Hardest instrument to play?

[AnchorHoy]

Oboe

My late brother played that instrument for the better part of two decades and every single time he picked it up it was a monumental struggle just to keep each note in tune. Endless fussing with reeds, hours of practice on embochure alone, breath control excercises, weird fingering patterns in anything other than the 'natural' key signatures, it just went on and on.....

I'd give the Runner Up slot to one of the more sophisticated types of hammered dulcimer - the cimbalom

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

ION MIU - The Godfather Of The Cimbalom - YouTube

 

[Fassa Albrecht]

Forget the instrument for a second. Violin is the most difficult because it's the most brutally competitive. There aren't a lot of gigs for mediocre violinists.

I would have said that this might have been the case some time back, but recently it's been shown that levels of taking up violin as an instrument by young children are actually dropping in favour of instruments such as guitar, which can be largely self-taught and is easier, ukelele and various other instruments.

To be frank, there aren't many gigs for violins... period! Also, the same can be said for guitar.

Violins can be very versatile IF they're allowed to be. Major problem is that they, alongside viola and cello, get pigeonholed into classical music or possibley folk.

 

[lomo]

bagpipes

 

[chuck3]

Pedal steel guitar. You have to have good hand, foot, and knee coordination as well as a good ear and steady hands.

This is very true. Besides upright and bass guitar, I play keyboards, guitar, mandolin and harmonica reasonably well. I love pedal steel and got one, figuring "how hard can it be?" Well let me tell you - it's really hard. I couldn't do it without giving up everything else and just practicing on the pedal steel.

I also tried tuba, figuring it's a bass instrument so at least I'd have some feel for what notes to play. The only problem was I couldn't play any notes. It's like making giant fart-bursts with your mouth into 16 feet of coiled tubing and it's got only three keys. How are you supposed to make notes with that set-up?

 

[Epidrake]

Violin for sure.

If you play it well, you can bring people to tears.
If you play it badly, you can also bring people to tears.

 

[GM60466]

Sitar. Not easy X10

 

[stratovani]

None of them are easy, but I'd say the most difficult would be piano. To play it well you have to have great finger dexterity, an excellent ear, and a good working knowledge of music theory. An accomplished pianist is playing all three parts of music - harmony, melody, and rhythm - at the same time. As far as I know only guitar can approach what you can play on piano.

 

[bucephylus]

Silly thread. Sounds more like weight lifting or drag racing than playing music.

Anyhow, I am surprised by the oboe comments. That is probably my favorite orchestral instrument. At least in the many years I played that gig, the whole orchestra tuned to the oboe; and not because the oboist couldn't get in tune, but because the instrument produces such a pure tone. My daughter played for quite a few years, made her own mouthpieces etc. Of the dozen or so orchestras I played with, I only recall one rather weak oboe player. The Mozart Oboe Concerto is one of my favs. What's with the issues with the oboe here? Doesn't line up with my experience.

French Horn, yes. Very difficult mouthpiece for intonation control, and the instrument usually is called on to play chord voicings. So, those sections can be pretty shaky.

Heck, the upright bass has many challenges. So, does the electric bass. What was the point?

 

[pklima]

I would have said that this might have been the case some time back, but recently it's been shown that levels of taking up violin as an instrument by young children are actually dropping in favour of instruments such as guitar, which can be largely self-taught and is easier, ukelele and various other instruments.

Still, I know a teenage violinist who travels to foreign countries to take part in international violin competitions. It's still a very competitive world. So is classical piano, of course, but it's much easier for mediocre pianists to find non-classical work.

Violins can be very versatile IF they're allowed to be. Major problem is that they, alongside viola and cello, get pigeonholed into classical music or possibley folk.

Oh, no. There's no violin in folk music (or country). That's fiddle you're thinking of, haha. Fiddle is definitely less competitive than violin.

 

[BBox Bass]

I gotta go with violin based on my experience. Too small a fretless neck for my ape hands and bowing an instrument is very foreign to me. Funny though since I can play mandolin.

Ken

This. In my teens I learned how to play guitar, bass, and mandolin, and can hold my own on them. I can also find my way around several brass instruments, drums, keyboards, double bass, and most fretted stringed instruments. Violin? Forget it.

Back when I was playing guitar with a fiddler and spending a lot of time at folk festivals and jam sessions, I met many people in their 50s who had just discovered the world of musical instruments and started on guitar. I was amazed at how many of them seemed to be under the impression that one began on guitar, moved up a step to mandolin, and then finally made it to the top of the hierarchy with a fiddle. They couldn't wait to get good enough on guitar to eventually discard it in favor of a fiddle.

