Most difficult intrument??

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, I agree with all of you! ;-)) I can play or have played in my life the trumpet, baritone horn, french horn, trombone, guitar, banjo and mandolin and ukelele. It is my considered opinion that the fact that I was able to play them means they were relatively easy. Instruments that have kicked my butt; piano & violin. These are also my 2 favorite instruments to listen to, along with the also difficult cello. I wonder if there is some message here for me? Anyway, it pays to be interested in these things, as noted. It doesn't pay to be obsessed with others opinions of anything, especially with music. Respect, yes. Live by, no way. Look what you miss out on. Have you EVER relied on a critic to guide you to a movie or genre of music? If so, then you have missed out on the great experience of life: i.e. panning something based on your own beliefs and ideas instead of someone else's.

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Regards,
Gurn
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That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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[Chris]

Yes, I did something like that too, when I was about 9, to see what instrument I wanted to play. But I didn't really have to. The first time I heard a violin, I knew that's the one I wanted to play.

Can't say I'm very good at it, though

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited November 19, 2003).]

[spaceray]

Originally posted by Chris:
Yes, I did something like that too, when I was about 9, to see what instrument I wanted to play. But I didn't really have to. The first time I heard a violin, I knew that's the one I wanted to play.

Can't say I'm very good at it, though

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited November 19, 2003).]

So what was your first violin like?Did you take to it at once or did it seem awkward to you?Do you have a nice violin to play now?

[Beyond Within]

I have never heard of an instrument petting zoo, sounds cool.

[Chris]

Originally posted by spaceray:
So what was your first violin like? ... Do you have a nice violin to play now?

It was a cheap 3/4 size violin rented from a music store. When I grew enough to need a full size, my aunt sent me a couple of old violins, and I used one of those (she used to play), but those were both lousy. When I was 12 or so, my grandmother bought me a new one, which was OK. It wasn't that great, but my skill level was such that it didn't hold me back, like my old one was doing at that point. Finally, in high school, I graduated to the one I have now. It's far from top of the line, but it suits me. If I had majored in violin or something, I probably would have needed a new one at some point during college. That one cost about $6000 (plus another $850) for the bow. At this point, I only have time to play a few hours a week, but in the future, when I can make more time for it, I'd really like to invest in a truly excellent instrument. I also play the piano, so I've got to split cost and practice time between the two. There's also guitar, but cost for that is so much less than the other two that I don't even think about it. I just bought the only electric guitar I could ever need or want and it was only $800 (list price was $1500 or something, but I found a deal).

Did you take to it at once or did it seem awkward to you?

Playing violin is like moving from one awkwardness to another. There are so many things...how to hold the instrument, how to hold the bow, how to move the bow parallel to the bridge, how to stand...it's endless. And every time you work on getting one of those right, you feel awkward for a long time until you get used to it. I think I was playing for ten years before I finally got comfortable doing everything the right way. Of course, my teachers were mostly horrible, and the process could have been a lot less painless if they knew what they were talking about half the time.

But still, you do make progress. After our first year lessons in school (I did not take private lessons until later) our teacher had us "switch sides" meaning bow with the left hand and hold the instrument with the right hand. She told us to think about how awkward
this felt and that that was how we all felt playing in the conventional way a year ago, so we could all see how much better we had gotten. And it was a big difference. (There is the fact that being right-handed makes that feel awkward anyway, but it was more than that.)

[spaceray]

I mentioned before that I had only ever touched a violin once at the aforementioned petting zoo,and as the instructor tried to help me get the hang of the correct way to hold it under my chin I could not help but feel like I had a huge tumor growing out of my neck .I admire your ability to stick with it,but what a great idea of your teachers to have you switch sides to show yourselves how far you had come. I'm not sure what the equivilent of this would be in piano but I'm so frustrated these days it might make it all better if I could convince myself that I have progressed.
Tell me what sort of a violin would you buy if money was no object?

