10 fingers…
Wednesday 7th November
Here’s a simple question with, I daresay, no simple answer…
Is it harder to play a piano than a violin or flute?
Since the age of around 8, I haven’t played to music on any ‘monophonic’ instrument, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but here are some factors I’ve been taking into account…
1) Strings and brass generally have one line of music - ok, violins can be double-stopped, but there are, I guess, no instances where you have to simultaneously read 10 different notes. Piano is much harder.
2) The piano has one finger per note. Brass and wind instruments can require a strange sequence of fingers (and breath control) to reach a certain note. Piano is easier.
3) Non-fretted strings have an infinite continuum of notes available - put your finger in the wrong place and your note is sharp or flat. Piano is easier.
4) String and wind players need to always be conscious of not running out of breath or bow. Piano is easier.
5) The range of expression on wind and strings is greater than that of the piano. A piano can be played louder or softer, along with a couple of other factors involving half-pedalling and phrasing. Wind and strings can produce, in addition to those, all manner of tone colours. Piano is slightly easier.
So… I guess the question is… do factors 2 to 5 balance out factor 1? Are any of my assumptions incorrect? Does anyone play anything who can offer an insight to just how hard it is?
And where do guitars fit in this?
I’m thinking your comparisons are not type-safe. With my fiddlings-around with the latin band I’ve come to appreciate how each instrument really is a whole other animal. Our trumpet player was a real genius (quite separate from his trumpet playing) and his passion for all things musical and mathematical allowed him to explain to me about how he’s teasing harmonics out of the trumpet and how the fingering and lip stuff go together to get notes.
To an extent, a piano is a mechanized music machine which introduces a degree of separation between the player and the sound. In brass, the player is much more physically involved in producing the sound.
Drumming fascinates me as it seems to have no notes and thus looks easy, but waay-better pianists than I, who seem to have great independence between left and right hand, are unable to play fairly simple cross-rhythms on the timbales.
Again though, you can look upon the drums (as the whole of rock & pop do) as a palette of about 4 sounds that you place on a timeline; or alternatively (as latin and jazz musicians do) each drum skin is an instrument capable of a range of timbres.
sweavo
7 Nov 07 at 12:13 pm
First of all you state ‘do factors 5 to 6′ … I only see 5 factors.
Anyway. my thoughts. I was in the orchestra at school. Woodwind section… Ok it was a recorder, but the basics of playing it is no different to any other woodwind instrument. You blow in one end, move all your fingers and notes come out of it. Hopefully tunefull notes. Yes learning your breathing is an important part of learning the instrument.
I always thought that the left hand of a piano player is playing the ‘bass’ lines of the tune. So it won’t be like its playing two different things with two different hands. The guitar is similar. I’ve played the guitar in a band and done a couple of gigs. My biggest problem was my right hand being able to work with the beat. At the time I didn’t really fully grasp the concept of beats. 4 beats to the bar, how bars fit into the working of a piece of music.
I now play the drums. And so learning the functionality of beats and bars is fundemental to the drummer.
Mr H
7 Nov 07 at 12:22 pm
darn - in my piece I could have sneakly make a link to my bands website
missed that chance
Mr H
7 Nov 07 at 12:24 pm
I can play (various) woodwind instruments but have never been able to play the piano other than one fingered renditions of “three blind mice” plus one more random tune with both hands that i learned to death when i was about 7. I don’t have the ability to do such different things with both hands in the piano context. It’s very frustrating! So personally, flute is easier than piano. I don’t have the same co-ordination issue with the violin (I think it’s a one-note-at-a-time thing) but I do with guitar. Perhaps I should be a neuropsychology experiment or something.
In terms of tuning then the piano is both easier - it stays fairly to tune or goes out of tune and you have to deal with it because there’s nothing else to do - and harder - if it does go out of tune there’s nothing else you can do. Whereas my flute goes through sharp-ok-flat over the course of a piece. And don’t even go there if it’s cold.
Sarah
7 Nov 07 at 1:10 pm
This is a whole essay all by itself! I’m not a pianist so I have a problem relating to some of it but I do know this…
When I play my clarinet I find the instrument becomes an extension of me. I had to borrow one recently while mine was being serviced and it was not nice at all, nothing was in the right place, I might as well have been playing with transplanted hands. I suppose it is a bit like driving an unfamiliar car when you’re very used to your own.
