guitar noob

[SLEEPING GI4NT]

ive just got done with medium guitar solo tour., now ive started hard and wow.,,. i suck at it, the best rating ive got so far is only a 4,.,.,. had anybody got any tips that would help me out,., its that damn orange button,.anyone?

[Xzyliac]

Just fall down, dust off, get up, rock out. Simple as that. It'll be childs play in no time.

[SLEEPING GI4NT]

ill give it ago but i seriously dont think that gunna help me.,,.,. i have big hands an all,.,. but i just cant find a decent way of reaching for that orange,.,.

[gsu_paintballer]

Shouldnt have skipped hard.

[Xzyliac]

ill give it ago but i seriously dont think that gunna help me.,,.,. i have big hands an all,.,. but i just cant find a decent way of reaching for that orange,.,.

Just move your hands and it'll be fine. Seriously. There is no cure all or workaround. Just rock.

[Quastor]

Shouldnt have skipped hard.

This.

<KidsTheseDays>

[BRLxHOMICIDEx]

Just slide your hand to were your pinky is on orange and play like that until a green note comes.... and slide back to the regular position its simple when you get it.;)

[Ldog12395]

Just slide your hand to were your pinky is on orange and play like that until a green note comes.... and slide back to the regular position its simple when you get it.;)
ditto, thats how i do it in guitar hero

[SLEEPING GI4NT]

cheers for the tips guys,.,.., will just pratice over this week..,., thanx agen

[Teh_Nfsjunkie91]

Just slide your hand to were your pinky is on orange and play like that until a green note comes.... and slide back to the regular position its simple when you get it.;)

Once you get that down, you learn to read ahead in the chart to determine hand positions for certain parts of the song. It all comes with experience.

[WiseOldUnicorn]

Once you get that down, you learn to read ahead in the chart to determine hand positions for certain parts of the song. It all comes with experience.

Exactly. It's really confusing at first, but you'll get more practice with it and before you know it you'll be sliding your hand all around the fret board without getting confused.

Also, like a couple other people said, play Hard. Going from Medium straight to Expert is just...crazy talk.

[SLEEPING GI4NT]

i did actually go from medium to hard,.,.,. for some reason in my post i put expert... god knows why.. guess i could always try practice mode with the speed down ,.,. just to get the hang of sliding,.,.thanks again;)

[nificant]

It's all muscle memory. You have to get used to where your fingers are once you slide your hand. You just need to practice until you don't have to think about which color which finger is on. After that, you need to practice some more until you have played all the common chords the game will throw at you and have those to where you don't have to think about it as well.

Just don't get frustrated and say "I can't do this". You can, I promise.

[Arionel]

Good tips. I'm in the same boat, wanting to make the "jump" to hard. It's going to take patience, and practice. And I've only been playing GH for a couple months and have had RB since release.

[Shaiangyl]

I just did the jump about 2 weeks ago and I started out with the tutorial. It also opened my eyes to some tricks that I wasn't aware of, but the biggest issue was of course, the orange key.

Also, I have smaller fingers, so for me playing on the smaller keys helps immensely. I don't have to slide as far and my pinky doesn't feel like it's going to separate from my hand when I need to do wider chords.

Find a relatively easy song you enjoy enough to hear it a handful of times and have at it with hard. =) Sooner or later you'll find that reaching that orange key is easier than you thought.

[rayps23]

well do the tutorial in there is shows you many ways of getting better at the game. like say you have green-red=yellow real close just hit the first key and the bar then quickly with the green pressed hit the red and yellow. check out the very hard guitar tutorial you will see what i mean.

[Markn951]

ive just got done with medium guitar solo tour., now ive started hard and wow.,,. i suck at it, the best rating ive got so far is only a 4,.,.,. had anybody got any tips that would help me out,., its that damn orange button,.anyone?

well...I'de suggest play A LOT. like 3-4 hours at a time. And slide down your fingers because its much easyer to hit the green and red buttons with your index finger then hit the blue and orange buttons with your pinky.

[CowboyGP]

I would echo the previous points: Hand position #1 = Index finger on Green, Hand position #2 = Index finger on Red. When this was first suggested to me while playing GH, I was like "Yeah, that's never gonna happen." But eventually it became almost second nature. I'm still working on it, but I no longer panic when I see an Orange note coming.

The other point I'll echo is to play for extended periods at a time. 3 to 4 hours (as suggested) is a good minimum goal. Depending on how many days I've been away from the game, it can take me over an hour before I'm back to the chops I had the last time.

