on time? Ask again, and it gives you the next step rather than starting you over.
Try it with one of these
The best way to understand Riff is to ask it something real. A few that work well:
“I have played for 10 years but my blues solos all sound the same. What should I work on?”
“I have 15 minutes today. What should I practice?”
“I am coming back to guitar after a long break. Where do I start?”
“Show me intermediate fingerstyle lessons that are not too fast.”
“I just finished a course. What is next?”
Be specific. Riff gets better the more you tell it, the same way a teacher would.
Where to find it
Sign in at truefire.com, click the purple button on the bottom right of your browser window, and then select “Find Lessons.” It is available anywhere on the site, so you can ask from the middle of a course without losing your place.
What Riff is not
Riff does not teach you anything. Our educators do that, the same as always.
Think of Riff as the friend who has watched every lesson in the library and knows exactly which one you need today. It finds the lesson. Robben Ford, Tommy Emmanuel, Larry Carlton and 400 others still teach it.
It also will not replace the parts of TrueFire you already use. Guitar Methods, learning paths and the courses you have bookmarked are all still there. Riff is another door into the same library.
It is in beta, and your feedback shapes it
Riff is new, and it will get things wrong sometimes. If a recommendation is too easy, too hard, or not the style you asked for, tell Riff directly and it will adjust.
That feedback goes somewhere. Riff exists because members told us what was missing, and the next version will be built the same way.
Go ask it something
Open TrueFire, find the Riff button, and ask it what to practice today. It takes about ten seconds to find out whether it is useful to you.