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Does anyone think guitar is harder than bass?

#81
I play the violin, the bow technique takes so much pracice and the intonation is much more difficult than any other instrument (shorter strings, even a small change in the position of you fingers changes the pitch a lot), therefore I can feel superior to players of other instruments, and that's the only reason I chose the violin. :smug:


With some instruments the basics are easier, but there really isn't an instrument that's easy to play well (with different instruments playing well means different things). Different instruments have different roles in different sorts of music, and that's why comparing the difficulty of different instruments is stupid, and it doesn't really make the music any better. You could play a cello upsidedown with the bow between your butcheeks while solving a rubix cube, but it wouldn't make it musically better.
 
#82
thedonutman said:
+1, and im not even a brass player. i mean you can get quite a few octaves with all those keys on a clarinet. but you can do the same with 3 valves on a brass instrument.
Click to expand...

I missed that post. I've played tuba off and on for over 25 years. Majored on it in college. Same idiotic argument. "Trumpet is harder." No. Most written trumpet MUSIC is harder. But tuba is an extremely difficult instrument to master, and very, very few do so.

Bass lines are easier than melody lines. Duh. Step outside that box though...:help:

Kinda funny...I was discussing this thread with my wife, who is a very accomplished flute player. Her take--"Bass always seemed harder than guitar. Bass players have to know theory. Guitar players just have to know how to make 'pictures' with their left hand."

I kinda like her take on it. ;)
 
#84
I think it's harder to start on guitar, but is equally hard to be good at both.

In other words, it's easier for me to eat an apple because I don't have to peel it. But, both taste great in their own right.

Very enjoyable thread.
 
#85
dharma, you were so nice about everything you wrote, that now I'm gonna have to sit and actually read it all and try to digest it. i don't have time now, but i promise i will with an open mind, tomorrow.

my girlfriend thinks i'm being thickheaded lately.

what does she know. :)
 
#86
the key to that original question is the word "USUALLY"

it's initially easier to play guitar, I think... but it isn't easy to be Jimmy Page.

And it's initially easy to thump out some roots on the one and three... but it isn't easy being as creative and masterful as a McCartney or Entwistle.

any instrument can be played in a rudimentary way after some practise... it's playing it WELL that is the goal... and in that, neither is easier or harder than the other.
 
#89
One of the great things about the bass for me is the opportunity to play a variety of styles and interpret the music. Also the whole thing with a drummer which is so fundamental to any musical situation.

The guitar is a different instrument in so many conceptual ways. In many ways it is more difficult to play especially for young students who experience frustration with fingerings etc.

Bass players tend to be much more aware of rhythm and feel than many guitar players. I mean that is our role.

I started playing rock and metal, have played in a blues band, read charts for musicals and now play bass in a 17 piece big band. They all have their challenges.
Essentially it comes down to the quality of the musicianship.
You cannot play like Holdsworth on the bass guitar and you cannot sound like Miller on the guitar. Thats a beautiful thing I would argue. Music is always a collaborative effort and joining of minds.
 
#90
OK. Read it, digested it, don't think any of it has a thing to do with how well I play or can play, and still disagree.

How does my thinking it's easier to play bass than guitar have anything to do with my commitment to the instrument, how well I play it, or where I'm open to going with it?

I think you guys may all be misunderstanding me in an effort to not feel "less than" a guitarist. I don't think I'm any less of a musician than any other musician, I put more time into it than many and feel wonderful about what I do. That has nothing to do with anything, nor does anything I'm writing knock down bass, or bass players in any way. There will be bass players who are more talented than guitarists, and guitarists who are more talented than guitarists, and.... ahhh.... I don't even want to write about this any more... it is getting stupid.

ya'll can think what you want. go to a guitar forum and ask the same question. :) i'm quitting this thread for the 6th time now.
 
#91
Hi people...Well, I´ve been playing bass for almost a week ejjeej. I´ve also played guitar for more than 10 years. It seems to me that guitar is hard, but I think it depends on the music genre you play, because you can´t compare playing punk-rock with fusion-jazz, I mean, i don´t want to be rude with punk guitarrists but you could play some simple riffs whithin a week of playing a guitar for the first time. Then, I can´t tell very much about bass, but in my experience, my left hand is freaking me out, Im almost 6´3 tall (1.91cm) so you can imagine my I´ve got quite a large hand and I find it not-very-easy to get a "clean" sound on my bass, specially with the 4th finger.

My conclusion about gtr and bass is that although they look very similar, they´re very different.
 
#93
I would have to say bass is easier to start out on but harder after the intial easyness. There are a lot of easy basslines out there, and there are a lot of hack bassists, but with a guitar you have distortion on your side, and many guitarists know nothing about theory and can simply jive their way through solos. With a bass it takes a lot more knowledge to make a good sounding solo or complicated line, or even to play more quickly.
 
#94
Honestly, I have read this whole thread and can't believe it has gone on this long. The truth is that starting out either instrument, if you choose the right type of material, isn't that hard to produce a pleasing sound or join in a group.

Unless you are specific to a attaining a higher level of playing, in which case you will find that those who have attained that higher level of playing, whether it is guitar or bass, won't really give a damn because they are too busy jamming with each other. ;)

Let's put a nail in this one and just acknowledge that the hardest instrument to learn to play is niether a bass or guitar, it is the trombone. You've got only your lips, lungs and a single sliding valve between you and failure. Pucker up.
 
#100
lump said:
Kinda funny...I was discussing this thread with my wife, who is a very accomplished flute player. Her take--"Bass always seemed harder than guitar. Bass players have to know theory. Guitar players just have to know how to make 'pictures' with their left hand."

I kinda like her take on it. ;)
Click to expand...

+1! Perhaps this isn't just amateur guitar players that "just make pictures", bass can be played from tabs too. But anyway, it is very frustrating for me to see my mates arguing about some mistake in a tab or their :eek: faces when I ask them to change a chord or some other minor issue. Now, they've been exposed to music much longer than me but sometimes it seems that I'm the only one that actually knows something beyond "third fred on A string". I just can't do anything that I have no understanding about.

A few days back our guitarist taught me a new song. I just asked him to tell what chords are in it. "G G C.." he said. Ok, let's play. It took me two retries and five minutes of arguing with him that something really doesn't suond good till I finally figured out that the chord was Bm, not G. And the dude called it G because it "looks very similar".

So yeah, sure, guitar may be potentially very difficult to play well but that is only true when the player is trying to create music, not just replay some basic stuff that he doesn't even know the theory behind.
 

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