[Chris]

I'm not sure how that could translate to piano. I remember I felt I was making no progress at all during my first year of piano lessons, but I was in reality - it's a hard thing to realize your own progress on an instrument, because it is often in such small steps.

If money were NO object, I'd see if I could hunt down one of those original Stradivarius jobs that go for like a million dollars. I might never play it for fear of breaking it, though! In an more realistic sense of money being no object, I'd probably look for a nice old violin in the 20 to 50 thousand dollar range. Not sure what make exactly, because I've never tried out many at that level, and you have to consider what feels and sounds good to you personally. Sadly, that is not currently anywhere near what I can afford to blow on an instrument I don't play that well anyway

[This message has been edited by Chris (edited November 19, 2003).]

[SR]

Most orchestral musicians would tell you that oboe and french horn are the toughest.
I was good enough at french horn to be a paid member of several orchestras. I have played to a lesser degree viola, cello, baritone horn, trumpet, percussion, trombone, sax, tuba, flute.

I have been for the past two years learning piano, which I studied 40 years ago as a child. Playing any instrument is fairly easy for me. Playing them well is a different story. Piano requires a completely different type of skill than french horn. French horn difficulty lies in intonation and flexibility of range more so than speed. Piano is very much about speed and not at all about range or intonation. Playing 16th notes at Vivace speed requires a brain finger connection that french horn players never need to develop.

Steve

[Peter]

Originally posted by SR:
Piano is very much about speed and not at all about range or intonation. Playing 16th notes at Vivace speed requires a brain finger connection that french horn players never need to develop.

Steve

It is also about balance of sound between the hands, very often involving more than just two parts - even connecting just two melodic notes in the same hand requires a level of skill - as soon as the note is played the sound decays (especially a long note in a slow piece) and the next note must blend in tone.

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'Man know thyself'

[urtextmeister]

This topic has been pretty well exhausted, but I think it is interesting to put a different spin of the question:
what instrument has the youngest virtuosos?

Probably piano or violin.
I often see cellists and flutists who are very good at a young age. Occasionally double reed or brass players are very good players by the time they are teenagers, but not usually before.

There one instrument that takes an especially long time to master. Usually, the world of classical music will not even acknowledge performers on this instrument until they are in their thirties...

[SR]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:

There one instrument that takes an especially long time to master. Usually, the world of classical music will not even acknowledge performers on this instrument until they are in their thirties...

Operatic singers tend to mature later and burn out sooner.

Peter...

I was writing of piano issues from my own peculiar perspective. Playing multiple lines musically is not a problem Andante or slower.
I stress speed as it is my own greatest difficulty


Steve

[beetlover]

Originally posted by Chris:
I'm not sure how that could translate to piano. I remember I felt I was making no progress at all during my first year of piano lessons, but I was in reality - it's a hard thing to realize your own progress on an instrument, because it is often in such small steps.

I know exactly how that is! Around this time last year, my piano teacher gave me a Christmas carol book to play in a contest. I choose some of the easiest pieces and thought they were so hard to play! So this year, she told me to bring my book back at the lesson and everything was so easy, it just came out including this one "hard" piece that I really wanted to play last year. So I got a new book of hymns.

[xenor]

I think that no instrument is harder than one other because as the instrument gets easier, the pieces that is composed for it gets harder. Think piano for example. It's the easiest instrument to sound a note but no other instrument can completely play something composed for a piano. Also violin is very hard to make a sound but it's not that hard to play a virtuous piece for violin to play on piano since you have two hands working.

[Tegan]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:
This topic has been pretty well exhausted, but I think it is interesting to put a different spin of the question:
what instrument has the youngest virtuosos?

Probably piano or violin.
I often see cellists and flutists who are very good at a young age. Occasionally double reed or brass players are very good players by the time they are teenagers, but not usually before.

There one instrument that takes an especially long time to master. Usually, the world of classical music will not even acknowledge performers on this instrument until they are in their thirties...

However, those two instruments (piano and violin) are by far the most popular. Were the same number of people who play the piano to play the cello, there would probably be more young virtuoso cellists.-Tegan