Guitar Noise

As David pointed out in his recent newsletter, it’s going to be Bastille Day again before we know it. Before we let things get that far, I want to share my warmest wishes for this holiday season. Over the past year it’s been my pleasure to correspond with many Guitar Noise users – by email, [...]

Never mind that there is now a Guitar Hero III; and never mind how mind-numbing and time-wasting this is; most importantly, never mind that this won’t help your guitar playing in the least – sometimes you just have to say “so what!”
Here’s a free version of Guitar Hero II that you can play online. Have [...]

Our good friend Dan Denley is giving away a Martin acoustic. A $1400 Martin acoustic!
Dan is the brains and fingers behind Lead Guitar Secrets and Blues Guitar Secrets, which we’ve had special offers on before. Today Dan is releasing his next series of DVD guitar lessons called Acoustic Guitar Secrets. I haven’t watched all 5 [...]

Once again I’m looking at the most quintessential unplugged albums from the 1990s. Regular readers of this site will already know that Neil Young is one of our perennial favorites. Among other things, his Unplugged album, serves as a great introduction to his music for those less familiar with his work.
Neil Young – Unplugged (1993)

It’s [...]

It’s kind of nice to know there is life after rock. Almost as nice as when rock stars can do something for the environment.
Australia’s Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd has named members of his new cabinet, and former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett is to be Australia’s new environment minister. Okay, never mind that this is [...]

This is the second installment in my look at Unplugged albums from the early nineties. Around that time a lot of bands were eager to jump on the acoustic bandwagon because it freed them from the pressure of coming up with new material. I would argue though, that some of the more resilient albums from [...]

Back in the early nineties, “unplugged” albums seemingly took over both MTV and the radio at the same time. For some bands, the new trend was nothing more than an opportunity to market old material as if it were new. There was no need to come up with new songs as the format consisted mainly [...]

Best known as the guitarist, vocalist and writer for Pink Floyd, David Gilmour now has his own line of signature guitar strings. From his official website davidgilmour.com:
David Gilmour plays GHS ‘Boomers’ guitar strings, an association that started in 1979 when working on The Wall, but he uses non-standard gauges that until now were not available [...]

We’ve had these for a few years now, but it’s always nice to share scary music stories around Halloween.
Head over to the Music Careers website if you don’t believe that most musicians have scary stories to tell. Scary Stories: Frightening Tales From the Front is a collection of anecdotes of horror and humor from working [...]

There are so many great guitar resources on the Internet, that a lot of it can go unnoticed. Taking a cue from our newsletter, I’ve decided to add a new section for all the buried treasure still out there. There are more ways than ever before to learn guitar, and I want to set [...]

Queensryche now has a greatest hits album: Sign of the Times – The Best Of Queensryche. This is the Definitive Queensryche Collection with 17 of the band’s best songs. We have 2 copies of the Deluxe Edition to give away. The Deluxe Edition features a Second CD of 15 Unreleased Demos, Live & Bonus Tracks [...]

It’s always nice to see your name and picture in the paper. Earlier this week, David Hodge was featured in his town’s local paper, The Berkshire Record. You’ll find the original article by Josh O’Gorman Guitar Guru here. Owing to geography, a lot of us only get to know David through his columns, newsletters and [...]

To celebrate the release of Photograph: The Very Best of Ringo Starr, we are giving two lucky winners an album litho and a copy of the album.

To enter this contest you need to give us a word that rhymes with “Ringo.”
The contest is open until October 13, 2007 at midnight. Winners will be notified by [...]

In celebration of the 25th Anniversary Release of George Thorogood’s legendary “Bad to the Bone” album we are giving away a custom made (by George himself) signed guitar slide along with a copy of “Bad to the Bone: The 25th Anniversary Edition”. These are the exact same slides that George uses on stage. In addition [...]

It really just happened by chance that the fiftieth issue of our current newsletter also falls on another anniversary. It was five years ago this week, that I handed over the reins of Guitar Noise News to David. At the time I was probably complaining that I had too much work to do. It was [...]

Let me be the first to welcome you to the official Guitar Noise blog. Now you can stay up to date with all the latest site info posted by the Guitar Noise crew. We want to open the lines of communication and interaction a little further, and from now on you’ll learn about changes to [...]

Bill Edwards’ gift to the guitar world is the best selling guitar book on both Amazon.com and GuitarNoise.com. Check out our interview with him.

Setting aside Stairway to Heaven, so many Led Zeppelin songs can lead you to a higher musical level. Here’s a look at some different genres in the band’s music.

The Beijing based band Evening News combines rock, folk and traditional Chinese music to create their own unique sound.