Testimonials
If there's anything real guitarists can learn from the immensely popular Guitar Hero and it's new competitor, Rock Star, it's that people love the idea of being able to play the guitar. We all love music and those games are making the act of playing music more accessible, although highly unrealistic. This has frustrated many an actual guitar player with children, leaving them caught somewhere between the joy of seeing their kid express a genuine desire to play and the disappointment of seeing them pick up a plastic, fake guitar and spend hours with it instead of the 3/4 scale Squire they got for Christmas.
Don't give up. There's another gateway device for fusing the video game-driven mentality of today's youth with the idea of actually learning to play the guitar -- it's called GuitarGames.net
GuitarGames.net is a online collection of videogames that does what Guitar Hero doesn't do... it can teach you how to play guitar, or at least enhance the associated skills and knowledge involved. The site's nine simple games (okay, mostly simple) involve learning the fretboard, testing your guitar trivia knowledge, developing your ear, learning to read music and learning music theory. Though cheesy compared to today's video games, the simple graphics get the job done. After a while you realize the games aren't just for kids. They're a great way for anyone to sharpen their guitar skills.
Premier Guitar Magazine
Nice games, thanks for sharing with our members! I think guitarists of all ages who are game freaks will really enjoy these; and certainly kids. Could be good motivation for learning the staff and the fretboard more quickly. The more tools like this that a teacher can have to inspire a student, the better! Good work.
Martha Masters
Executive Vice President and General Manager,
Guitar Foundation of America
Having taught guitar for 32 years to date with over 2000 students served and 12 years of college teaching I enthusiastically recommend William Wilson’s creation GuitarGames.net!!!
How do you make the fundamentals of learning guitar fun? As it first appears because of the cartoon format one may say “looks fun for kids”. The truth is all of us have kid in us. So don’t let the light hearted humor and colorful animation fool you. Behind this light heartedness is an amazing collection of very effective teaching tools. Covering the basics of reading music and learning fingerings on the guitar, the game “Fret Tester” might very well help end the stigma that guitar players are poor sight readers. Also there are simple and effective explanations to get students to start thinking early on about key centers. How about learning to write your own chord charts? If you need a break there is one game that is just pure fun and brings us back to “Space Invaders”. The game-“Tab Warrior”, rest a while and you fingerpickers can take out your aggression on picks being aimed at you and your guitar while you fire away and destroy the coming enemy.
Extra bennies include guitar trivia, links to playing Latin guitar style, regularly added articles and learning tips all to add to the knowledge of any student willing to seek out the treasures of this site. I give it 5 stars with admiration!
-Peter Pupping
Professor of music, private teacher, performer.
All of the guitar games on this web site have been fun and educational for my new quest to become a guitar player. I have to say that none can match "fret tester" for me. I had a big fear about learning to read music because I thought it would be so difficult that I might give up guitar playing. However, fret tester has more than boosted up my desire to read music. I make it a must every day to at least practice one section of the guitar and make sure I am improving. So many reading materials stress on how to read music, but don't specify on how to read it on the guitar; even guitar books use piano keys as examples. This is what makes fret tester so wonderful. You can set your own level, your own pace, and it's Free to use anywhere you can get on the internet! Thank You William Wilson.
Javier A. Martinez, Deland, FL
Age 34 (Beginner Level guitarist)
I think this can be a useful website for beginning guitarists because all of the games teach you something different. Like fret tester, it helps you learn all of the notes on the fretboard, or note squish and note fish, those games teach you the ability to know the note right as you see it. Another game is ear tester. That game teaches you to know the sound of a chord so you can hear it and know what it is. The game birds of fretopia teaches you to memorize the notes of the guitar and the game chord mines teaches where to place your fingers for all of the chords. My favorite game is probably chord mines because now I know almost all of the chords.
Christian (Age 11)
