November 27, 200916 yr From what I've heard, the bagpipe is the most difficult... I'm not sure why though lol. But out of everything I've played, the hardest is probably voice. While organ is insanely difficult, it's just a matter of doing the right thing at the right time while doing a bunch of other things at once, but with voice you have to get all of your diction right (I had to basically re-learn how to speak english to sing :P), keep yourself resonating on the shelf no matter what, always keep the perfect length of tongue sticking out even though it changes for every note, change your lips/teeth brightness ratio, chest vibrating, diapragm supporting, pitch, and all that crazy stuff. Not to mention you can't even SEE 95% of the instrument that you're working with. :lol:
November 27, 200916 yr From what I've heard, the bagpipe is the most difficult... I'm not sure why though lol. Breath. It takes a ton of breath! Also, it may be that it's extremely hard to get it in tune (thus the bagpipe jokes). I played one. Once. For 2 seconds.
November 27, 200916 yr ton of breath! ? really, perhaps is just a techical matter, because double reed instruments don't take too much breath, or maybe is just at the begining to fill the bag, in that case you have to start a couple of bars before :rolleyes:
January 17, 201016 yr Theremin. The theremin is insanely difficult to play. A buddy of mine has been learning to play and intonation is almost a joke. I don't know how Clara Rockmoore did it.... I gota find a video or something. Incidently, there's also this middle eastern horn with which it's supposedly almost impossible to get even a sound out of it. Let alone tune it. Anybody heard about something along those lines? Yup. The theremin's the hardest for me too. It really is a fascinating instrument though. Last term (semester) at school, one of the music teachers brought one in and I had a go, and it was INCREDIBLY diffiult. But in terms of what you can do with it (especially when you're using an effects pedal), it's a really good instrument to use.
January 22, 201016 yr I think it depends on what you start on or are used to. If you start on a reed, it will be hard for brass and vice-versa, and if you start in bass clef, treble will be harder and vice-versa. But as for when you start, I agree with Heckle in the fact that whichever takes the most breath or energy to play would come out hardest.
June 4, 201015 yr So what do you think is the hardest Instrument to play?Guitar? Violin? For me, it's the Violin Hi I tried to play some musical instrument and violin is my favorite. but, I always have trouble with Guitar. my right hand bloody. hic hic hic and the most difficult is Instrumental Guitar Rock I think that Acordeon is also difficult to play Cheers
June 7, 201015 yr I believe that the bassoon, oboe, and french horn are the hardest. Whoever said the tuba was hard is nuts. Yeah, it takes a lot of air but not as much air as it takes to breathe, and it takes no skill lip-wise to be able to play it. If you can make a raspberry sound with your lips then you can play tuba, that's all there is to it. I think piccolo and, to a lesser degree, flute, are hard to learn until you can learn to simply make the sound, then they're a piece of cake. I never had trouble learning viola, and I've never played a string instrument before, other than plucking around on a guitar once or twice. If you have a teacher it's simple. I think keyboard instruments (piano, definitely organ) are the hardest for me because they take soooo much more coordination than anything else. Also, for a saxophone player, clarinets are rather difficult until you get used to them... This is coming from someone who's played just about every instrument at least once. I think, in woodwinds, the easiest-to-hardest scale is: Bari, Tenor, Alto, Soprano (saxes), clarinet, flute, piccolo, oboe, bassoon (forgive me if I miss some) Brass: Tuba - Baritone/Euphonium - Trumpet (closely tied with imo) Trombone - Horn Strings, basic: Guitar - Cello - CB (mainly because the finger positions are so different, imo. on the bass you have to use two or three fingers to press down just one note) - Harp - Viola/Vln That's my opinion. The hard part about strings are I - Finger position II. Bowing. The bow is more complex then most people think. The position, pressure, and speed all make a huge difference. I think woodwinds are easier, strings are usually harder, and brass is in the middle. That's my rambling for today.
June 8, 201015 yr ... Whoever said the tuba was hard is nuts.... it takes no skill lip-wise to be able to play it. :laugh:
June 8, 201015 yr if you want to play on any instrument on a professional level-EVERY instrument is hard!
June 8, 201015 yr I think that string instruments are the hardest instruments to play, mainly because of the hard runs and shifts they have to do! Anyone else agree!!
June 9, 201015 yr :laugh: That's just me... I play tuba in a concert band and I was able to pick it up in like... ten minutes without ever having played a brass instrument before. Obviously if you were to play more advanced music it would become more challenging, like with any instrument, but for the most part, in that post I was just examining the amount of skill it takes to be somewhat proficient on that instrument, not taking into account the literature that they would play. I'm curious to see your argument. P.S. And, obviously, that was an exaggeration... It does require SOME skill, just not a huge amount of fine-tuned lip pressure like a trumpet or horn.
June 11, 201015 yr P.S. And, obviously, that was an exaggeration... It does require SOME skill, just not a huge amount of fine-tuned lip pressure like a trumpet or horn. Examining the concert repertoire, I think the Tuba deserves a bit more recognition than that... range easily extending from the F a couple of lines below bass clef to around the G-Bb in treble clef.... concert band music likes relegating the Tuba to I - V - I &c. too much.
