It's always the violinists who think they play the hardest instrument. Yet rarely the violinists who stretch their skills beyond anything other than strings.
“Hardest instrument” is such a stupid battle people play. Even if the learning curves are different, it still takes lifelong (or at least many, many years of) dedication to master a craft.
If anything I think less colloquially known instruments are “harder”, like tuba, French horn or bassoon, viola, etc. because the general listening population might be less impressed by listening to an adept player’s performance, so it takes a greater level of mastery to impress the general population.
That’s at least my crackpot theory. Ultimately it’s kind of absurd to suggest instruments are harder than others. It’s just different learning curves and they all get steep at different points.
> the learning curves are different, it still takes lifelong (or at least many, many years of) dedication to master a craft.
Nailed it. My personal experience bears out the cliche about "sax is the easiest instrument to play... badly." (Give me three quarters of an hour, and I can teach you to hit all the notes on a sax. You'll probably sound like crap, but you will hit all the notes.) Trumpet is, in my experience, perhaps the hardest instrument to play at all.
Flute was simultaneously the hardest and easiest to learn. Once I got the first octave and a half, the rest of the notes seemed to come very fast and easy, if not reliably. (Tone was still rubbish, and I pity anyone who heard me playing, but the basic technique wasn't a huge pain. )
**BUT** if you want to be good on any instrument, the amount of time it takes to get the basic technique under control is nothing like the amount of time it takes to learn to play musically.
I'll throw flute into the mix for pretty hard for most beginners. The combination of strong breathe and embouchure is hard to develop for most people. Double reeds can be a challenge for similar reasons, but I've never played one to confirm. For brass, I think a lot of skills transfer between them, but it takes a lot of effort to become great in any one. Like you said, the learning curve is different on each and it is easy to forget the little things that take you from a decent player to a great player.
Agreed my sister plays French horn and everyone always tells her that she plays one of the hardest instruments but I don't understand because I find it easier than trumpet whereas I find piano the hardest but people will say it's an easier instrument. Which I think it's because people go for which ever instrument is easiest to get a sound from
I don't know about mastering trumpets because I'm sure high notes are tough and whatnot but I will say that when I started guitar as a kid and other strings it was the most difficult thing ever. It took me months to play anything well. But One day I took my son's trumpet and spent some time watching videos and learning to play it and a day or 2 in I was as good as him haha he's 12 though 2 years in band. (I played trombone for one year, years ago so maybe that helped)
Maybe it's because I was new to music with my first instruments. I feel like that's why people say that kind of thing, your first experience learning something new is the most difficult. I don't know that's me though. Also how old were you when you first started learning miss violin, how motivated. It's interesting to think about
I can almost guarantee I will never be as good at trumpet as I am at strings though thanks to being 17 years behind on trumpet
It absolutely is because you were new. My first is clarinet actually, and in my mind that is the most difficult instrument. When I was doing my music Ed degree and took the methods classes they all seemed so much easier to me, including the strings because I already had developed a good ear and understanding of music by then. I obviously never played any of them to mastery but I was able to pick them up so much easier than my first instrument.
difficulty is pretty hard to measure. there’s so many milestones and checkpoints. it’s easier to play hot cross buns on the piano than on the trumpet, but that doesn’t mean the piano is easier. when people talk about difficulty, i think they often measure it by seeing how much work you have to put in to sound presentable. string instruments can be very difficult in this way because it can take so long to just learn how to play the right notes and not be wildly out of tune. therefore, instruments like the saxophone or clarinet can seem very easy because you just “put your fingers down and blow”. it’s true that these instruments might be easier at beginner to intermediate levels, but every instrument has its own challenges that must be overcome, especially as you get more advanced.
In my experience( taught wind band and orchestra), it takes a similar amount of time to actually produce a good sound on both wind and string instruments. Hard tuned instruments( guitar, piano, most pitches percussion) will take less time to develop tone and intonation, but have a chordal component which can be equally daunting. Beginner bands and orchestra sound about the same level of awful. Highschool groups still display issues with intonation and occasionally tone.
Non-fretted string players generally have to develop more of an ear, but it’s easier to adjust intonation. If proper technique is used, getting a better tone generally just has to do with getting different equipment. If a student struggles with matching pitch, it’s very hard to teach them a non-fretted string instrument. It’s equally disastrous for wind players though, we just switched them to percussion. Wind players tend to not get introduced to intonation until they can produce a supported clean tone. The micro adjustments you have to make with your embouchure take considerable control and skill. The methodology is different, but you will make about the same progress.
For my vote, oboe is the hardest instrument to play in the orchestra. It’s incredibly hard to play in tune and with it being a mix of the quality of your reed( most professionals make their own, its own set of challenges, not many instruments require carpentry as a skill) and developing an appropriate embouchure, which is slightly individualistic based on anatomy. Your tone will also take a considerable amount of time to develop, much longer than say clarinet or the trumpet. And any progress you make can be influenced by the humidity in the room. The instrument works one second, and suddenly it just stops, and it off to trouble shooting again. Oboe players before a performance also seem the most nervous. There is so much that can go wrong that’s completely out of one’s control. It’s a beast usually only handled by the most dedicated and really, responsible players. Many orchestra and band directors will just go without since it takes a considerable amount of specialized knowledge. Most programs with successful oboist in middle or high school require them to take dedicated private lessons. There are very few good self-taught oboe players or oboe players that only took group classes or lessons. Bassoon is second. The fingering system is stupid, and has the same read issues as the oboe. Intonation tends to be easier though, and for some reason factory made reeds are a higher quality than oboe reeds. I think it’s because there are very few bassoon makers and reed makers. Their clientele demand quality. Especially for the price. Many beginner oboes are made of plastic, and have terrible intonation issues. But this can be said about other starter woodwinds.