The fingering of notes is learnt but eventually becomes second nature. Muscle memory comes into play. If I have to play something very quick with lots of notes in I sometimes realise I’ve got to the end of it without thinking about what I’m doing but I’ve played it well enough. So I guess a pianist must know without having to think about it where his fingers need to be. Like touch typing.
Unlike a brass player I don’t have to think much about what I’m doing with my mouth except to get it right and keep it right. OK, I can change the tone, quality and pitch to some extent of any note by changing my embouchure but a trumpeter has to do it much more. He can play loads of different notes without moving his fingers. I may have ten fingers to think about (well, 9. One of my thumbs doesn’t do much) but is it harder to do that than to produce the same number of notes using only three fingers in different combinations together with lip movements?
I wonder about having to read multiple lines of music and I reckon it might be a bit like me reading difficult rhythms on my one line but not really reading it. You get used to the SHAPE of things and dance band musicians who are used to certain riffs and syncopated rhythms will often tell you not to read the rhythm but to feel it. So maybe a practised pianist can look at a block of notes, know what the chord is and be able to play that chord without making any conscious decision about what it’s made of.
As far as expression is concerned the jury’s out for me. Depends who’s playing. There is an argument that the act of breathing into an instrument makes the music somehow more intimate and personal, as if the musician is giving the audience more of himself than someone who strikes, plucks or bows their instrument. I’m not so sure. A pianist recently made me cry with his music. Go figure.
Interesting blog, our Stu. Fanks mate!
Maris
7 Nov 07 at 1:30 pm
The pianist has to have a removal van, ramps and pulleys to get his instrument to the gig. The piccolo player carries his tool in his shirt pocket - Piano is harder.
rich
7 Nov 07 at 5:43 pm
Bagpipes
lordhutton
7 Nov 07 at 6:42 pm
Ever hear about the one-armed harpist? Not very good but she had a lot of pluck.
Omally
7 Nov 07 at 6:58 pm
The pipe-organ is even worse than the piano. You have multiple consoles to play with both hands and you have both feet playing the bass-line too!
You do tend to recognise the chords though rather than read them. Thankfully the electonic organ (being what I play) only has a console per hand and your left-foot.
Phil
7 Nov 07 at 7:20 pm
I’ve played the violin (grade 5) and flute (grade 6), and have tinkered with the piano.
The flute was the easiest - I pretty much picked it up straight away.
The violin wasn’t too bad - not that easy, as you do have to co-ordinate your left and right hand - and it’s very easy to ‘bum-out’ a note due to too much/too little pressure on the bow relative to the speed that it’s moving.
I’ve had a go with the piano, and found it hard - although I’ve taught myself a few bits, including a bit of Pachelbels Cannon (not necessarily totally correct, but certainly recognisable!) - I’d say that was the hardest.
I’ve also had a bash at the geetar - I am Not At All Good(TM), as Mally will testify, but I can play a few recognisable tunes - I’d say the geetar is easier than the piano and harder than the violin.
Probably varies from person to person though!
loretta
7 Nov 07 at 8:10 pm
Oh my… I can play guitar a bit and I used to be able to play keyboard, although I can now only remember how to play ‘Walking in the Air’, but with BOTH HANDS…. AT THE SAME TIME :]
Personally I would say piano would be easier than guitar, although it all depends on what you want to play! If you just want to play rhythm stuff, then guitar is easier, but if you want to play more complex, then piano would be the way forward imho.
Just to throw a spanner in the works, how about percussion! That’s my next port of call; an electronic drum kit!
I’ve never played another string instrument (except bass guitar) and never touched a wind instrument, but I have much experience with the ‘pink oboe’, the ‘blue veined flute’ and the ‘crimson kazoo’, although the chances of me performing a rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, on the afore mentioned instruments, in public is very slight :0)
DoGGa
8 Nov 07 at 9:48 am
I can’t tune a piano, but I can tuna fish! (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)
Debster
8 Nov 07 at 1:04 pm
I love the different moods a talented pianist (not me!) can obtain from a piano. It’s a fantastic instrument, and the one I’d love to play really, really well, but however hard I tried I’d never be more than competent.
JG
8 Nov 07 at 2:32 pm
I suppose it depends what part of your brain you are dominant in. Having played cello and a bit of piano, I’d say piano is more about co-ordination and multi-tasking where cello is more about dexterity.
Cello you can ‘finger’ things a multitude of different ways, whereas piano is just one note is in one place and one finger has to hit it. So I’d say they are both hard, but in different ways, and it depends on the way your brain is wired.
carrut
8 Nov 07 at 6:05 pm