A Novice Guide to Guitar Games
Published June 10, 2008
Guitar-based games like Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock and Rock Band™ have taken the industry by storm in recent years with a rare combination of accessible control and diabolical difficulty. Everyone can understand the basic concept of holding and strumming notes, but as the harder difficulty settings more realistically simulate each song, advanced techniques and solid fundamentals are required to play like a pro.
Are you ready to take the stage?
Our Novice Guide to Guitar Games will cover many of the basic techniques and even advanced strategies needed to survive the more difficult songs. Good luck!
Relaxed Fingers
Tension leads to abrupt, spasmodic play and a great deal of inaccuracy when fingering notes and sliding up and down the fret board. When you wrap your fingers around the frets, do so with a relaxed hand, never squeezing the frets when you play a note but rather lightly pressing them down. You want your fingers to be fluid, not rigid. If you find yourself holding your breath and pressing down hard on the frets during tough songs or sections, take a breath and relax.
Stand or Sit
It's amazing what proper posture can do for increased accuracy when playing notes, but no one posture works for everyone. Try experimenting with sitting down on the edge of your seat with your back straight or standing upright, and then settle on whichever one feels more natural for you.
Hold the Lower Notes
Whenever you play a single note (not chords) you can press down any of the frets beneath it on the scale, and still play the required note. For example, if you're playing a blue note, hold down the yellow, red, and green frets as well. This basic technique is one you should master in the early going, as it allows your hand to already be in position to play many of the notes that may follow. Whenever possible you want to lift or lower just a single finger to play whatever note is next.
Time the notes by sight and sound combined.
Up and Down
The guitar's strum bar can be pressed up or down to play any note or chord, and while it may feel more natural to only ever press down, get used to strumming both ways as soon as possible. Try alternating up and down even during slow songs with plenty of space between the notes. Then, once you start tackling long strings of fast notes and chords, you'll already possess the muscle memory to strum them effectively.
Stop and Start
A common pitfall for the novice guitar gamer is trying to catch up, rapidly strumming notes after they stumble in a song. Instead, if you miss a series of notes, stop playing entirely, look ahead a few notes and start again once you reach a targeted note.
Handling Chords
A chord is any combination of two or more notes played simultaneously, and there are two basic types you'll need to play, the first being two notes adjacent to one another on the fret board (such as red and green, yellow and blue) with the second type sporting a gap of one note or more between the notes you need to hold (such as red and blue, green and yellow).
When dealing with chords adjacent to one another, it's important that you're comfortable holding them in a variety of different ways. For example, experiment with holding a yellow/blue chord with your middle and ring fingers, ring and pinky fingers, and even your forefinger and middle finger. You never know what position your hand will be in when faced with a chord, but if you're comfortable holding them with any combination of two fingers, it won't matter.
Treat it well.
Conversely, fingering chords with gaps between the notes should be handled whenever possible by your forefinger and ring finger, or, in the case of a two note gap chord, your forefinger and pinky finger. Try holding a one gap chord with your middle finger and pinky, and you'll almost certainly find it uncomfortable.
Sliding Around
You can get away with holding your hand in a static position when playing on Easy difficulty, but once you make the shift to either Medium or Hard, it's time to practice sliding your fingers along the fret board. For example, most people can't comfortably hold a red/blue chord with their middle finger and pinky, so they'll need to slide their forefinger up from the green button and onto the red one.
Luckily, the yellow button on most guitars features bumps or a raised line, effectively acting as a home key. For example, if you feel your middle finger on yellow, you know that your pinky is on orange, your ring finger is on blue, and your forefinger is on red.
If you're having trouble sliding up and down the fret board comfortably, try practicing it even when you're not actively playing the game. Watching a movie from Xbox LIVE® Video Marketplace? Grab your guitar and slide up and down the frets, fingering different notes and chord combinations as you go. It's all about muscle memory, so even just a little practice goes a long way.
Hammer On and Pull Off Commitment
A Hammer On or Pull Off note is any note that can be played without using the strum bar. Typically, you'll find these notes during really fast sections that require you to move quickly up and down the scale.
Glory and fame are yours! Well, in the game anyway…
Each game represents these notes differently. For example, Rock Band highlights Hammer Ons and Pull Offs with smaller, half-sized notes, while Guitar Hero III uses glowing notes. Make sure to consult the manual or play through the tutorial lessons in order to recognize them.
However the notes look, it's important you commit to learning to play them without using the strum bar. You can get away with strumming these quicker notes in early songs, but once you're tackling the most difficult songs on Hard or Expert, the Hammer Ons and Pull Offs will simply stream by too fast to strum each one accurately.
A Word on Power
Whether it's Guitar Hero's Star Power, Rock Band's Overdrive or something else entirely, unleashing your power-meter to score big with huge multipliers is a core element of most guitar games. Keep the following in mind to make the best use of your power:
- Trigger on extended note: Most games require you to tilt your guitar vertically to trigger your power, but doing so in the midst of a complicated set of notes can kill your note streak, and therefore your multiplier. Try instead to trigger your power usage during a long extended note where you can tilt the guitar freely without simultaneously fingering a series of notes.
- Save yourself: While using power can net you serious points, it's equally useful (in most games) for saving yourself from defeat. If you're having trouble with a song, but you've built up some power, try using it just before you're about to fail. Provided you can hit even a moderate amount of notes afterward you should find yourself safely back near the top of the performance meter.
- Whammy bar: Any time you encounter an extended power note, you should make immediate use of the whammy bar. In most games, plying the whammy bar will further increase your power meter. This is particularly useful when playing competitively against other players, where owning just a smidgen more power than your opponent can tip the balance in your favor.
I beat "Flirtin' with Disaster" on Expert!
Pinky on Orange
When you do finally make the shift from Medium to Hard difficulty, you're going to have to contend with the orange button. In order to get comfortable with its use sooner rather than later, try switching your default grip so that your pinky lays on the orange fret rather than the blue.
It may feel awkward at first, but when you're forced to slide up the fret board during a song you'll find yourself sliding towards green, and consequently to a hand position you're already intimately familiar with.
Listen!
The ultimate goal of any music game is to make you feel as if you're truly playing the song, to experience the music as a whole rather than to simply "watch" it, and timing the notes is no different. Of course, you have to watch the screen and see the notes, but you should concentrate just as much on the rhythm and feel of the song. Use a combination of listening and seeing to help you time your play, not just one or the other.
The preceding tips should put you well on your way to rocking success, helping you understand the genre's basic principles while avoiding the common pitfalls encountered by the novice gamer. Enjoy your time in the spotlight!