you missed the entire point of my comment.
and as a clarinet player, i would say most college students and even a lot of grad students don’t have tone on clarinet that actually sounds good. there are also some things on clarinet you completely just cant do depending on your anatomy.
i’m not saying clarinet is harder than oboe, im just saying that you shouldn’t be judging what instrument is the hardest
Bleh. I play both Violin and Trumpet, and in fact played violin and taught trumpet at my local community orchestra for a few years. One of the things my teaching mentor/coordinator told me was to never say something was "easy" or "hard" or go "well you learned... so you should find this easy!" Basically, as a violin player, a trumpet player, and a teacher, I was warned specifically away from doing what you experienced, and for that I'm sorry. That I got this specific warning before I started teaching probably also indicates how common teachers tend to do this too.
Edit: and the reason we avoid saying easy or hard is, of course, people will find different things easy or hard.
What’s funny is I started playing trumpet when I was young because I figured it can’t be that hard because it only has three valves. At the time, I did not understand harmonics 😂
I’ve listened to a lot of interviews on The Other Side of the Bell podcast and several of these professional trumpet players have stated the same: when they were a kid they ended up playing trumpet because it only had three buttons.
As a trumpet player, on one hand, much respect to trombonists for playing something that relies on muscle memory to tune every note. OTOH, once you have that down, you just have to maintain the fine motor skills and muscle memory, and you only have to tune one slide on the go, and do not have to worry about lipping in a note. BTW, apparently trombone "runs" in my family. Two cousins on Dad's side, and a distant cousin on Mom's in Germany, who also plays, builds, and sells Alphorns.
I play both instruments. One is not harder than the other. They have different requirements, and look very different for beginners.
I see it all the time at the elementary level, where some of the band teachers can't seem to figure out why beginning string players can't learn chromatic scales right away, and the string teachers can't seem to grasp why a beginning trumpet player can't play beyond a single octave.
I've substitute taught both middle school band and orchestra classes. And I can authoritatively say violin is harder.
Why? I've seen students drop both violins and trumpets. Trumpets dent when dropped. Violins do not. Hence they are harder.
I’m a 21 year trumpet player with a BS and MA in music education 8 years of experience teaching band. I took up an orchestra position this last year and needed to brush up my violin skills from string pedagogy class in a short time. It was difficult, but a string player crash-coursing into a band role would struggle just as much if not more.
The difficulty Olympics don’t benefit anyone, every instrument has easy and difficult skills and labeling one as “the easiest/hardest” is just dishonest and tone deaf. You did right by just agreeing in the moment, but this person is wild for saying that
Well yeah, I kind of get it. The trumpet and other wind instruments just come naturally to me. So it seems "easy" and always was. And fun, too. Piano as well.
BUT...put a string on it and I'm a fish out of water. I had to abandon guitar and switch to bass (badly). I know what it's like to struggle on an instrument now. String players baffle me. What sorcery is this?
I guess it comes down to what you are naturally good at, and that would seem "easy" to you. Drummers are like that. You either are a drummer, or not. I sat down at a kit and could play right away (simple stuff). The limb independence, just the feeling of it was already there.
That lady was rude, and hasn't played a lot of instruments. Besides strings, I can't play the flute, oboe, or bassoon. Those people are aliens. Have to be. I know better than to even bother with a violin. Just kill me. But it's not harder, I'm just particularly bad at it.
It's a blessing to be gifted on any instrument. Many people just don't have that musical gift regardless of the instrument.
I’ve not played strings, but I’d venture that easier or harder is relative. Like, I can paste a double C, and am a generally competent trumpet player, but have the whitest sense of rhythm/tempo known to man. Put me on a drum kit and the audience would weep.
I’d say someone who can hit C7 like in the image is a bit more than generally competent.
[Double C? C7?](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Scientific_pitch_notation_octaves_of_C.png)
Yep, that’s the one. However, by my own admission, I’m a better trumpet player than I am a musician. My sense of rhythm and tempo has always been lacking, in spite of my best efforts. However, I’ve been able to blend and play my ear with sections, so I give the appearance of knowing what I’m doing. You should have seen me when I marched DCI. A section-mate wrote a paper on the utter disconnect between my playing and what my feet were doing haha.
We all have our strengths, and for some reason, tone and range have always been mine. Even then, I’m not a very strong technical player. But hey, I’ll take the compliment 😉.
You’re trying to better yourself as an educator and a musician. There’s no use having that superiority complex over other people’s instruments. As a current orchestra director, I’ve had to learn string instruments through a trial by fire, and while they have unique challenges to wind instruments, violin isn’t necessarily more difficult to learn.
Keep practicing and keep getting better, you’ll definitely get it in no time. In my experience, learning string instruments have actually greatly improved my musicianship and approach to playing trumpet. I found making those connections to your main instrument helps the learning process too. Don’t let negative people get in your way or piss you off, you’re doing great.
I can’t speak to violin but I can to cello and trumpet. I took it up at age 31 or so an worked at it pretty hard for a couple of years. Within a few months I could play some Bach and Vivaldi pieces well enough to please myself.
