Guitar Noise

Guitar Noise is a free guitar lesson website with hundreds of articles, tips and reviews for students of this versatile instrument. Our motto is online to onstage, because we feel this site has something to offer everyone - from the absolute beginner to the seasoned professional. Thanks to millions of visitors, thousands of forum members and a group of dedicated writers, Guitar Noise is one of the friendliest musician communities online.

We believe that music is a medium that works best when it is shared. Nothing is as thrilling as being part of a band, no matter what age you are. We want to help you the get out there and play, so we’ve kept all our lessons free.

Founder and Owner

Paul Hackett, founder and owner. Guitar Noise is owned and operated by Paul Hackett. Originally launched as The Online Guitar College in 1995, the name was changed to Guitar Noise in 2000. As well as running this site, Paul is a writer-director living somewhere in southeast Asia. For more on Paul, see Paul Hackett’s website.

Lead Editor and Senior Columnist

David Hodge, Lead Editor and Senior Columnist. Currently living just outside Great Barrington, Massachusetts, David teaches privately and also writes lessons for Acoustic Guitar Magazine and Play Guitar! Magazine. His first tutorial book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Bass Guitar, is available from Amazon.com. To hear some of his original music, visit his page at Soundclick.com. For his schedule and latest news check out David’s home page. You can contact David by email at dhodgeguitar@aol.com.

As a completely free website, all of our writers and contributors volunteer their time and services for free. You can show your support for Guitar Noise and the Guitar Forums by making a donation. Your contribution will help cover the costs of maintaining this site.

Guitar Noise: Mission Statement

What we do and why

Do we really need a mission statement? Perhaps not, but here it is anyway. Stating our objectives actually helps us get more specific and useful information from our visitors about Guitar Noise. If you see anywhere that we have fallen short of these stated goals please let us know.

Why are we here?

Our main reasons for being here are to help others out and because it’s fun. We enjoy sharing what we have learned about music. In a lot of cases our contributors already had friends hanging out here and were invited by them to join the fun.

What do we hope to accomplish with this site?

Through this site we have the chance to give people a bit of help where we needed it many years ago. We hope to be able to get more beginners “over the hump” and out playing with other people. We want Guitar Noise to remain a better resource than the others we have seen. It is also a creative outlet for us. This is a different environment from our normal everyday gigs, that allows us to share thoughts and reflections on our favorite hobby. If we can inspire others to play to their potential, whatever that may be, we are happy.

What do we want you to accomplish with this site?

We hope you learn some of the reasons behind why certain things work, not just the methods or TABs. This requires more effort than just transcribing useful riffs into TAB, but it is more rewarding because we feel that we have really taught something based upon our experiences. We want you to feel that we know what we’re talking about, and trust what we teach. Our prompt response to everyone’s questions helps develop this. We also want you to be able to use the site as a reference for questions, both technical and motivational, about playing the guitar. At times, our work here is “too much fun,” and we want readers to share in our fun. For those of you with aspirations to be professional musicians we want you to come up ahead of the game and make it.

What will keep you on this site?

New, fresh material is being added all the time and is laid out in an easy to navigate format. Being easy to surf, the site changes often enough that you won’t get bored. We carefully cross-link our columns and resources, allowing you to follow tangential topics for quite a while. And when all else fails, the Sitemap and Master List are there to help you your own course of study. We also have a search engine, which is a last resort for many people, but still very effective.

What will encourage you to return?

Our content changes frequently and consists mostly of exclusive material. We encourage you to check out other articles by different writers who may have different perspectives on the same topics. People tend to remain loyal to sites that they enjoy on their first visit and offer something useful to them. Our site really should be fun, informative and easy to navigate. Guitar Noise is a wonderful resource, but not the only one out there. We are unique in that it feels like a relaxed atmosphere when visiting and navigating the site. We also feel that our personal touch, such as a prompt answer to an email, is of paramount importance.

Feel free to contact us.