How to play Expert Guitar on Guitar Hero / Rock Band

While rhythm games may be fading out of popularity, it is never too late to enjoy the great feeling of accomplishment that comes from passing songs such as Through the Fire and Flames and Jordan on expert guitar. Many players, with consistent practice, can pass among the most difficult songs on expert within just a few months. Just make sure you follow these tips:

• Go at your own pace. There is nothing more discouraging than trying to play a song way out of your skill level and failing. Begin on easy or medium and work your way up.
• One of the biggest difficulties of playing on expert is the fact that you only have four fingers in position to hit frets, but five frets that you have to hit. This means you must stretch either your pinky to hit the orange or your index finger to hit the green button, depending on where you have your hand. It is easier to stretch your index finger so place your index finger, by default on the red. This makes it easier for you to hit all five frets. Even on easy and medium, begin playing like this so that you do not run into a wall like many players do as you get into the harder difficulties.
• Having friendly competition helps a lot. Websites like www.scorehero.com make it easy and fun to push yourself.
• Never give up. If you are going for that incredibly hard five star or pass and you just barely fail every run, keep going. You will eventually make it if you keep trying. Just make sure it is not too far out of your skill range or you will only hurt yourself.
• Practice mode is your friend. It may seem boring, but sometimes all you need to do in order to nail that hard riff or shred through the lightning fast solo is for it to be slowed down in practice mode.
• When going for FC's (full combos or 100% notes hit with no overstrums on a song), your biggest enemy is usually nerves. It is surprising how fast your heart begins to beat and your hands begin to tremble nearing the end of an FC. Just stay calm. Be confident that you can FC the song and just keep doing what you usually do.
• If your arm gets tired during a song like Misirlou or Knights of Cydonia, don't be afraid to pause. Just try to do it at a time when you will miss the least possible amount of notes.
• When going for high scores on leaderboards, you need to use a Star Power path. A Star Power path is essentially a list of instructions (either text or picture) that tell you where to activate Star Power for the maximum score on a song. They can also be found on www.scorehero.com
• Pay attention to the game you play as they have different timing windows and mechanics. A timing window is the amount of time before and after a note crosses your screen that it can be hit. Guitar Hero has the smallest timing window and Hammer On's and Pull Off's are near impossible. Guitar Hero II and the Rock Band series share very similar, slightly more forgiving timing windows than Guitar Hero. Many experts tend to call this timing window the most fair of them all. Nearly all of the Guitar Hero games including and following Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock have incredible lenient timing windows.
• Squeezing is also a necessary tool for reaching the top of the leaderboards. Hitting a note while Star Power is active allows you to get double the points for hitting it. Because of this, you want to hit as many notes as possible while Star Power is active. Sometimes a note comes just hundredths of a second after a Star Power phrase will end. You cannot move the Star Power phrase back to hit that note because then you would miss SP on another note at the beginning of the timing window. However, by squeezing, you can strum that final note a few tenths of a second early, abusing the timing window, and getting credit for it as if it were under Star Power. This also works backwards. You can activate SP just slightly after a note and strum that note late so you get double-points for it.

Guitar Hero and Rock Band are two of the most successful rhythm game series to ever be developed so it is no surprise how fun and addictive that never-ending quest for perfection in them is.