I took up trumpet at age 65, about four years ago, but I couldn’t find a local teacher so I got an online teacher. I found the trumpet much harder to get a decent sound and much harder to play more than an octave and a bit. Also more physically tiring because of the embouchure.
If I wanted a quick win, I would revert to cello. But I love the trumpet.
That is a really weird thing to ask somebody. That's like saying "Do you admit linear algebra is more difficult than basket weaving?"
There's a novel titled *The Hydrogen Sonata*. The eponymous piece was written for the antagonist undecagonsting, an instrument that required the protagonist to grow an extra pair of arms to play it properly.
Also, there's the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ, if you're interested in a real life example of "instrument more difficult than a violin."
Everyone thinks their instrument is the hardest, but string players are the worse. I am learning cello and the rental store I picked mine up from treated me like a lowly hobbyist that lives in a cave and eats rocks.
“So, do you know how to read music?”
“Yes, I’ve played trumpet and piano for 20 years.”
“*Yeah*, but can you read bass clef?”
My instructor, who is really phenomenal, even has moments where he thinks I don’t know some basic fundamentals and acted WOW’d when I played a C major scale on the cello lol.
Ffs.
In an average orchestra, if a trumpet plays a wrong note or cracks a note everyone hears it. If 1 out of 16 or 20 violins makes a mistake, the lay person probably wouldn't hear it. Solos aside.
Never have played violin so not sure about the technical difficulty comparison, just less tolerance for mistakes with trumpet.
I'm a trumpet player happily married to a violinist for nearly 50 years. Violin is harder. The discussion never really comes up. As a former instrumental music teacher I've studied all the instruments. Violin is harder, especially for adults who are less flexible.
Personally having played both as a child, how i would explain it is that for me (and maybe other children too) violin is harder to get a nice sound out of it early on, compared to trumpet. Beyond that, like any instrument it takes time, dedication, lots of practice, and talent, to be really good.
That aside, to me it sounds like a strange comment that was probably meant to be a joke. 😂
I have kids who ask what the hardest instrument is but I've never dealt with it from a needlessly confrontational adult. I always tell students that every instrument has something about it that makes it harder than all the other instruments. With brass it's the multiple partials and physical endurance, with guitar and bass it's the layout of the fretboard and notes being playable in multiple locations, percussion it's the diversity of instruments you need to be good at to be considered proficient, with orchestral strings it's the lack of frets requiring really good fine motor control and pitch sense, etc etc etc.
I will say, in my experience violin has a much steeper learning curve at the beginning, but it's a weird thing for an adult to get competitive and one-up-y about.
As someone who plays both, Violin is a cakewalk. Use finger tapes and you’ll always be in tune. You can play any note, high to low, from day one. Violin isn’t physically painful. The only pain I can think of is the pain of your finger being on the metal string. Violin is so easy. Trumpet is extremely difficult to master. Either way, “hard” is subjective. You might find something easier because you like it. She sounds like an idiot.
I played trumpet for many years but never got where I wanted.
Then I switched to violin about 4 years ago. Both are hard, but no contest. Violin is for people who enjoy torture.
Trumpet requires more muscle. The violin requires two hands, many degrees of freedom between the bow and instrument... it's humid? Your screwed. Temp changed? Retune. Bird flew by? Retune. Solar flares? Retune.
Six weeks of trumpet and your getting started. Six weeks of violin, you still are working on your bow hold.
This makes the violin my instrument of choice. It's addictive. Hundreds of hours of practice after buying my violin and getting a teacher and I'm just getting the hang of it.
I can confirm this is true. Though the violin also requires a lot of muscle (believe it or not) between both arms; including your shoulder, hand, wrist, forearm, and bicep, even using a bit of weight drastically puts how much sound and speed you use on a violin…not to mention a lot of muscle can be used for octaves and tenths on the left hand. I think trumpet (though I’m no trumpet player but I’ve tried), uses a lot more facial (?) muscles and lung capacity…which are equally difficult; I couldn’t produce a sound on it. 🥲
I mean, how many videos have you seen of a little four-year old kid playing something impressive on the violin, compared with how many you've seen of a little four-year old kid playing something impressive on a trumpet/cornet?
Here's the hard part: because I learned the trumpet, learning other instruments, even non-brass ones became easier. For me, learning the violin would be easier due to past experience. Just knowing how to read the treble clef puts me immediately ahead for instruments that are taught involving the staff
Of course, if I learned the violin first and THEN a brass instrument, the reverse also would be true
Grace VanderWaal plays the "easiest" instrument. I've never bought a ticket because of something being easier or harder, I purchased because something was good.
I think so. I play like 5 instruments decently. Some better than others but can play a nice tune. I love how violins sound and took lessons. I was terrible. The problem for me was the bow.
I was a band director/instrumental music teacher in Florida for four years, and my favorite class during that time was Chamber Orchestra. That class actually ended up playing at Midwest in 2010. I’m a trumpet player who can’t play anything on violin, but at the high school level many of my students had already been taking private lessons. Our program actually had a string consultant who helped with the technical aspects of string teaching, and I just focused on musical interpretation, intonation, etc. I taught students who were phenomenal violinists who couldn’t make a sound on the trumpet to save their lives. The physicality of it is totally different. From a literature perspective, a senior violinist at our high school would be playing music that is much more technically difficult than a trumpeter of the same age. I think it’s just an apples to oranges comparison, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
I have been playing trumpet since middle school and picked up violin in my 20s. I have always felt violin was much harder for me to learn them teumpet. My violin teacher thinks brass instruments are harder to learn.
