How to start playing Guitar Hero?

Basically, you hold the green fret to hold the green colored fret on your screen. You strum to play the note. It works the same with all the frets.If you are using a Guitar Hero: World Tour guitar, you can use the slide strip to hit those "purple" or "transparent" notes that come toward you matching the corresponding color.If you are using a Rock Band / Rock Band 2 guitar, you can use the smaller frets toward the bottom of the neck are called "Solo" frets. You can use them during solos and it will automatically strum the note if it is in a solo. If it's not and you use them anyway, you will have to strum the note as if you were using the regular frets.The whammy bar is similar to a real one in that you can hit it to make a whammy sound.
If you have a star power / overdrive long note and you whammy it, you will get more energy from it.
Every Guitar Hero / Rock Band guitar has this.The Rock Band / Rock Band 2 guitar has an effect switch that you can add guitar effects to, such as Wah-wah, chorus and echo.If you are asking about compatibility, go to this link:http://www.rockband.com/compatibility