The high cost of stardom

I have just about given up on Star Power. It rarely works on the first (or even second) attempt so nailing the timing between notes is nearly impossible. All it does is make me miss notes and blow a perfectly good 4X multiplier. I think I score higher when I don't try to use it at all. As of last night, my new strategy is to keep the guitar tilted at all times and hope for Star Power to automatically engage. It works about 2/3 of the time.
I finished the career mode on "medium" last night. I struggled through Free Bird but passed on the first try and still managed to get a personal best score of about 120K points. The only other song in which I surpassed 100K points is Beast and the Harlot (a personal victory). The repeated warnings against playing Free Bird were very amusing.