[quote name='KaneRobot']Not much to add except I agree. It's funny how I pretty much gave up on GH2 after clearing normal months before Rock Band came out, figuring I'd never put in enough time / get good enough to play songs that use the 5th fret liberally. I ain't that good at all.
But to my surprise (and that's to RB's slightly lower difficulty level), with enough practice even I was able to clear hard on Rock Band, and because of that I'm currently slowly but surely making my way through both expert on Rock Band and hard on GH2. If I can do it, I'm sure most people on here can with enough practice.[/quote]
Yes, two hand positions are important. Being able to switch between both at different parts of the song is an important skill as well. Also learning to hold down the G & R buttons when you are playing Y, B & O make a big difference. For example if the notes are G R G R, you keep G held down the entire time you play these notes.
Also when you are playing sections with chords it is best to slide your hand down. So if you play GY, RB, YO just use your index & ring fingers and slide them down to hit those passages.
Practice and playing harder difficulties/games helps a ton as well. When I started playing GH games I got stuck in Hard on GHII, even though I could 5* everything in medium. When I got GHIII (which is significantly harder than GHII) I found that even though I got stuck in the middle of Hard again, I was able to finish off Hard and most of expert in GHII. In RB I am 80% through expert and that has helped me even though it is easier than GHII & III.
I have heard people say to play songs at lower difficulties and then try to play the same song at the harder difficulty, but that doesn't really help me (especially if its going from Medium to Hard). If I'm stuck on a song in Hard, I usually just practice it at a slower speed or play other songs on Hard. The jump to Hard in GH is the toughest jump and often when you start off playing the GH games you work through Easy and Medium and develop bad habits (like fingering every note instead of holding down G R when you play Y/B/O) that you have to un-learn your poor technique and re-learn proper technique once you get to Hard.