Guitar Hero - Complete all songs on hard difficulty

Last weekend, I visited my nephew who is newly obsessed with Guitar Hero, having had the game for the week. He was still playing on medium difficulty, so to make it fair, I played against him on hard even though I hadn't fully gotten through hard mode on any version of the game. Despite that, I still managed to beat him about half the time. This inspired me to think that I was pretty good at the game and want to play more of it when I got back.

While I initially thought I would go through Guitar Hero II first because there were improvement to the play (easier hammer-ons and pull-offs) and the ability to practice specific sections of songs. But I have also heard than, in general, the songs in the first Guitar Hero are easier than those in the second. So I decided I'll try to get through this one first.

I started not having done any songs on hard mode and got through the first four tiers with little trouble. I think it was the fourth tier where I first failed to get five stars on a song. In the fifth tier, I got a three star or two and may have actually failed a song once. By the fifth tier, songs were kicking my ass. I think I got three stars on most of them. Cowboys from Hell and Bark at the Moon owned me for several times and I was only able to pass the both with judicious use of star power.

It is my eventual goal to five star every song on every level. I can't imagine ever getting five stars on the songs at the highest tier. It isn't like when I wondered whether I would ever be able to make the transition from medium to hard. There, I felt that with practice I could five star the medium songs, but I wondered if I would ever get decent enough at hard mode to regularly pass songs. Here, I think I can probably pass all the songs on expert difficulty, but I still don't have any faith I can get good enough to five star all the songs on hard (let alone expert). I seriously am not able to strum fast enough to hit all the notes in rhythm and when I try to do up and down strumming it just doesn't seem to be registering it correctly. I'll be curious to look back on this if I ever manage to master the songs well enough to five star them.