What is the hardest instrument to play?

DartmoorHedgehog

I don't know about the "absolute hardest" but In my own experience:

For woodwind, I find saxophone far harder to play than clarinet, even though most people say it's the other way round.  Probably because I learnt on clarinet.  Sax embouchure is weird.  My sister used to play oboe, wife plays flute (cue jokes...) and I can get a musical sound from both of those.

I've never been any good on brass instruments.

Piano I can play things I've memorised, but not a hope of sight reading polyphonic stuff.

Theremin was pretty strange (and tiring on the arms) but I got to the point where I could play recognisable tunes.

But by far the hardest thing to play (that I've made an effort to learn) is musical saw.  Apart from the high risk of whacking yourself in the face if it slips (mine is actually pretty sharp as well), the intonation is amazingly hard to get right - I never seem to get back to the same note twice in the same position.  I get it out every now and then and have another go, but still not mastered it.

stimpsonslostson

From instruments I've tried: 
Drums- all four limbs working together & yet seemingly independently. I can lay down a solid beat, but I'm speechless when I see what my drummist friends can do (especially as I'm usually surprised that they have tied their own shoes before practice). 

Chromatic harmonica- all the notes are there, why do I only ever find the wrong ones? You can't sneak a look at what you're doing wrong either, you HAVE to learn where the notes are by feel. 

I'm currently learning the banjo and am finding it much more challenging than I thought I would. The finger picking patterns are essential to making it sound like a banjo... Fine at slow speed, but the moment you speed up and think "this is ok" you realise it's time to change chords and it all comes crashing down. It's really good fun though. 

pintspiller

The Jews Harp is a right bastard to play

WarpedSounds

I played French horn in primary school. I was so small my mum had to carry it to practice for me. 

It didn't last long

ICBM

Kebabkid said:

Pedal Steel.

This. You need both hands, both feet, and your knees (unique among instruments I know of) to work in coordination, and there is no fixed intonation.

I bought one once with the idea of teaching myself to play - at that point I was (by my standards) already a fairly competent guitarist, but I really couldn't make head or tail of it and I gave up after a few months.

The chap I bought it from had the same experience and told me it was like trying to play a guitar, drive a car and operate a knitting machine all at the same time. I don't know if he was right since I've never tried a knitting machine.

On the other hand some people just seem to get it straight away. Weirdos.

Sporky

ICBM said:

On the other hand some people just seem to get it straight away. Weirdos.

I assume that anyone who can work a pedal steel probably can't walk while swinging their arms.

crunchman

I think it depends on what you mean by competent.

On guitar it's very easy to get a few chords and get to the point where you could accompany yourself (or others) singing simple songs.  Given the number of different styles though, I don't know if anyone has fully mastered the instrument completely.

Vai couldn't do classical like Segovia, or slide like Trucks.  They are all great but they couldn't play like each other.

Something like piano is a lot harder at the beginning, but I think a good piano player could make a good fist of a lot more styles than most guitarists.

proggy

WarpedSounds said:

I played French horn in primary school. I was so small my mum had to carry it to practice for me. 

It didn't last long

I remember reading somewhere, a long time ago, that the French horn was said to be the hardest instrument to play. But I've never tried it, so don't take my word for it.

DiscoStu

The didgeridoo is not easy to play. Getting the hang of cyclic breathing is a real challenge in itself.

The theremin must be hard to master too, it's a lot more than waving your hands around.

octatonic

Surgical Scalpel.

PolarityMan

octatonic said:

Surgical Scalpel.

Yeah but you can bluff it if you add enough distortion and delay

paul_c2

proggy said:

WarpedSounds said:

I played French horn in primary school. I was so small my mum had to carry it to practice for me. 

It didn't last long

I remember reading somewhere, a long time ago, that the French horn was said to be the hardest instrument to play. But I've never tried it, so don't take my word for it.

I've tried it, (but not violin, but other strings), I reckon violin is harder than french horn. French horn is almost twice as hard as any other brass instrument, due to the way its mouthpiece, harmonics and notes are sounded. It has a small mouthpiece which allows low and high notes to be produced, a long tube but thin bore; and its valve system, while set up (on a double or compensating) to make life easier, is different than other brass. On other brass instruments with a 4th valve, that valve just like the others adds tubing - ie longer. On a French horn, it changes to shorter tubing. So while this actually helps note production, it means its not so simple to work out the keys for the notes - some notes have 4 key combinations, with varying quality of note and ease etc.

