piano or violin

[crazy for ivan moravec]

change topic, sorry... is piano more difficult than playing violin? or other way around? i do believe we can compare it.

[alzado]

I came, I saw, I played.

[g_s_223]

The only significant difference is I think it helps a lot to start very early on the violin, whereas that's less important on the piano, and in fact starting too early may be a mistake  (octaves etc).

[zheer]

I think the violin is more difficult, what would i know i dont play any other instrument.

[arensky]

Violin is harder to learn initialy, it's very uncomfortable to hold and just learning how to hold the thing properly and get a good tone out of it can take several years. ANYONE can play musically at the piano almost instantly. At the piano gravity is your friend, and it's most basic technical motion is simply pushing down or falling onto levers, which then do most of the work for you. The violin is like minature Greco-Roman wrestling for the hand.

In the advanced levels, the technical difficulty of violin plateaus out, there's only so much you can do with it (don't get me wrong, it's still quite a lot!). A comparison of the Tchaikovsky and Berg Violin Concerti will bear this out, I think. Then compare Tchaikovsky's 1st Piano Concerto with Prokofiev's or Bartok's  2nd Piano Concerti. Then continue on to Elliot Carter's Piano Concerto. It seems that piano writing and the technical demands made on pianists just keep increasing. Violin technique seems to have leveled off around the time of Brahms and Wienawski. There are also the differences in repertoire between the two instruments, as well as the monophonic vs. polyphonic aspect. Think of all the Piano Concerti and contrast that with the number of Violin Concerti, JUST in the common repertoire, not going off the beaten track.

Violinists or doublers out there, please correct me if I'm wrong about any of this...

[princessdecadence]

I would say violin.  It's harde to get a beautiful sound out of violin.  You can try and play a tune and either you make it sing like a violin should or a cat being butchered.  I can hate myself to death playing the violin but never the piano. 

[kelly_kelly]

Overall I'm not sure. Piano came more naturally to me, but I feel far more nervous when performing piano than viola (I know this discussion is referring to violin, but it's the same idea anyway)

[dinosaurtales]

i don't play the violin, but it seems dreadfully difficult to me. Not only does it seem difficult to get good tuning and basic sound, but all the different bowing techniques!  yow!

[stevie]

the basic technique of playing the violin is more difficult, but like arensky says, theres only so much the violin can do.

also bear in mind the average piano piece/concerto will have many many times the amount of notes to play and memorise

so, understanding these conditions, i say the piano...

[princessdecadence]

the basic technique of playing the violin is more difficult, but like arensky says, theres only so much the violin can do.

also bear in mind the average piano piece/concerto will have many many times the amount of notes to play and memorise

so, understanding these conditions, i say the piano...

That's probably true...

[clef]

I have played both.  I am 15 and I have been playing piano for 9 years, (which I enjoy very much) and I had played violin for 5 years but gave it up 2 years ago.  I enjoyed piano much more then violin, the sounds on the violin insulted my ears too much, and I don't like standing for so long.  In violin you might learn a bit more about tones and semitones as every note looks similar, unlike piano, so you will have to have the notes as knowledge, because you can't check it, like you can on a piano.