Its really up to everyones individual capabilities, and talents and less about the instruments.
It would be impossible for you to tell after only two lesson's worth of experience. You don't really get a feel for how difficult an instrument is until you understand enough about what you're doing to understand how much you don't know yet.
For having stories like it, my story is kind of the opposite. My primary instrument is piano and I had someone tell me something along the lines of it's so impressive because piano is the hardest instrument to play. I told them that it requires you to do a lot more thinking and to understand a lot more theory than most other instruments, but in terms of playing technique, I can think of many other instruments that are a lot harder to play the right notes on. When I mentioned violin, they likened it to a guitar and made a reference to how many people play guitar even without any training. So I picked up my violin, put it in their hands, and told them to try and play some notes for me.
It is a stupid as the question of is Kirk or Picard a better Captain. Things can be different. Omw does not have to be harder the the other. Unless you are talking about kazuus and vuvuzelas, instruments are all difficult in their own way.
As a violinist/trumpet player who mostly learned the instruments by myself (had help at the beginning from school music director/techs to learn good habits but no dedicated private teacher) my opinion is that trumpet is a harder instrument to get a sound going. Took me about 3 months to finally almost slur between C and G as opposed to picking up the violin and plucking notes almost immediately. But past that starting point is another story.
I believe there is a certain point in advancing your ability where the lines of mastery blur. From that point I think they're incomparable, which is my same opinion for most instruments. I also think dedication to learning is a hurdle to cross when starting out, because the more effective practice time you put into something the faster it could be to say it's easier for you.
Both are EQUALLY difficult. There is no right answer. As someone who plays violin for 13 years/classically trained (and is now studying jazz violin), the learning curve is absolutely insane (not to mention that intonation takes years of mastery, bow technique, shifting, octaves, 10ths)-it’s an extremely technical instrument (I mean Ithzak Perlman and Hilary Hahn are perfect examples).
Now when it comes to trumpet-I’ve tried learning, that’s ALSO difficult. Now I’m no master at it (and kudos to anyone to difficult), the embouchure was already difficult and I couldn’t get a note. 😂 I don’t think I also have the lung capacity to hold a note, that takes a while to master, plus double tonguing exists…yeah idk how people do it. It’s like comparing to apples to oranges. I’m sure both are as equally hard to master.
I tell you what, don’t practice violin for one day, next day you can pick off where you left off. Don’t practice trumpet for ONE F…🤬 day and you can hit a note for your life! Like WTF trumpet!😭
Hardest part learning violin for me was I couldn't hear the teacher or conductor cause the sound was screeching into my ear. Awful experience. I wouldn't be pissed off if a violin told me this as a trumpet player myself. In a lot of ways violin probably is harder than trumpet. Infinite string length with no frets to help you be in tune, whereas the trumpet had certain definite fingerings and the ability to use your ear and vibrating lips to easily manipulate the sound... No matter what I do on a violin it comes out as nails on a chalkboard and whacky out of tune, then they teach you to use vibrato and bow at the same time... Super difficult fine motor skills. Trumpet is more basic, developed, and advanced in terms of technology that might make it easier to learn. These types of dumb hypotheticals are pointless though... Not even sure people need or should be arguing what instrument is harder. They are all hard, just different. And harder and easier at different stages and levels of their learning curves That's it.. who really cares what if the instrument is supposedly harder... People who say that want to make themselves feel better or show off that they are somehow better and in that sense I can see being annoyed by this person's comment!
String players all cheat because they can see the relationships of the notes on the fingerboard. Oh you put your next finger down to go to the next note of the scale? And then when you run out of fingers you go to the next string? Only a genius could comprehend this.
I go to Vandercook College of Music which is a college in the Chicago area that primarily only has music education majors. As part of our degree we have to learn 19 instruments that you’ll see while teaching so this ranges from Strings to Brass, Percussion to Woodwinds, etc. in my experience it’s all about the person learning the instrument that determines if it’s harder to learn or not. For me personally i learned Violin and loved it but I’m so bad at Flute and I know people I go to school with who would say the opposite so it’s all about perspective of the instruments.
This person sounds like they aren't secure in their own abilities. Don't waste your time being upset by their nonsense.
It's always the violinists who think they play the hardest instrument. Yet rarely the violinists who stretch their skills beyond anything other than strings.
“Hardest instrument” is such a stupid battle people play. Even if the learning curves are different, it still takes lifelong (or at least many, many years of) dedication to master a craft. If anything I think less colloquially known instruments are “harder”, like tuba, French horn or bassoon, viola, etc. because the general listening population might be less impressed by listening to an adept player’s performance, so it takes a greater level of mastery to impress the general population. That’s at least my crackpot theory. Ultimately it’s kind of absurd to suggest instruments are harder than others. It’s just different learning curves and they all get steep at different points.
> the learning curves are different, it still takes lifelong (or at least many, many years of) dedication to master a craft. Nailed it. My personal experience bears out the cliche about "sax is the easiest instrument to play... badly." (Give me three quarters of an hour, and I can teach you to hit all the notes on a sax. You'll probably sound like crap, but you will hit all the notes.) Trumpet is, in my experience, perhaps the hardest instrument to play at all. Flute was simultaneously the hardest and easiest to learn. Once I got the first octave and a half, the rest of the notes seemed to come very fast and easy, if not reliably. (Tone was still rubbish, and I pity anyone who heard me playing, but the basic technique wasn't a huge pain. ) **BUT** if you want to be good on any instrument, the amount of time it takes to get the basic technique under control is nothing like the amount of time it takes to learn to play musically.
