So last night at guitar Hero

[Mallakith]

Hey Woody can you give me 47's number Ive got another controller for him to assassinate!

I dont profess to be Dave Murray or Phil Manzanera or anything but i KNOW im a good guitar player, last night I get to Iron Man on hard and just CANT do the solo at all!

what annoys me more is i can actually play the damn solo on a real guitar!

Soo please forward his number Betsy's gonna get it! :)

[Woody]

Guitar Hero isn't really about playing the song on a real guitar it's about rythm as the producers dictate it. So not only are you learning the song, but you're learning the song EXACTLY as Red Octane wants you to play it. None of your own slurs or Hammer-Ons. No personal vibrato or extra notes for flare. Just rigid, rigid note progression expressed through 5 stupid buttons.

In a recent interview with Marcus Henderson, the guitarists behind recording much of the music in for Guitar Hero, he was asked outright "so it's actually harder to play the game than to play the songs on guitar?" His answer "Oh, absolutely!" and "Guitar Hero's expert difficulty makes the songs seem real easy on a real guitar!"
source: GameSpy (http://www.gamespy.com) [ more info (http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-2/guitar-hero-2/703854p3.html) ]

Now, I've played a little electric guitar myself, nothing fancy. But from my own experience, I will agree with Marcus. I won't speak for anyone else or write some stupid dissertation on chord progression across different strings at different fret locations (because I can't), but I will say that when it comes to LEARNING a song, in real life, you're not thrown neck deep into it. You get to learn the chords and finger placements slowly. And, once you've gotten the muscle memory squared away, you can pick up the pace little by little until you're playing at full speed. And, you certainly don't have to play through a whole damn song to get to that one hard part JUST to practice it. Nope. In Guitar Hero, you're learning the song as it progresses from Easy to Medium to Hard, etc. The problem however is that the buttons you use, in some cases, and how you play them, change entirely. So yeah, try not to get too frustrated.

Anyway, none of that really helps solve anything so... I'll go play Iron Man on hard again and see if there are any pointers I can fire your way. (If you want them that is)

[Mallakith]

basically its getting the timings for the hammerons etc during the solo but I agree what annoys me more is having to play the whole song every time. Im note perfect until the solo!

[Takara]

Bark at the Moon on Medium kicked my arse so completely I had to play it about two dozen times through just to barely beat it. We're not even talking a good score, just skimming by in the Red, thanking my luck for Star Power in just the right spots.

What Woody's done in the past and that's helped me is to go forward and play some songs on Expert from "Opening Licks", and then go back to play Iron Man. I don't precisely know why, but it helped me.

I still can't do freaking hammer-on's.

[Raxtull]

Familiarity with most of the songs is what's killing me most. I will always hit extra notes that are in the song, but the game doesn't call for. Now I'm stuck on Cowboys From Hell and Bark at the Moon on Medium. I've started working through on Hard to try to work some agility back into my fingers in hopes of finally finishing those two songs.

I personally think that having a bass background is more helpful to the game than a guitar background. Just the style of play suits bass more.

[Woody]

Raxtull, try this:
Go to the game options, turn up the guitar, and turn down special effects and "the band". That way you will hear the notes you play moreso than the band. It's a balancing act though. Turning the effects and band too far down leaves the song empty UNLESS you hit the right notes. Interesting in it's own right, but a bit harder to pick up some particularly quick or confusing riffs.

---

And the key to getting through "Cowboys From Hell" and "Bark at the Moon", at least initially, is saving your star power and using them at the nastiest part of a solo. As long as you can catch a significant number of notes, you'll still climb back into the green.

[Mallakith]

I DID IT!

Heh got through Iron Man, More than a Feeling (first go!) and You got another thing coming (Second go) before the football started last night.

Still not any good but I used star power wisely on Iron Man :)