Now for MY question. When I play "seperated by 1" chords (B+Y, R+B, Y+O) I almost always use my Index and Ring fingers. On Medium and the early tiers of Hard, this is fairly simple even when I have to move quickly from one chord to another. Now that I'm moving into the mid to late tiers on Hard I realize that I'm probably setting myself up for failure later. I've watched others playing guitar on Expert during online Band quickplay while I'm on drums and I can tell that unless I get more dextrity in my other fingers I'm never going to be able to make the progressions in some songs.

Here's how I suspect I should be training my hand. Feedback and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
G+Y= Index+Ring.
R+B= Index+Ring and/or Middle+Pinky (depending on which position hand is in)
Y+O= Middle+Pinky.

[Faldrok]

Eh, for the G+R, why not use Index and Middle? ;) I'm assuming you meant G+Y in which case, yes, Index and Ring will work. I, however, do Index and Middle for G+Y, but I have very large hands and play the actual guitar, so I can make that reach. I do it mostly because G+Y followed by a chord farther "up" the neck (As in, towards orange) makes it easier for me to reach as I am using my two "strongest" fingers. And if the chord changes from G+Y to G+R, I can just move my middle finger with ease. I feel the G+Y with Index/Middle gives you more flexibility to move to another chord. Others probably disagree, and for some people, that stretch will be a bit "much", so Index/Ring with G+Y is a good call.

I'm mostly just showing that you can do chords however you want. :) I just don't advice using your Index/Middle for the B+O chords or anything like that because you'll just be making it harder on yourself. :P

So, to sum it up, don't worry too much about which fingers you use on which chords. Try to keep your fingers in the same spots on the guitar so that you always know what button is underneath your fingers, and it makes it easier to jump around from G to O and back, but it's not a "hard-coded rule" if that makes sense.

[sporkBrigade]

I'm a huge supporter of ditching "this finger goes to this color" strategies. For example, I push people to play as many keys as they can with their index finger. Or to train themselves to play with only 3 fingers over all 5 keys. Or even better, 2 fingers over all 5. Playing with index finger on Red is a great starting point, but it's only the beginning in my opinion.

My main point here is that the sooner you can detach your fingers from specific colors, the better off you'll be. When you get to the point where blue comes up, and you just hit blue with whatever finger works the best at that specific moment, you're going to be awesome. Trilling Blue/Orange with index/middle is also much easier once you get to this point.

Along this line, my answer to the G/Y, R/B, Y/O chord question is that there are actually three ways you should learn to play this. Switching, as in Index/ring to Middle/pinky for dexterity. But just as important, I believe you should learn to shift chords as well, as in Index/Ring for every chord that comes up, no matter where it is.

OP, congrats on your move to Hard! That's where the Guitar game really starts to get fun. :D

[CaptainCoins]

I've been playing these games since the release of gh3, so not very long. I just finished expert tour on RB and the way I got used to Hard was I went into practice and played all the songs on EXPERT. Play until your fingers hurt, then the next day go to hard, and you will find that it is much easier. Since you spend the last day playing on a level you couldn't play at, you find that hard is much slower, and has fewer orange notes than expert making it easier. When I first started I actually cussed with the orange button came along, but now it's no problem.

[CowboyGP]

Faldrok said: "Eh, for the G+R, why not use Index and Middle? I'm assuming you meant G+Y..."

Yep... thanks for pointing out my boo boo, I've since edited the post.

sporkBrigade said: "I'm a huge supporter of ditching "this finger goes to this color" strategies."

This makes sense, too. Being able to hit any note at any time is really the key after all, isn't it?

Thanks to both of you for the replies. By melding what you two said, I take away from it a sense that the key is just becoming generally more comfortable.

I do occasionally find myself using Index and Ring for the "seperated by 2" chords as Faldrok mentioned. Not intentionally, but those fingers just naturally want to do the chords now. Even as I'm doing it my mind is saying "Whoop... shoulda used the pinky there.":D

I'm probably overthinking this, but considering the problems I had untraining myself from single-strumming (downstrum only) on fast notes, I fear the same problems with my left hand if I don't start making changes now.

This kind of dialouge is what makes forums like this so great. Truly makes up for the inevitable flamers and general a-holes you encounter.