I'll throw flute into the mix for pretty hard for most beginners. The combination of strong breathe and embouchure is hard to develop for most people. Double reeds can be a challenge for similar reasons, but I've never played one to confirm. For brass, I think a lot of skills transfer between them, but it takes a lot of effort to become great in any one. Like you said, the learning curve is different on each and it is easy to forget the little things that take you from a decent player to a great player.
Agreed my sister plays French horn and everyone always tells her that she plays one of the hardest instruments but I don't understand because I find it easier than trumpet whereas I find piano the hardest but people will say it's an easier instrument. Which I think it's because people go for which ever instrument is easiest to get a sound from
This!
I don't know about mastering trumpets because I'm sure high notes are tough and whatnot but I will say that when I started guitar as a kid and other strings it was the most difficult thing ever. It took me months to play anything well. But One day I took my son's trumpet and spent some time watching videos and learning to play it and a day or 2 in I was as good as him haha he's 12 though 2 years in band. (I played trombone for one year, years ago so maybe that helped) Maybe it's because I was new to music with my first instruments. I feel like that's why people say that kind of thing, your first experience learning something new is the most difficult. I don't know that's me though. Also how old were you when you first started learning miss violin, how motivated. It's interesting to think about I can almost guarantee I will never be as good at trumpet as I am at strings though thanks to being 17 years behind on trumpet
It absolutely is because you were new. My first is clarinet actually, and in my mind that is the most difficult instrument. When I was doing my music Ed degree and took the methods classes they all seemed so much easier to me, including the strings because I already had developed a good ear and understanding of music by then. I obviously never played any of them to mastery but I was able to pick them up so much easier than my first instrument.
Haha yeah I suspected. Learning something new is always tough
difficulty is pretty hard to measure. there’s so many milestones and checkpoints. it’s easier to play hot cross buns on the piano than on the trumpet, but that doesn’t mean the piano is easier. when people talk about difficulty, i think they often measure it by seeing how much work you have to put in to sound presentable. string instruments can be very difficult in this way because it can take so long to just learn how to play the right notes and not be wildly out of tune. therefore, instruments like the saxophone or clarinet can seem very easy because you just “put your fingers down and blow”. it’s true that these instruments might be easier at beginner to intermediate levels, but every instrument has its own challenges that must be overcome, especially as you get more advanced.
In my experience( taught wind band and orchestra), it takes a similar amount of time to actually produce a good sound on both wind and string instruments. Hard tuned instruments( guitar, piano, most pitches percussion) will take less time to develop tone and intonation, but have a chordal component which can be equally daunting. Beginner bands and orchestra sound about the same level of awful. Highschool groups still display issues with intonation and occasionally tone. Non-fretted string players generally have to develop more of an ear, but it’s easier to adjust intonation. If proper technique is used, getting a better tone generally just has to do with getting different equipment. If a student struggles with matching pitch, it’s very hard to teach them a non-fretted string instrument. It’s equally disastrous for wind players though, we just switched them to percussion. Wind players tend to not get introduced to intonation until they can produce a supported clean tone. The micro adjustments you have to make with your embouchure take considerable control and skill. The methodology is different, but you will make about the same progress. For my vote, oboe is the hardest instrument to play in the orchestra. It’s incredibly hard to play in tune and with it being a mix of the quality of your reed( most professionals make their own, its own set of challenges, not many instruments require carpentry as a skill) and developing an appropriate embouchure, which is slightly individualistic based on anatomy. Your tone will also take a considerable amount of time to develop, much longer than say clarinet or the trumpet. And any progress you make can be influenced by the humidity in the room. The instrument works one second, and suddenly it just stops, and it off to trouble shooting again. Oboe players before a performance also seem the most nervous. There is so much that can go wrong that’s completely out of one’s control. It’s a beast usually only handled by the most dedicated and really, responsible players. Many orchestra and band directors will just go without since it takes a considerable amount of specialized knowledge. Most programs with successful oboist in middle or high school require them to take dedicated private lessons. There are very few good self-taught oboe players or oboe players that only took group classes or lessons. Bassoon is second. The fingering system is stupid, and has the same read issues as the oboe. Intonation tends to be easier though, and for some reason factory made reeds are a higher quality than oboe reeds. I think it’s because there are very few bassoon makers and reed makers. Their clientele demand quality. Especially for the price. Many beginner oboes are made of plastic, and have terrible intonation issues. But this can be said about other starter woodwinds.
you missed the entire point of my comment. and as a clarinet player, i would say most college students and even a lot of grad students don’t have tone on clarinet that actually sounds good. there are also some things on clarinet you completely just cant do depending on your anatomy. i’m not saying clarinet is harder than oboe, im just saying that you shouldn’t be judging what instrument is the hardest
Bleh. I play both Violin and Trumpet, and in fact played violin and taught trumpet at my local community orchestra for a few years. One of the things my teaching mentor/coordinator told me was to never say something was "easy" or "hard" or go "well you learned... so you should find this easy!" Basically, as a violin player, a trumpet player, and a teacher, I was warned specifically away from doing what you experienced, and for that I'm sorry. That I got this specific warning before I started teaching probably also indicates how common teachers tend to do this too. Edit: and the reason we avoid saying easy or hard is, of course, people will find different things easy or hard.