June 11, 201015 yr That's just me... I play tuba in a concert band and I was able to pick it up in like... ten minutes without ever having played a brass instrument before. Obviously if you were to play more advanced music it would become more challenging, like with any instrument, but for the most part, in that post I was just examining the amount of skill it takes to be somewhat proficient on that instrument, not taking into account the literature that they would play. I'm curious to see your argument. My argument is: every instrument is like that. Give me 10 minutes with any instrument on the planet, I'm sure I could play "Happy Birthday" on it. I suspect you could too. The topic isn't the "hardest instrument on which to make a somewhat coherent noise", but the hardest to "play" ... ;)
July 10, 201015 yr mmmmm, guitar is always getting out of tune, (unless you play electric and have a very good one)... tone production is not easy, since there are so many different tones, using pinkys in guitar is tough... you say it�s not a bastard because there are no worries about intonation... well, piano doesn�t have that problem either... i�m going to tell you something else.. there are few 12-tone pieces written for guitar because it�s too difficult to play, they usually choose a piano instead... the most difficult pieces/songs (carcassi, segovia, etc) can easily be played on a piano if you read from a guitar chart... why is that?... but for guitar is tough... i understand that people are used to seeing this "shredder" that plays a c major scale very fast with lots of distortion and they think guitar is easy... but if you play guitar "correctly" it can be VERY VERY difficult... ask the masters in guitar... another example... most classical guitar tunes are written to play them in open string because IT�S TOO DIFFICULT to play them without open-string fingerings... so if someone asks you to play a carcassi tune in E minor you play it with open strings, what if they ask you to transpose the tune to Eb... you�ll have to re-tune the guitar... while on the piano you just play in the key of Gb or Eb minor... ;) 12 tone music (i'm assuming you are talking about atonal, or serial music) is easy if you tune your guitar in tritone tuning.
July 18, 201015 yr Hardest instruments to play: In terms of physical abilities: Trumpet. There is a certain degree of raw strength that is required to play it well throughout the range of the instrument. Playing the trumpet is like doing gymnastics. Gotta be strong, gotta learn to balance, and skipping practice for even a little bit will throw off your physical abilities moreso than your technical abilities. Incidentally, one might think that flute or tuba (which demonstrate almost identical air issues) would be more difficult to play. In my opinion, these two instruments are only hard to LEARN to play. Once you have the knack for controlling your air (an issue on all wind instruments), that particular difficulty disappears. In terms of technical abilities: bassoon or strings. Bassoon NOT because of the amount of keys; although bassoon has the most keys, believe it or not, more keys on a wind instrument make it EASIER to play. Bassoon is one of the hardest instruments because it's one of the worst wind instruments in terms of tuning problems. Almost every single note will have a tuning issue, even with all of those keys. And bassoons still get many of the difficult passages in the repertoire. Strings because the repertoire is ridiculous, all of it is hard, and the notes don't have an exact set of "notes" on the fingerboard. I have a huge respect for good string players. Grand daddy of overall difficulty: Organ. Not only do you have to utilize all four limbs, they almost always work independantly of one another and all characteristically necessitate rubato within their lines. ARGH! Forget it, man. My .02
July 18, 201015 yr I formally add to the list, the Ney. The only way to produce a sound on it is to put it between your top two front teeth and blow with a shhh sound. It's really odd - I haven't gotten a sound yet. Intermediate player: Pro player:
August 5, 201015 yr I've found (After attempting to play the instrument) that the french horn is rather difficult. It's probably not the most difficult instrument ever but it has it's ups and downs. Plus I think timpani is difficult also because you not only have to have good reflexes to stop the sound coming from the timani from vibrating very quickly, but you also have to have the gift of SILENCE. For timpani you have wait HUNDREDS of measures and not play one single note.
November 2, 201015 yr My argument is: every instrument is like that. Give me 10 minutes with any instrument on the planet, I'm sure I could play "Happy Birthday" on it. I suspect you could too. The topic isn't the "hardest instrument on which to make a somewhat coherent noise", but the hardest to "play" ... ;) What about a triangle? Try coaxing mary had a little lamb out of that one.
November 2, 201015 yr Why do people say that viola is harder than the violin? The viola has a longer scale length, thus, is easier to intonate. Maybe only people with small fingers say that...
November 5, 201015 yr Why do people say that viola is harder than the violin? The viola has a longer scale length, thus, is easier to intonate. Maybe only people with small fingers say that... I don't know why people would say that... Maybe for violin players switching to viola it would be harder? I play viola, and when I do play a violin, I find it harder to produce an even, balanced tone.
November 5, 201015 yr What about a triangle? Try coaxing mary had a little lamb out of that one. :hmmm: ...my point still stands, with a few minor exceptions. :glare:
November 6, 201015 yr probably French Horn, judging by how many mistakes they make compared to the rest of the orchestra ;)
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