What’s easiest to learn out of guitar and piano ?

[LovelyYellowLabrador]

what do you think ? I have no clue

Child or adult? Piano always one size, guitar can be smaller than full size.
Space also a consideration
Piano means reading music, guitar you can get away with "just" learning chords

Guitar - just 6 strings! Piano harder in my experience. I still read music for guitar though

Having a DS who is 9 and has done both, I would say he progressed quicker with piano, got more of an understanding of music, enjoyed it more and found it physically easier. It's also been kinder to our ears.

Piano is a great introduction, the scales are visible in front of you and the musical notation is useful for all other instruments. Also guitar hurt my hand too much lol

My son finds piano easier than guitar and has made much quicker progress on the piano

I would say the one that the person learning is most keen on.

Neither is easy. Go with whichever the person is more excited to play.

I think piano is probably harder initially because you have to learn to read notes in both treble and bass clefs (right and left hand) and also to coordinate both hands playing together. For guitar you learn chords in the treble clef, meaning you only learn to read one set of notes. However, guitar can be really hard on tiny, soft fingers and generally requires a good amount of dexterity to press on the strings effectively. However I think piano possibly opens up more musical possibilities in the end due to the music reading required. Happy to be told otherwise!

Whatever instrument the person is interested in learning. So give them the choice.

If someone isn't interested any instrument is hard as they won't enjoy it and won't practice.

I am related to and friends with multi-instrumentalists - they all read music and some of them can play music by ear as well. A couple of them had no interest in the piano even though there was a piano in their house.

Apples and oranges..

Guitar is relatively accessible for a novice to bash out some 'Campfire' chords. Taking it to the extreme end and into the realm of virtuoso's (tapping, sweep picking, legato) is years if not decades of cold hard practice. There's a huge difference between bashing out some chords around a campfire singing god awful indie covers compared to pulling off Gary Moore or Eric Johnson licks.

A guitar is different across every single string. The string tension is different and there are a mixture of intervals to contend with.

Piano on the other hand is all laid out perfectly with no difference in the feel of where you play. You can begin with single hand melodies and progress onto harder things involving both hands. That said, piano music invariably involves the skill of needing to read music (even if it's an 'easy' piano book). Sight reading takes time. Guitar tab or easy chord books are more accessible.

I think on balance strumming some chords is a little bit easier to begin with. But it's a real disservice to say either instrument is easier than the other once you get into actually learning the instrument and not just a few simple chords.