Rank musical instruments hardest to easiest

It's better to try to practise efficiently and prioritise quality over quantity. Knowing scales and arpeggios really well are the most effective shortcut to mastering classical music. A good knowledge of theory helps, as does also some ability on the piano, if that is not your first study. If anything is hurting, be careful. It could simply be fatigue which will improve as stamina develops, or the sign of tension in some part of the upper body.

I have been practicing/playing for more than 2 hours every day for the past two years or so, sometimes exceeding 3 hours when I am home & have the time to spread it out in the day. (My lower arms start hurting after 2 hours). And that's for fun. I'm an amateur musician.

The upside is that I'm progressing rapidly and can now play the music that I love. I can totally see a professional with no other commitments practicing for 6 hours in a day (because she wants to, not because she has to).

Yes, I was a bit surprised by that too. An hour a day and often less and I got 4 grade 8s. My 3 sons with music scholarships have never done more than that unless there was something big coming up. Their father is a musician and pretty good and he might sometimes with an event coming up do more than that.

In terms of choosing what a 7 year old might start also have a think about what they might do at school - the school might have an orchestra and need cellos or violins. Cello is harder to move around but that not hard. It was certainly going to and from school with my daughter a few times a week for years.

Only someone aiming at the very top of the musical profession would need or want to practise six hours daily. I never did anything like that amount and have enjoyed a long happy career in a London orchestra.

Piano is easy to begin with, because it's really hard to make a horrible noise on the piano. Same is true of guitar and to some extent flute and clarinet. But piano gets so hard. DS is now on Grade 7 and all this triple counterpoint stuff looks really complex. Same with guitar. DS2 is now at an incredibly complex level of simultaneous plucking and strumming. I can't work out how some of his teachers produce the sounds they do. It sound slike three or four people playing simultaneously. At least with wind instruments you're only playing one note at a time.

Oh I think you can get to grade 8 on an hour a day for brass . Ds is fitting in more ( currently) because he's preparing for lots of things .
I learnt classical guitar and never did more than 30-40 minutes - but then I was never going to be that good !!

That was clarinet but I'm pretty sure my violin playing best friends didn't do much more either !

I never did more than 30 mins a day and got to grade 8 !!! I thought that was a lot. I can see now why my parents didn't !

Yes, Grasspigeons, see if you have a local brass band - ours was something like 50p subs per week for the littl'uns on third cornet/fourth tenor horn and the like.

(The shock to the system when we realised we needed to stop borrowing and actually BUY some rather large heavy instruments was another matter.)

DS definitely got to grade 8 (brass) without ever putting in more than an hour a day unless he was actually playing in a concert.

I've never got far trying to teach my own 2 it always ends in tears !!

I assume that 'perfect' means going to a top conservatoire and then becoming a professional musician in an orchestra. In which case, yes, you probably would be doing 6 hours practice a day on the violin. I assume that it is more physically difficult to do long hours on brass and woodwind.

But if you want to get to a decent amateur standard (i.e grade 8, diploma) then you can do that on an hour a day for strings.

I agree Keith you couldn't .

There's always the option of amateur bands and orchestras, which sometimes have a "junior band" which are simply run by a more experiences player who is generally retired and quite patient. The child won't get the same quality of tuition as a paid-for lesson but a musically driven child could learn a great deal - it's how I learned to play brass. Most musical ability is simple obsession-driven practice and with a more experienced player to guide them, a child can do very well

Echo pp who says everyone's different. I found piano a doddle and did all my grades my bro struggled but found guitar a piece of cake but I tried and dismally failed with guitar as I think it's the most complicated instrument ever!!!

aah - thans colditz

that's quite sad - the state paid for me to learn violin so I thought similar schemes might be available still

I'm not confident enough to teach a child my imperfections as I'm not very good.

Oh yes or ask in a local music shop

I learned the French horn at 11 :) had lessons till I was 18 and got to a grade 8. I wish I was still that good!!

My comment was questioning an assertion by String that one could "perfect not begin" oboe or horn on an hour's practice a day, whereas it would take 6 hours a day to achieve the equivalent standard on the violin. I think that's wrong.

I think it depends where you live but if you are lucky you will still have some sort of county music service or music hub. This is how Ds started trumpet with a loaned instrument and free ( to us) whole class lessons . He also went to the county music service Saturday school for beginners . Dd also had whole class lessons last year for cornet but I found a local music centre for piano because I didn't know where to start (luckily we found a good teacher who's lovely and teaches them both now) . If you don't have a music hub any more you could ask at school or look up music teachers on the music tutor websites ( can't think what they're called off the top of my head) come and say hi on the regular extracurricular music thread ( still in April - just) there's lots of really knowledgeable and helpful people there . sorry I don't know how to post a link to it !!

grasspigeons, if you want your child to learn an instrument and you're at state school, unfortunately you just have to find a private tutor and pay around £15 - £20 a week for a weekly half hour lesson, and either buy a second hand instrument or hire purchase one.

If you're a confident musician yourself, you could teach them yourself but don't underestimate how LAZY your own child will be compared to getting someone else to teach them! 5 times worse if they're not really interested (colditz eyes p-bone crossly)

yes, that's what I mean, Keith, Certainly I find learning a new instrument very, very much harder now than I did at eleven. I seems to pick it up at light speed as a child, and it's been a shock to discover how much cognitive flexibility I've lost by 38!

can I ask a question - how did all you guys access music lessons for your DC.

I'm really keen for my child to learn an instrument, but there doesn't seem to be any state offering. They sing/drum the desk at school (primary)

i couldn't get a sound out of a trumpet or a flute
I couldn't tune a violin

so for me its piano easiest

although recorder was pretty easy too

and have you tried an ocarina!