Chords

GR, YB, and RY sustained chords on Guitar in "Slow Ride" on Expert difficulty in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

In Guitar Hero, a chord is a group of notes (2–5 notes) coming down the highway at the same time in the same horizontal row. A chord is succesfully played when all frets of the same corresponding colors are held and strummed at the target line with no other fret held.

Chords in the Guitar Hero series

In the first Guitar Hero video game—as well as mobile games—there were no 3-note chords, and in Guitar Hero II, 3-note chords were seen only in expert and rather rare. The Backstage Pass mobile games and some electronic toys, however, did not feature chords.

The first 3-note chord made its appearance at the end of "Mother", on Guitar Hero II. It wasn't until Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock that three-note chords were seen very frequently in Hard and Expert.

4-note chords were first featured in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock in the rhythm section for "Go That Far". 16 GRYB chords come in a row. The 4-note chord would be occasionally featured in Guitar Hero: On Tour. On Guitar, only 3 songs in the series containing 4-note chords exist: "Master of Puppets", "I'm the One", and the "Joe Perry Guitar Battle".

5-note chords were first seen in custom songs that aren't officially licensed for the games. Custom songs appear in every game from Guitar Hero World Tour to Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. However, in Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, Slayer's "Raining Blood" has a final note that is a 5-note chord, used on the thunder sound effect.

On Easy difficulty, chords are rarely seen. Medium difficulty has more chords, and even split chords. In Hard, there are more split chords, normal chords, but 3-note chords are rare. In Expert there are many chords including 3-note chords, more split chords, and very rarely 4-note chords that exists only on few songs.

Types of chords

Split chords

A GY split chord in Guitar Hero II.

Split chords are chords whose notes aren't adjacent to each other on the fret board (except in Guitar Hero Live). Split chords can be two, three, or four notes, with an example of a split chord being GY. The only split four note chords are a set of GRYO chords in "Mean Street" in Guitar Hero: Van Halen which are formed by orange notes overlaid over an extended sustained note GRY chord. No split 4-note chords have ever been formed without extended sustains.

In Guitar Hero Live, 2-note split chords would be B1B3, B1W3, W1B3, or W1W3, but they don't appear on Casual difficulty, and a split with a barre chord would be B1W1B3 or B1W1W3. Meanwhile, B1B3W3 and W1B3W3 (or any chords with a note before a barre chord) would never appear in a Guitar Hero Live song.

Rare chords

Chords can easily be divided into common and rare categories. The common chords are GR, GY, GB, RY, RB, RO, YB, YO, BO, GRY, GRB, GYB, RYB, RYO, RBO, and YBO. These chords are commonplace in all songs. All other chords are much rarer. Some have only appeared a few times, one has only ever been formed by extended sustains and never as a regular chord, and two have never appeared at all. GO chords are the most common of the rare chords and have appeared in several songs, including "Monkey Wrench", "Impulse", "Anything", "Little Guitars", "The Number of the Beast", "Take This Life", "My Curse", "Almost Easy", "No Rain", "Mercy", "Audience of One", "Guitar Battle vs. Tom Morello", "Violet Hill", "The Outsider", "Beautiful Mourning", "Rock of Ages", "Supernatural Superserious", "Only A Lad", "Pandora's Box", "Excuse Me Mr.", "Looks That Kill", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Operation Ground and Pound", "The Way It Ends", "Minus Celsius", "Give Me a Sign", "Famous Last Words", "Prayer of the Refugee", "Stockholm Syndrome", "Sleeping Giant", "Radar Love", "The Pretender", "Sunday Morning", "Before I Forget", "Don't Hold Back", "Carcinogen Crush", "Savior", "This Is How I Disappear", "Ex's & Oh's", "Fury of the Storm", "American Pie", "Radium Eyes", "Dead!", "Hold On Loosely", "Unsung" (Guitar Hero Smash Hits version), The bass sections of "Holiday in Cambodia", Guitar Hero World Tour's "Santeria", Guitar Hero: Smash Hits's "Free Bird", and the Rhythm sections of "Gemini" and "Through the Fire and Flames" (in both the original and Guitar Hero: Smash Hits versions). They are also the only rare two-note chord.

There are three rare chords comprised of three notes, all of which are heavily split chords - GRO, GYO, and GBO. One GRO chord is formed by extended sustains in "Little Guitars" and two are played regularly in the Guitar Hero 5 version of "Stricken". GYO chords are slightly more common, appearing regularly in songs such as "Through the Fire and Flames" (Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock version), "The Way It Ends", "Cathedral", '"Minus Celsius", "Heroes of Our Time", "Fury of the Storm", "Stricken" (Guitar Hero 5" version), and Guitar Battle vs. Tom Morello". They are also formed by extended sustains in songs such as "Eruption" and "One" (Guitar Hero: Metallica version) and "Cult of Personality" (Guitar Hero: Smash Hits version). Lastly, GBO chords have appeared regularly in songs such as "Famous Last Words", "Dead!", "Photograph", "Done With Everything, Die For Nothing", and "Carcinogen Crush", and have been formed by extended sustains in songs such as "Master of Puppets", and "The Way It Ends", and via extended sustains in songs such as "Jump".