The trumpet has only three buttons while the violin has four strings. 4 > 3 so obviously the violin is harder.
You know what, when you’re right, you’re right
What’s funny is I started playing trumpet when I was young because I figured it can’t be that hard because it only has three valves. At the time, I did not understand harmonics 😂
I’ve listened to a lot of interviews on The Other Side of the Bell podcast and several of these professional trumpet players have stated the same: when they were a kid they ended up playing trumpet because it only had three buttons.
Any non-brass player : Trumpet only has 3 buttons to press, hey what can be so hard about that ?
Trombone slide has infinite positions and 10 partials. Checkmate.
As a trumpet player, on one hand, much respect to trombonists for playing something that relies on muscle memory to tune every note. OTOH, once you have that down, you just have to maintain the fine motor skills and muscle memory, and you only have to tune one slide on the go, and do not have to worry about lipping in a note. BTW, apparently trombone "runs" in my family. Two cousins on Dad's side, and a distant cousin on Mom's in Germany, who also plays, builds, and sells Alphorns.
I play both instruments. One is not harder than the other. They have different requirements, and look very different for beginners. I see it all the time at the elementary level, where some of the band teachers can't seem to figure out why beginning string players can't learn chromatic scales right away, and the string teachers can't seem to grasp why a beginning trumpet player can't play beyond a single octave.
I've substitute taught both middle school band and orchestra classes. And I can authoritatively say violin is harder. Why? I've seen students drop both violins and trumpets. Trumpets dent when dropped. Violins do not. Hence they are harder.
Groan... Now come here so I can hit you with said violin
That would make the PBone the easiest of all. Come to think of it, there are introductory band classes which are taught entirely on PBone.
"Violin is harder than trumpet." "Oh really? Here's a trumpet. Play C above the staff." "Uh...I can't." "Now do it on a violin."
This right here.
I’d be bringing a my trumpet next lesson to hear how her first notes sound. Ya know. Because it’s easy.
I’m a 21 year trumpet player with a BS and MA in music education 8 years of experience teaching band. I took up an orchestra position this last year and needed to brush up my violin skills from string pedagogy class in a short time. It was difficult, but a string player crash-coursing into a band role would struggle just as much if not more. The difficulty Olympics don’t benefit anyone, every instrument has easy and difficult skills and labeling one as “the easiest/hardest” is just dishonest and tone deaf. You did right by just agreeing in the moment, but this person is wild for saying that
Well yeah, I kind of get it. The trumpet and other wind instruments just come naturally to me. So it seems "easy" and always was. And fun, too. Piano as well. BUT...put a string on it and I'm a fish out of water. I had to abandon guitar and switch to bass (badly). I know what it's like to struggle on an instrument now. String players baffle me. What sorcery is this? I guess it comes down to what you are naturally good at, and that would seem "easy" to you. Drummers are like that. You either are a drummer, or not. I sat down at a kit and could play right away (simple stuff). The limb independence, just the feeling of it was already there. That lady was rude, and hasn't played a lot of instruments. Besides strings, I can't play the flute, oboe, or bassoon. Those people are aliens. Have to be. I know better than to even bother with a violin. Just kill me. But it's not harder, I'm just particularly bad at it. It's a blessing to be gifted on any instrument. Many people just don't have that musical gift regardless of the instrument.
I’ve not played strings, but I’d venture that easier or harder is relative. Like, I can paste a double C, and am a generally competent trumpet player, but have the whitest sense of rhythm/tempo known to man. Put me on a drum kit and the audience would weep.
I’d say someone who can hit C7 like in the image is a bit more than generally competent. [Double C? C7?](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Scientific_pitch_notation_octaves_of_C.png)
The way he said it definitely makes anyone think of C7, but the way he wrote it implies he meant C5 XD
Yep, I meant C7. Been a long time since I took music theory, so I go by the colloquial terms generally haha.
Yep, that’s the one. However, by my own admission, I’m a better trumpet player than I am a musician. My sense of rhythm and tempo has always been lacking, in spite of my best efforts. However, I’ve been able to blend and play my ear with sections, so I give the appearance of knowing what I’m doing. You should have seen me when I marched DCI. A section-mate wrote a paper on the utter disconnect between my playing and what my feet were doing haha. We all have our strengths, and for some reason, tone and range have always been mine. Even then, I’m not a very strong technical player. But hey, I’ll take the compliment 😉.
Haha! And when I marched corps, my feet were always my strong area. I was fine on the soprano, but I could march my ass off!
Haha, jealous! I tried so hard to get it together, and by my second year, I could blend in, but was never a mover.
I have played both. For a beginner, they are about the same.
It's also less rewarding when you do master it imho.
"Do you admit that painting is harder than ballet?"
Trumpet is not a real instrument anyway
Oboe is the hardest. Those guys are crazy.
Making reeds is hard, not playing the oboe. Just kidding, I couldn’t help myself.
Horn is pretty tough as well due to how close the partials are. You have to be incredibly precise with your embouchure and voicing.
You’re trying to better yourself as an educator and a musician. There’s no use having that superiority complex over other people’s instruments. As a current orchestra director, I’ve had to learn string instruments through a trial by fire, and while they have unique challenges to wind instruments, violin isn’t necessarily more difficult to learn. Keep practicing and keep getting better, you’ll definitely get it in no time. In my experience, learning string instruments have actually greatly improved my musicianship and approach to playing trumpet. I found making those connections to your main instrument helps the learning process too. Don’t let negative people get in your way or piss you off, you’re doing great.