[CowboyGP]

I've been playing these games since the release of gh3, so not very long. I just finished expert tour on RB and the way I got used to Hard was I went into practice and played all the songs on EXPERT. Play until your fingers hurt, then the next day go to hard, and you will find that it is much easier. Since you spend the last day playing on a level you couldn't play at, you find that hard is much slower, and has fewer orange notes than expert making it easier. When I first started I actually cussed with the orange button came along, but now it's no problem.

Funny thing about practice sessions for me. Except for certain instances I've found that slowing songs down doesn't really help me that much. I can either do it, or I can't. And just like my experience with instruments in real life, practice bores me to tears. Which is why I quit Cello, Trumpet, Baritone, Guitar and Drums in real life. And why I am hopelessly addicted to these games. Practice here just means having a good time and trying different things, rather than scales and rudiments for hours on end. Which is also why I have the utmost respect for those who have suffered through the BS to actually get to the actual "musician" stage.

I do agree that playing above your comfort zone is a great strategy. When I was first going through Medium drums, I couldn't get past GGHT for the life of me. So I moved up to Hard and played as many songs as I could get through on the first try. Then I went back to Medium and SAILED through GGHT.

[Frederf]

Just keep playing! You'll get better I promise! :)
I sort of envy you, the learning process almost seems like magic as you suddenly are able to play things you couldn't before though what seems like no effort.

Maybe I'll get a brain wipe and learn it all over again. Hey there's always lefty mode :p

[Harsher]

slide your hand down the neck to play the orange fret button. i normally use my ring finger to play that fret, my pinkey on some harder/faster songs where i can't slide back and forth fast enough. it's all about moving your hand up and down the neck to reach each fret. say you're playing only orange and blue, use your ring and middle fingers to play the frets, then if it were to switch to green and yellow, slide your fingers back to those frets.

it's just takes a lot of practice.

[BRLxHOMICIDEx]

Yea its very simple after you get it and like the guy a couple pages back said you will start reading ahead and it will be very easy after that.

Although it took me some time to learn exert because i went from easy to medium to hard to medium to hard to medium to expert on guitar hero after i got it,it felt easier than medium..

so just keep practicing and you will get it in no time. ;)

[SSPWOLF]

It has a lot to do with knowing the song well. I'm in the "no man's land" right now. I get 97-100&#37; on Almost every song on Hard, but when I make the jump to expert I either get mid-high 90s or fail. I've found that playing a song enough to be able anticipate it makes it much easier, and I never use practice mode.

As far as finger strategies... what seems to work best for me for speed is MIDDLE + PINKY for R/B and Y/O. It takes some work to get your pinky finger strong, but once you do it makes it a lot easier than excessive sliding.

I've also found that if I "play the hell" out of the easier songs (or songs I really like), taking my hand off... sliding my hand all over.. doing odd finger placements, that it's teaching me finger recognition. I can pretty much take my hand off the neck and slap my fingers right back on the notes I want most of the time now.. just from messing around and making myself get more and more used to the guitar.

there is a small "trick" I can offer as well.

I put stickers from the GH3 sticker pack on the fret buttons. As the stickers got wore off the ones on the RED and YELLOW buttons felt "rough" while the othere ones still felt smooth. This helped a lot in "feeling" where my fingers should be. More so than the little raised plastic piece.

Of course now the stickers are completely worn off, but I don't worry about finger placement so much.


Hope this all helps.

[cjkuhlenbeck]

Like everyone else said, its simply sliding your whole hand up the fret so index is on red, and pinky on orange. And btw, using your index and middle is fine to use on all the seperated by ones. Cant remember what song it is, but ones like Y+O,R+B,G+Y,R+B,Y+O in about 1 second..i tried using all my fingers, but in the end, i just used index and middle. And jumping difficulties does make them easier too, ive been using that method for awhile now, for alot of things. Also, if the stretch is really hard, alot of people find that its easier to move your index far, instead of your pinky, so just move your hand down n keep it that way. But hey, what does everyone do for green and orange? thats a tough chord to hit, but me personally i just stretch..hurts a bit, but its only one note ;)

[UwantRadie]

Once you get that down, you learn to read ahead in the chart to determine hand positions for certain parts of the song. It all comes with experience.

Yeah, this guy is right. And then the next thing that you will "learn" is when you are in the wrong position and how to correct it.

I used quotes on "learn" because your hand really is what learns how to do some of the things. It is awesome when you finally get a a part down that you been havinf trouble with and you are like... "I didnt even think about doing it, my hand just took over on it's own"