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Step 1
Familiarize yourself with the color coded buttons on the Guitar Hero controller. There a few different styles of controller on the market but the buttons on all of them are the same.
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Step 2
Learn the hammer-down and pull-off techniques. Having these in hand for the solos and riffs on songs where it would be really hard to strum a three-note group fast enough can be helpful. These might take some practice especially if you're playing Guitar Hero I which makes you hold down each button you need to play in order to get the group of them out.
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Step 3
Use note-charts to learn the songs you're having a hard time beating. These are the Guitar Hero equivalents to sheet music and are fairly simple to read as long as you're comfortable reading the notes off of the in-game scrolling fretboard.
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Step 4
Play songs in Practice Mode. This mode is only available in Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s but it's probably the best way to go about tackling an especially difficult section of song. You can play chunks of songs or the entire track in this mode and you can slow the tempo of the song down enough to make the solos on "Free Bird" or "Seventeen" legible.
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Step 5
Ask a friend who can beat the song for help. This isn't as effective as learning the song yourself, but someone who's an expert on a particular song or style of music will usually be able to offer some advice on how to get through the tough parts without failing.
