How to Master any Guitar Hero Song, revisited

I just started playing Guitar Hero III again on my PS2, and I realized that perhaps my previous entry was a bit long and... unfocused. I focused more on giving tips for people who hadn't played before, where as the audience that aims to master Guitar Hero III would be more hardcore gamers that want a real challenge. And oh, what a challenge it is. Songs like Number of the Beast from Guitar Hero III, or Eye of the Tiger from GH World Tour, may SEEM simple to do at first, but you learn very quickly that they're a lot more difficult than you anticipated. So without further ado, I give you my revised version of How to Master any Guitar Hero Song... on Expert level. Please, I ask you to read the whole thing. I don't care if text is a turn-off for you, if you don't read the whole article, you won't be able to do it right.

Okay, first off. Most of you have been playing Guitar Hero for some time now. I doubt I need to tell you this, but for those of you who need it, DON'T GO DOWN A LEVEL IF YOU'RE HAVING DIFFICULTY WITH A SONG. If you go down from expert to hard, the song will have a completely different feel in most cases, and it will actually make you play WORSE, unless you have a lot of experience playing at the difficulty level.

What I'm about to tell you is important to follow to the letter, as there really can be no better way to learn any song, and if you don't believe me, try the technique for yourself and see how well it works. I've had improvements of over 10% notes hit at times, JUST FROM USING THE TECHNIQUE I'M GOING TO DESCRIBE TO YOU THROUGH ONE CYCLE OF THE STEPS. It works. If it isn't working for you, then Guitar Hero really isn't your game, and you should go find something else to play.

But if you're willing to brave a sea of hard work to 100% a song, this is the technique you should use. It may seem obvious when you think about it at first, but seriously, I've seen all too often that thinking of the obvious hardly ever happens for some.

Okay, first off. A few important tips. I'm going to limit the technique tips this time around, since that was the bulk of the unrevised version, and I'll now bullet them for convenience:

1. Righty or lefty, it doesn't matter. You can be good with either. But if you're playing the 360 version, I DARE YOU TO GET THE ACHIEVENT FOR PLAYING IT ON BOTH RIGHTY AND LEFTY. No, seriously. It will make you a WAY better player. And I mean WAAAAAY better.

2. Don't quit if your hands start aching. This is your body telling you you're not that good yet and it's still getting used to the level of stamina required to play Guitar Hero on expert. If you quit THAT easily, you shouldn't be playing this game in the first place, it's not your cup of tea.

3. By and large, DO NOT play in Career/Quick Play mode if you're not good at a song yet. It'll majorly lower your self esteem every time you get booed off stage. Play ONLY in practice mode until you've nearly mastered a song or feel you could play most all of it in your sleep. It took me three months of playing before I was comfortable with even playing Miss Murder by AFI on expert in Quick Play mode, and then my scores still weren't higher than they were in practice.

4. For the most part, Guitar Hero III is your best option for a selection of very challenging songs. II is acceptable, but to be honest, there's neither as much content nor as many difficult songs. Besides that, the features you'll be using by taking up this method don't exist in II anyway. They only exist thus far in the III, Aerosmith, World Tour, Metallica, and Greatest Hits. But your best bet is still III, since it has the widest selection of heavy rock songs that tend to be more challenging with timing on both strumming and keys.

5. My last bit of advice is probably the most important. In order to master a song from Guitar Hero on Expert (especially concerning III), you must persevere. You can't give up because you feel it's too difficult. Also, play on a daily basis, and until you've mastered one of the harder songs, play for half and hour to two hours at a time. If you don't have that kind of time on your hands, or your schedule is very demanding or unpredictable, then you definitely shouldn't be aiming for mastery. Unless you've got literally the stamina of a world-class track athlete when playing a GH game, you'll find that your limit will be anywhere from a half an hour (newer players, especially) to two hours, which is what I can generally play without my scores dropping substantially.

6. For beginners only: You should at least complete Guitar Hero III on easy before trying this. Medium not necessarily needed, since I went straight to expert off of easy because easy felt too... well, easy, and medium wasn't much better.

7. Your ultimate goal is to be able to play ANY guitar hero song. Don't start off with TTFAF. Start with something easier, but not too easy, such as Miss Murder by AFI (if you haven't played it on expert, you'll quickly see it's FAR more difficult than you would've though on your first playthrough), or something that you purchased early on from the songs section of the in-game store. If you're playing the 360/PS3 version, don't go with any DLC, I've heard they tend to err more on the difficult side.

Now on to the actual steps you should take:

1. Play the song you want to master on expert 4-5 times to get a feel for it. Doing this will allow you to get better acquainted with the song before you do step 2, so you can see where your major areas for improvement are. If it starts feeling truly hopeless and you can't hit any of the notes whatsoever, it's time for step 2.

2. This time, drop down to the slowest speed. Remember, you're supposed to be doing this is PRACTICE mode, not quickplay or career.

3. Start over from step 1, but only do 2 full speeds to one slowest. You be the judge on what you need to do after this, but continue the steps until you're able to practically 100% the song (i.e., 93-96% would be adequate.) when you feel you could play the song in your sleep...

4. Play it in quick play mode. This is where you'll really get knocked down on your ass and see that you don't know the song nearly as well as you thought you did. Don't go back to practice after your first try. You shouldn't be getting booed off stage at this point unless you're not very solid in a specific portion of a song (such as Number of the Beast's main riff section about halfway through). You'll also notice that your scores often won't be as high as you thought they would, simply because you're now also dealing with star power and you're actually being rated for how many consecutive notes you miss.

5. With the new information you found in quickplay, use it to improve on the areas where you were lacking (ESPECIALLY the portions where star power were concerned) in practice mode. This time around, target the specific areas you had problems with and play only those portions. If you've been paying attention at all to the names that pop up when you're playing in practice mode, you should know what each section is called by now, so it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out what area takes up what part of the song.

6. Repeat from step 4. This time, however do roughly 2-3 quickplays to one practice. You'll find yourself far more easily adjusting to the star power portions than it was to adjust to the timing, notes, and strumming.

7. When you're able to 100% a song a couple times in a row, you've (for the most part) mastered it. Here's the tough part: if you don't come back to it every once in a while, you'll have lost that ability. Which means you can really only master a set number of songs, but that depends on how good a mind you have on you. Keep playing the ones you like a lot, and be selective. Since you're likely not going to be able to master EVERY song that's currently on the main content of the 8 Guitar Hero games there currently are (and the new one coming out soon), you need to be very choosy about what you decide to master. But start with just III or World Tour, or if you're into the specific band, one of the offshoots (i.e. Aerosmith or Metallica or Rocks the 80's).

And that's the method to the madness! Remember that if you feel slowest getting too easy, you need to move up a speed. You may even come to a point where you won't even need to switch speeds, but that will only be on the extremely hard songs, such as TTFAF or anything on the final tour in III.

Now you have the tools necessary to do what you're reading this article for refer back to it frequently if you forget anything, and most of all, have fun! Isn't that why we play in the first place?