Rank musical instruments hardest to easiest

I've heard about the breathing in and out at the same time. I can't do it. In fact there are more things than I can shake a stick at that I can't do! I started playing the oboe again a few years ago when my teacher suggested I might prefer the bassoon. I love my bassoon! I'm still very much a beginner. William Hill refused to give me odds on getting to grade 8 within 5 years having never set eyes on one. I don't think I could do it. For the time being I'm butchering grade 4/5 and would probably pass grade 3.

You kind of use your cheeks to store air like a bagpipe while blowing through your mouth. Apparently.

I have seen a flautist do this as a novelty in order to play one looooooong sustained note for about five minutes while his companion ran around stage doing magic tricks/inflating rubber chickens etc.

brass also have a technique where you breathe in theough your nose whilst playing at the same time.

How on earth do you breathe in and out at the same time?

Professional oboists have to learn to breathe in and out AT THE SAME TIME. nothing is harder than that gavel

I did my grade 8 violin when I was 17. I practised maybe 2/3 hours a week before the exam for a few months. Before that I didn’t do much practice at all. I’m ashamed to say 20 minutes the night before my lessons

What I did do was play in loads of school orchestras and string groups and quartets which meant my sight reading was pretty good

I still play now and wish I had practised a little more to be honest. But I did a lot of sport and other stuff

According to dd the bassoon is very much easier than the clarinet, and no matter how much I try and pursuance her that this is related to the different levels at which she is playing them will change her mind!

Talking of stamina, DS plays euphonium with a military band. He gets paid for sit-down concerts but he has yet to progress to marching and playing at the same time - apparently the average is two years from joining up to be able to do that accurately.

On the bright side, he found the army's selection procedure - 'Run 1.5 miles. Now do it while carrying a loaded backpack' relatively easy after all those years of euphonium-and-tuba lugging.

Agree with all the comments on what makes certain people suitable to certain instruments. But nothing can beat the love of the instrument that would contribute hugely how one finds easier to learn/progress. Some people just connect to a certain instrument nevertheless their body shape, personality, environment or luck... Perlman has rather chubby fingers for a violinist so apparently he was asked why he didn't take up cello instead. He struggled with hand size related technical challenges but that didn't stop him to be one of the finest violinist in the world. So, best to do what you love and you'll find easier to work hard (hence feel easier to 'learn').

I think individual characteristics do play a role, but like others have said it does seem as if you get more progress for less practice time on woodwind/brass.

DD got to grade 5-ish on sax in two terms with no more than 15-30 mins of practice 3-4 times a week (with prior musical training - she was already post grade 5 in three other instruments). No way she'd have done that on violin even with her musical background.

The big obstacle to progression at this point was primarily stamina, which obviously would have required more practice time.

I think it's partly personal, but also the repertoire for each instrument needs to be taken into account.
Piano - huge repertoire, and a vast amount only accessible once you are a very competent player. Ditto violin and cello. Double bass - less in the way of repertoire - concerto movements often on the Grade 8 syllabus which would not be the case for piano.
Don't know much about brass repertoire, but I think making a nice sound is very challenging!

It probably depends a lot on personality as to which instrument you will find natural and 'easy' too. My siblings and I all got quite good at very different instruments and I think personality played a big part in it. I loved the violin as a sentimental and imaginative child - it conjured up magical worlds for me. My brother who was physical and confident and not given to flights of fancy loved the trumpet. Another brother who was very good at maths and liked patterns enjoyed the piano. My sister who was driven by stories and communication liked singing. There may or may not have been physical easiness with the various instruments too but I definitely think personality played a part!

Agree about the difference between "getting started" and "getting good" and "getting towards the top". Just as piano is easy to start getting a tune out of, and then more complex (and seems to have a huge amount more technical progress to make beyond grade 8), I would say the same applies to church organ. If you are able to access an organ, it is straightforward to get started on - though of course you are better off learning basic musicianship skills on an instrument you can keep at home!! My son got a chance to try playing on an organ when he was not yet 6, and made a jolly good fist of it (especially considering we hadn't quite started him on proper piano lessons at that point). But he has turned out to be one of those "keyboard naturals" and is coming up to his grade 8 piano age 12. Organ is catching up fast having had actual lessons for only a couple of years.