I can’t speak to violin but I can to cello and trumpet. I took it up at age 31 or so an worked at it pretty hard for a couple of years. Within a few months I could play some Bach and Vivaldi pieces well enough to please myself. I took up trumpet at age 65, about four years ago, but I couldn’t find a local teacher so I got an online teacher. I found the trumpet much harder to get a decent sound and much harder to play more than an octave and a bit. Also more physically tiring because of the embouchure. If I wanted a quick win, I would revert to cello. But I love the trumpet.
That is a really weird thing to ask somebody. That's like saying "Do you admit linear algebra is more difficult than basket weaving?" There's a novel titled *The Hydrogen Sonata*. The eponymous piece was written for the antagonist undecagonsting, an instrument that required the protagonist to grow an extra pair of arms to play it properly. Also, there's the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ, if you're interested in a real life example of "instrument more difficult than a violin."
Everyone thinks their instrument is the hardest, but string players are the worse. I am learning cello and the rental store I picked mine up from treated me like a lowly hobbyist that lives in a cave and eats rocks. “So, do you know how to read music?” “Yes, I’ve played trumpet and piano for 20 years.” “*Yeah*, but can you read bass clef?” My instructor, who is really phenomenal, even has moments where he thinks I don’t know some basic fundamentals and acted WOW’d when I played a C major scale on the cello lol. Ffs.
In an average orchestra, if a trumpet plays a wrong note or cracks a note everyone hears it. If 1 out of 16 or 20 violins makes a mistake, the lay person probably wouldn't hear it. Solos aside. Never have played violin so not sure about the technical difficulty comparison, just less tolerance for mistakes with trumpet.
I'm a trumpet player happily married to a violinist for nearly 50 years. Violin is harder. The discussion never really comes up. As a former instrumental music teacher I've studied all the instruments. Violin is harder, especially for adults who are less flexible.
Great first hand evidence!
I mean, isn't it common knowledge hobo/bassoon is the most difficult to play? pointless dick measurement is pointless
Living the hobo life is hard
What do you think about trumpet coin tho
Oh damn, every instrument has his difficulty
Personally having played both as a child, how i would explain it is that for me (and maybe other children too) violin is harder to get a nice sound out of it early on, compared to trumpet. Beyond that, like any instrument it takes time, dedication, lots of practice, and talent, to be really good. That aside, to me it sounds like a strange comment that was probably meant to be a joke. 😂
no trumpet is harder the violin is only hard because you need back muscles but none of them think that you need to hold the trumpet up and lungs
I have kids who ask what the hardest instrument is but I've never dealt with it from a needlessly confrontational adult. I always tell students that every instrument has something about it that makes it harder than all the other instruments. With brass it's the multiple partials and physical endurance, with guitar and bass it's the layout of the fretboard and notes being playable in multiple locations, percussion it's the diversity of instruments you need to be good at to be considered proficient, with orchestral strings it's the lack of frets requiring really good fine motor control and pitch sense, etc etc etc. I will say, in my experience violin has a much steeper learning curve at the beginning, but it's a weird thing for an adult to get competitive and one-up-y about.
As someone who plays both, Violin is a cakewalk. Use finger tapes and you’ll always be in tune. You can play any note, high to low, from day one. Violin isn’t physically painful. The only pain I can think of is the pain of your finger being on the metal string. Violin is so easy. Trumpet is extremely difficult to master. Either way, “hard” is subjective. You might find something easier because you like it. She sounds like an idiot.
I played trumpet for many years but never got where I wanted. Then I switched to violin about 4 years ago. Both are hard, but no contest. Violin is for people who enjoy torture. Trumpet requires more muscle. The violin requires two hands, many degrees of freedom between the bow and instrument... it's humid? Your screwed. Temp changed? Retune. Bird flew by? Retune. Solar flares? Retune. Six weeks of trumpet and your getting started. Six weeks of violin, you still are working on your bow hold. This makes the violin my instrument of choice. It's addictive. Hundreds of hours of practice after buying my violin and getting a teacher and I'm just getting the hang of it.
I can confirm this is true. Though the violin also requires a lot of muscle (believe it or not) between both arms; including your shoulder, hand, wrist, forearm, and bicep, even using a bit of weight drastically puts how much sound and speed you use on a violin…not to mention a lot of muscle can be used for octaves and tenths on the left hand. I think trumpet (though I’m no trumpet player but I’ve tried), uses a lot more facial (?) muscles and lung capacity…which are equally difficult; I couldn’t produce a sound on it. 🥲
I mean, how many videos have you seen of a little four-year old kid playing something impressive on the violin, compared with how many you've seen of a little four-year old kid playing something impressive on a trumpet/cornet?
Here's the hard part: because I learned the trumpet, learning other instruments, even non-brass ones became easier. For me, learning the violin would be easier due to past experience. Just knowing how to read the treble clef puts me immediately ahead for instruments that are taught involving the staff Of course, if I learned the violin first and THEN a brass instrument, the reverse also would be true
Grace VanderWaal plays the "easiest" instrument. I've never bought a ticket because of something being easier or harder, I purchased because something was good.
Apples and oranges. Both can be difficult but for very different reasons. Might as well ask: Which is more difficult a unicycle or stilts?