I think the violin is always a short step away from "cat-trodden-on-squeal" and only a small minority of the best players actually bring out the best in the instrument.

Its also worth mentioning that while an instrument, from the player's point of view may be "hard" or "easy" the listener doesn't necessarily understand or appreciate what makes it hard, they only hear the sounds. For example, anyone who plays notes quickly is going to be appreciated, but playing eg a high part quietly has its own challenge on wind instruments (in general); playing the lowest notes on a tuba and making them sound musical is a challenge, etc etc.

ThePrettyDamned

Theremin? 

proggy

paul_c2 said:

proggy said:

WarpedSounds said:

I played French horn in primary school. I was so small my mum had to carry it to practice for me. 

It didn't last long

I remember reading somewhere, a long time ago, that the French horn was said to be the hardest instrument to play. But I've never tried it, so don't take my word for it.

I've tried it, (but not violin, but other strings), I reckon violin is harder than french horn. French horn is almost twice as hard as any other brass instrument, due to the way its mouthpiece, harmonics and notes are sounded. It has a small mouthpiece which allows low and high notes to be produced, a long tube but thin bore; and its valve system, while set up (on a double or compensating) to make life easier, is different than other brass. On other brass instruments with a 4th valve, that valve just like the others adds tubing - ie longer. On a French horn, it changes to shorter tubing. So while this actually helps note production, it means its not so simple to work out the keys for the notes - some notes have 4 key combinations, with varying quality of note and ease etc.

I think the violin is always a short step away from "cat-trodden-on-squeal" and only a small minority of the best players actually bring out the best in the instrument.

Its also worth mentioning that while an instrument, from the player's point of view may be "hard" or "easy" the listener doesn't necessarily understand or appreciate what makes it hard, they only hear the sounds. For example, anyone who plays notes quickly is going to be appreciated, but playing eg a high part quietly has its own challenge on wind instruments (in general); playing the lowest notes on a tuba and making them sound musical is a challenge, etc etc.

Maybe I read it was the hardest brass instrument to play, it was quite some time ago. I know what you mean about the violin though, that squeal from a bad player is like the musical equivalent of a prostate examination.

DartmoorHedgehog

DiscoStu said:

The theremin must be hard to master too, it's a lot more than waving your hands around.

ThePrettyDamned said:

Theremin?

Well in my experience I managed to get to a point where I could play fairly simple tunes like The Swan reasonably well.  Whether that counts as "mastered" I doubt, but I could make pleasing music with it.

The musical saw on the other hand (as I mentioned before)...  no chance  

bigjon

For me, church organ. I'm a competent pianist but church organ is another level of difficulty altogether - like playing two pianos and driving a car at the same time

proggy

paul_c2 said:

proggy said:

WarpedSounds said:

I played French horn in primary school. I was so small my mum had to carry it to practice for me. 

It didn't last long

I remember reading somewhere, a long time ago, that the French horn was said to be the hardest instrument to play. But I've never tried it, so don't take my word for it.

I've tried it, (but not violin, but other strings), I reckon violin is harder than french horn. French horn is almost twice as hard as any other brass instrument, due to the way its mouthpiece, harmonics and notes are sounded. It has a small mouthpiece which allows low and high notes to be produced, a long tube but thin bore; and its valve system, while set up (on a double or compensating) to make life easier, is different than other brass. On other brass instruments with a 4th valve, that valve just like the others adds tubing - ie longer. On a French horn, it changes to shorter tubing. So while this actually helps note production, it means its not so simple to work out the keys for the notes - some notes have 4 key combinations, with varying quality of note and ease etc.

I think the violin is always a short step away from "cat-trodden-on-squeal" and only a small minority of the best players actually bring out the best in the instrument.

Its also worth mentioning that while an instrument, from the player's point of view may be "hard" or "easy" the listener doesn't necessarily understand or appreciate what makes it hard, they only hear the sounds. For example, anyone who plays notes quickly is going to be appreciated, but playing eg a high part quietly has its own challenge on wind instruments (in general); playing the lowest notes on a tuba and making them sound musical is a challenge, etc etc.

Maybe I read it was the hardest brass instrument to play. It was quite a while ago. I know what you're saying about the violin though, if you hear someone playing who's not very good it's like the musical equivalent of a prostate examination.