Occasionally, I would encounter people who said "You're pretty good (on guitar or mando). So when are you going to move up to the fiddle?" I usually gave them a *** look, and if my fiddler was around, I'd borrow his violin to demonstrate how awful I was. That was often followed by "But don't you want to learn?" They couldn't wrap their heads around my response that I was quite content playing guitar with a little mando on the side (or double bass if there were too many guitarists in a jam and someone had brought along a bass).

I know this stepping stone mentality exists among some rock musicians, but it was interesting to see it in another genre where guitar is at the bottom of the heap.

These days I'm happily playing 5 string bass, which I never dreamed I would be comfortable doing, but I still have no desire to pick up a violin.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

Silly thread. Sounds more like weight lifting or drag racing than playing music.

What was the point?

This,

 

[fourfinger]

The world's largest tuba. (Especially hard to reach the buttons.)

 

[Joe Gress]

Oboe due to the exact embouchure that you have to have in order to play it. The difficulty of a Bassoon is just as much, but perhaps a little more forgiving due to its size. The oboe reed is just a pain in the ass! The flute was hard as well due to the lack of air resistance and the substantial amount of air needed to get a decent tone out of it.

The french horn is also super difficult in the way that you have to hold it and due to the tube design. (i forgot the name for it but it has to do with the french horn/coronet having a cone design, vs a straight shot (tubular design) of a trumpet etc)



All on personal experience after tech classes (learn all the major instruments so I can teach them).

 

[Bobby B]

Don't know about the hardest to play, but I'd hate to lug one of these around, and I'd double hate to tune it!

 

[Ken R]

The Tromboon

File:Tromboon-det.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[squiresuzuki]

I kind of disagree with you about the drums. I'd say it's one of the easiest instruments. I mean, any instrument is just as challenging as another; it's depends on how much you practice them. But if you were to put x amount of time into practicing 2 instruments...

I'd say church organ (2-5 keyboards, foot pedals, hundreds of stops), oboe/english horn/bassoon (playing in tune, getting it to sound, getting a good tone), french horn (playing the note you want is difficult because you can play like 10 different notes by just having a single fingering).

 

[Tractorr]

Pedal steel guitar. You have to have good hand, foot, and knee coordination as well as a good ear and steady hands.

Also if you don't have perfect technique you can easily give yourself severe carpal tunnel. This happened to a buddy of mine and he could play any music for a year while his wrist healed up. Too bad it is one of the most amazing sounding instruments IMO.

 

[PastorofMuppets]

Bassoon

 

[Semisweet]

I don't know about hardest technique wise but most difficult to manage/biggest pain in the but, Contrabass Saxophone

Contrabass Saxophone - YouTube

I played contrabass a few times. It was interesting, not much different than baritone sax, just lower. I preferred bari for sound....saxophones can tend to sound like ghosts of beans unless you're really good or really careful, and the lower you go, the fartier you get.

I found the soprano sax the hardest to play, right alongside the piccolo.

While I've never played them, I've heard that the double-reeds are the hardest to play, but again, it's all subjective.

 

[devilock76]

This. In my teens I learned how to play guitar, bass, and mandolin, and can hold my own on them. I can also find my way around several brass instruments, drums, keyboards, double bass, and most fretted stringed instruments. Violin? Forget it.

Back when I was playing guitar with a fiddler and spending a lot of time at folk festivals and jam sessions, I met many people in their 50s who had just discovered the world of musical instruments and started on guitar. I was amazed at how many of them seemed to be under the impression that one began on guitar, moved up a step to mandolin, and then finally made it to the top of the hierarchy with a fiddle. They couldn't wait to get good enough on guitar to eventually discard it in favor of a fiddle.

Occasionally, I would encounter people who said "You're pretty good (on guitar or mando). So when are you going to move up to the fiddle?" I usually gave them a *** look, and if my fiddler was around, I'd borrow his violin to demonstrate how awful I was. That was often followed by "But don't you want to learn?" They couldn't wrap their heads around my response that I was quite content playing guitar with a little mando on the side (or double bass if there were too many guitarists in a jam and someone had brought along a bass).

I know this stepping stone mentality exists among some rock musicians, but it was interesting to see it in another genre where guitar is at the bottom of the heap.

These days I'm happily playing 5 string bass, which I never dreamed I would be comfortable doing, but I still have no desire to pick up a violin.

I do want to learn, and I guess in theory I know how, in practice I cause a great deal of aural pain. I have a cigar box fiddle a friend made and I bought for a charity auction. One day, but I am busy with playing bass and keys now. On a side note I have a Gu-Zheng/Koto as well. I need to do some repairs on it, but it is another instrument I plan to learn. I play lap dulcimer as well so I figured this would be a neat additional member of the zither family to learn.

Ken