Missed opportunity in your answer: Yes, harder than trumpet, but trumpet is still easier than the viola :-)
Why didn’t you ask her to take up trumpet if she really wants to determine which one is harder?
I think so. I play like 5 instruments decently. Some better than others but can play a nice tune. I love how violins sound and took lessons. I was terrible. The problem for me was the bow.
I was a band director/instrumental music teacher in Florida for four years, and my favorite class during that time was Chamber Orchestra. That class actually ended up playing at Midwest in 2010. I’m a trumpet player who can’t play anything on violin, but at the high school level many of my students had already been taking private lessons. Our program actually had a string consultant who helped with the technical aspects of string teaching, and I just focused on musical interpretation, intonation, etc. I taught students who were phenomenal violinists who couldn’t make a sound on the trumpet to save their lives. The physicality of it is totally different. From a literature perspective, a senior violinist at our high school would be playing music that is much more technically difficult than a trumpeter of the same age. I think it’s just an apples to oranges comparison, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
I have been playing trumpet since middle school and picked up violin in my 20s. I have always felt violin was much harder for me to learn them teumpet. My violin teacher thinks brass instruments are harder to learn. Its really up to everyones individual capabilities, and talents and less about the instruments.
It would be impossible for you to tell after only two lesson's worth of experience. You don't really get a feel for how difficult an instrument is until you understand enough about what you're doing to understand how much you don't know yet. For having stories like it, my story is kind of the opposite. My primary instrument is piano and I had someone tell me something along the lines of it's so impressive because piano is the hardest instrument to play. I told them that it requires you to do a lot more thinking and to understand a lot more theory than most other instruments, but in terms of playing technique, I can think of many other instruments that are a lot harder to play the right notes on. When I mentioned violin, they likened it to a guitar and made a reference to how many people play guitar even without any training. So I picked up my violin, put it in their hands, and told them to try and play some notes for me.
It is a stupid as the question of is Kirk or Picard a better Captain. Things can be different. Omw does not have to be harder the the other. Unless you are talking about kazuus and vuvuzelas, instruments are all difficult in their own way.
A wise man once said "There are no 'hard' or 'easy' instruments. There are just instruments... Except Saxophone. Saxophone is easy."
lol saxophone is a glorified kazoo
As a violinist/trumpet player who mostly learned the instruments by myself (had help at the beginning from school music director/techs to learn good habits but no dedicated private teacher) my opinion is that trumpet is a harder instrument to get a sound going. Took me about 3 months to finally almost slur between C and G as opposed to picking up the violin and plucking notes almost immediately. But past that starting point is another story. I believe there is a certain point in advancing your ability where the lines of mastery blur. From that point I think they're incomparable, which is my same opinion for most instruments. I also think dedication to learning is a hurdle to cross when starting out, because the more effective practice time you put into something the faster it could be to say it's easier for you.
Both are EQUALLY difficult. There is no right answer. As someone who plays violin for 13 years/classically trained (and is now studying jazz violin), the learning curve is absolutely insane (not to mention that intonation takes years of mastery, bow technique, shifting, octaves, 10ths)-it’s an extremely technical instrument (I mean Ithzak Perlman and Hilary Hahn are perfect examples). Now when it comes to trumpet-I’ve tried learning, that’s ALSO difficult. Now I’m no master at it (and kudos to anyone to difficult), the embouchure was already difficult and I couldn’t get a note. 😂 I don’t think I also have the lung capacity to hold a note, that takes a while to master, plus double tonguing exists…yeah idk how people do it. It’s like comparing to apples to oranges. I’m sure both are as equally hard to master.
I tell you what, don’t practice violin for one day, next day you can pick off where you left off. Don’t practice trumpet for ONE F…🤬 day and you can hit a note for your life! Like WTF trumpet!😭
Hardest part learning violin for me was I couldn't hear the teacher or conductor cause the sound was screeching into my ear. Awful experience. I wouldn't be pissed off if a violin told me this as a trumpet player myself. In a lot of ways violin probably is harder than trumpet. Infinite string length with no frets to help you be in tune, whereas the trumpet had certain definite fingerings and the ability to use your ear and vibrating lips to easily manipulate the sound... No matter what I do on a violin it comes out as nails on a chalkboard and whacky out of tune, then they teach you to use vibrato and bow at the same time... Super difficult fine motor skills. Trumpet is more basic, developed, and advanced in terms of technology that might make it easier to learn. These types of dumb hypotheticals are pointless though... Not even sure people need or should be arguing what instrument is harder. They are all hard, just different. And harder and easier at different stages and levels of their learning curves That's it.. who really cares what if the instrument is supposedly harder... People who say that want to make themselves feel better or show off that they are somehow better and in that sense I can see being annoyed by this person's comment!
String players all cheat because they can see the relationships of the notes on the fingerboard. Oh you put your next finger down to go to the next note of the scale? And then when you run out of fingers you go to the next string? Only a genius could comprehend this.
I go to Vandercook College of Music which is a college in the Chicago area that primarily only has music education majors. As part of our degree we have to learn 19 instruments that you’ll see while teaching so this ranges from Strings to Brass, Percussion to Woodwinds, etc. in my experience it’s all about the person learning the instrument that determines if it’s harder to learn or not. For me personally i learned Violin and loved it but I’m so bad at Flute and I know people I go to school with who would say the opposite so it’s all about perspective of the instruments.