All four note chords are rare. The first four note chords were a set of 16 GRYB chords in the rhythm section of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock's "Go That Far". They later appeared in songs such as "Master of Puppets", "Joe Perry Guitar Battle", "Pride and Joy" (Guitar Hero: On Tour version) and "Sweet Home Alabama" (Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades version), and have been formed by extended sustains in songs such as "Little Guitars", "The Outsider", "Dueling Banjos", "Hotel California", "The Nature of Reality", "Holy Wars… The Punishment Due", "Parabola", "Stop", and "Psychobilly Freakout" (Guitar Hero: Smash Hits version). A few GRYO chords are formed by extended sustains in "Mean Street", this being their only appearance. The only regular RYBO chord is at the very end of "I'm the One", though extended sustain RYBO chords have appeared in songs such as "Mr. Crowley", "Sacrifice", Barracuda" (Guitar Hero: Smash Hits version), "Santeria", "Break It Out", and ""Cowboys From Hell" (Live)", (Guitar Hero: Smash Hits version) on Bass during the outro. A GYBO chord has also appeared as an extended sustain in "Black Hole Sun" as well as "Give Me a Sign", but this song also includes extended sustained chords for GRYB and GRYO notes. GRBO have never appeared outside of custom songs.

Lastly, the five note chord, GRYBO, has only ever officially appeared once, this being as a regular chord at the end of Guitar Hero Smash Hits'​s version of "Raining Blood", signifying the song's climactic thunder sound effect.

Barre chords

Barre chords including HOPO barre chords in the GHTV song "Before I Forget" in Guitar Hero Live.

A barre chord is a type of 2-note chord used in Guitar Hero Live that can be strummed by holding both buttons of the same fret (i.e. the same column of buttons). Barre chords (labeled B1W1 for Barre Chord 1, B2W2 for Barre Chord 2, and B3W3 for Barre Chord 3) appear on Regular, Advanced, and Expert difficulties. Barre chords can also be paired with one additional note on the right (making it a 3-note chord) in Advanced and Expert, but not to the left of the barre chord.

The only chords to appear on Casual difficulty are W1W2 and W2W3 (B1B2 and B2B3 in Lefty Flip) and Basic difficulty has no chords.

List of possible chords

Most Guitar Hero games

Chords 2-note chords 3-note chords 4-note chords 5-note chord GR GR___ GRY GRY__ GRYB GRYB_ GRYBO GY G_Y__ GRB GR_B_ GB G__B_ GRO GR__O RYBO _RYBO GO G___O GYB G_YB_ RY _RY__ GYO G_Y_O GYBO G_YBO RB _R_B_ GBO G__BO RO _R__O RYB _RYB_ GRBO GR_BO YB __YB_ RYO _RY_O YO __Y_O RBO _R_BO GRYO GRY_O BO ___BO YBO __YBO

Single notes Note Color G Green R Red Y Yellow B Blue O Orange P Purple* *Color for open notes. Chords are not possible on open notes. A sixth purple fret was planned for Guitar Hero 7 and its guitar controller until they were cancelled.

Guitar Hero Live

Chords

Barre chords			2-note split chords			3-note barre chords			3-note split chords
B1W1	W1 _ _ B1 _ _		B1B2	_ _ _ B1 B2 _		B1W1B2	W1 _ _ B1 B2 _		B1B2B3	_ _ _ B1 B2 B3
			B1B3	_ _ _ B1 _ B3					B1B2W3	_ _ W3 B1 B2 _
			B1W2	_ W2 _ B1 _ _		B1W1B3	W1 _ _ B1 _ B3		B1W2B3	_ W2 _ B1 _ B3
			B1W3	_ _ W3 B1 _ _					B1W2W3	_ W2 W3 B1 _ _
B2W2	_ W2 _ _ B2 _		B2B3	_ _ _ _ B2 B3		B1W1W2	W1 W2 _ B1 _ _		W1B2B3	W1 _ _ _ B2 B3
			B2W1	W1 _ _ _ B2 _					W1B2W3	W1 _ W3 _ B2 _
			B2W3	_ _ W3 _ B2 _		B1W1W3	W1 _ W3 B1 _ _		W1W2B3	W1 W2 _ _ _ B3
			W1B2	W1 _ _ _ B2 _					W1W2W3	W1 W2 W3 _ _ _
B3W3	_ _ W3 _ _ B3		W1B3	W1 _ _ _ _ B3		B2W2B3	_ W2 _ _ B2 B3		Single notes Note Color B1 Black 1 B2 Black 2 B3 Black 3 W1 White 1 W2 White 2 W3 White 3
			W1W2	W1 W2 _ _ _ _
			W1W3	W1 _ W3 _ _ _		B2W2W3	_ W2 W3 _ B2 _
			W2W3	_ W2 W3 _ _ _

Not counting any possible submissions in GHTV Reloaded—but GHTV Reloaded is against this practice as well and any other unlisted chord—there would never be a 3-note barre chord in Guitar Hero Live with a note to the left of a barre chord, such as W1B2W2 or B1B3W3, double barre chords including B1W1B2W2, B1W1B3W3, or B2W2B3W3, other 4-note barre chords like B1W1B2B3, or the triple barre chord B1W1B2W2B3W3.