Agree with everything Keith says there!

It's obvious from the posts here that there are many different definitions of easy and hard instruments to play. Some instruments are easy to begin and hard to master, others are the other way around. Some are hard if you're physically small or weak, others are hard if you don't have delicate little fingers. Some sound hard to someone listening or look hard to a person watching you, so get a reputation for being difficult because they make people think "Gosh, could never play that".. Some are harder to play in an orchestral setting because of the proportion of time that you are playing for, or the exposed nature of your part, or transposition. I will argue passionately that my own instrument is one of the hardest based on some of these criteria, but admit that in other areas it may be one of the easier ones. So there's no one answer to the question IMHO.

It also seems to me, from this discussion and from my experience, that some instruments are harder than others to an individual musician. Some people just have a knack for a certain instrument, their skills and physique suit it, they make it look easy and can improve with noticeably less practice than the average person. So I take with a pinch of salt any arguments based on "Oh my son is learning the kazoo and it's taken him seventeen years practising 12 hours a day to get a decent tune out of it".

More stamina is required on the violin though. I wish I had more time to practice & I'm at pro level. All day orchestra rehearsals can run 7 hours with just 2 breaks & it's always the strings who are complaining about the aches & pains, wind just seem to be able to get on with it! Violin parts are definitely much harder too which is why orchestras have so many of them so we all cover each other's mistakes 🤣 . DD already working at diploma level (after just 6 years on oboe) & wants to become a pro & there is no way she will need to do anywhere near the amount of practice I had to do for conservatoire auditions!
Wind instruments are very much more popular in secondary schools because it's much quicker to get them post grade 5 than violin

I think it's possible to get grade 8 strings doing similar. I was probably a couple of years slower, but I only ever practised for about an hour when I was coming up to my grade 7/8 exams. Generally I would have been practising for 30-45 minutes.

Keith - as a violinist myself, I know how much practice is needed. My DD has however proved to me that oboe grade 8 can be done within 5 years on 30-60 minutes per day.

Agreed, Maestro. DD happens to have a mouth shape and embouchure that make the physical production of sound on the French horn fairly easy across several octaves, whereas she struggled with other brass.

The mental leap to transpose the music is a different matter.

ColdFeetAndHotCakes has nailed it pretty well with the differences, but in the end it does all come down to personal abilities. I couldn't get on at all with the trumpet which I started on for a year (we had one going spare), but switched to trombone a month before my grade 3, and sailed through it! Many colleagues have similar stories - once they found the instrument that suited them, they progressed rapidly.

It could be mental - i.e. you find it easy to read several lines at one, or simply physical - your mouth happens to find it easy to form a certain type of embouchure, but not another type.

All instruments are difficult to master, but some are easier to get started on.

By the way, we have a thread for amateur musicians to share our trials & tribulations Come join us on the Instrument Players Chat thread

Thanks for the insight, Granny. Yes, I could practice less and more efficiently, but I want to play the music I love (quite often all my rapidly expanding repertoire).

I suspect that the reason why my forearms hurt after an hour or two is that my music is Baroque, which is not written for the deep & heavy keys of the piano but for the light & shallow ones of the harpsichord. All those trills and different ornaments of especially French Baroqueare quite difficult to play properly on the piano. (I play the harpsichord too, but have just a piano at home).

for brass instruments a lot of the practice is 'just' for stamina.
it's very very physical.
my sis is a proffessional french horn player and does 2 hours of warm ups and lip flexibilities a day on top of rehearsals and performance.
on off days it's half an hour long low notes.

A mum friend is / was a professional trumpeter. I'm sure that she used to practise for about 7 hours a day. One of the rooms in her flat was soundproofed so she didn't drive the neighbours crackers.