Singing easy - piano difficult

[franz_]

For some reasons, piano is the hardest instrument and singing the most easy 'instrument' to me.
If you have a great voice, you are lucky, you have many opportunities to perform, you don't have to study THAT hard, and everyone will love you for your beautiful charming voice.

A pianist may study his whole life, 12 hours a day, having no concerts, no money, and no succes in public. For just 1 piece, we sometimes have to study months, even years.

Some people agree with me?

[rallestar]

I don't know much about singing, but it appears to me that it's rather pointless to try and decide which instruments are more difficult - For each and every instrument, one can always get better, and I bet that there's just as many passionated singers out there, who practice every day to become the best. I can't imagine that singing takes less practice than piano.

[amelialw]

My mom started teaching me how to sing before I was even 1. Consequently by the time I could stand up on my own, I was singing in the children's choir with kids who were wayy older then me. Somehow, I have just always been able to learn to sing something easily, I never have problem memorizing the words, nor with the pitching. When I joined youth choir, others had to practise and I never did but I still was better at it then them.

As for piano, it involves a lot of delication, commitment, time, money, it's a matter of whether you have the determination to succeed. It also depends on the teacher alot, if the teacher does not teach you a certain skill correctly, down the line, it can be very tedious to correct. But for singing, if you have the talent and the good voice, the ability, somehow things will be made easier for you and you don't even need a teacher.

but I guess, everything is still hard, if you want to make it far and achieve alot. I can also tell you that singing is not easier then playing the piano

[matterintospirit]

For some reasons, piano is the hardest instrument and singing the most easy 'instrument' to me.
If you have a great voice, you are lucky, you have many opportunities to perform, you don't have to study THAT hard, and everyone will love you for your beautiful charming voice.

A pianist may study his whole life, 12 hours a day, having no concerts, no money, and no succes in public. For just 1 piece, we sometimes have to study months, even years.

Some people agree with me?

Sour grapes why complain? Any high form of art is hugely difficult to accomplish. Why compare ???I will provide you with sad violin music and hankercheif  then you will get back to practicing, silly.

[jlh]

Yesterday I went to an Italian opera masterclass coaching with one of the world's foremost opera coaches (who happened to be Italian).  I can tell you that it was every bit as intense and artistically taxing on the singers as piano masterclasses are...  Singing is one of those things that get more difficult -- not easier -- the more advanced you are and become.  It's much the same as playing Mozart... the notes are easy, but the more you are able to do the more difficult it becomes.

[mike_lang]

I agree that there are very complex technical issues to be grappled with in the study of piano, but the problems in studying the voice present a different, yet I believe, equal level of difficulty.  Consider the conundrum of learning the technique of an instrument that is not before your eyes to be seen, but rather inside of you.  There is some anatomical information to be utilized in this study, but the methods arise predominantly from the fruits of the process, i.e., the sound heard (furthermore, the sound hear by the performer is not identical to that heard by the audience, in a way idiosyncratic to the voice).  I do not think that the singer is less ingenious than the pianist in his labors, but rather, ingenious in a different way.

On the other hand, the time put in by the singer is limited by the instrument itself, whereas the pianist's only limit (assuming that he has a flawless technique) is his concentration.

Best,
Michael Langlois

[dmc]

I've been taking piano lessons on & off a good part of my life.  I just recently took some voice lessons.  Anyone who thinks for a minute its easy is WAY uninformed about it.  The breathing techiniques, posture, styles etc are much more demanding than I would have ever imagined.  My vox lessons only lasted about 5 months and I barely scratched the surface of whats possible.  In terms of difficulty, the two disciplines (vox vs piano) are like apples & oranges.  You can't compare them.  Its one thing to hold a melody.  However the difference between that and singing well utilizing all the tools at a singer's disposal is somewhat like comparing "Chopsticks" to a Mozart sonata.

There's much more to it than meets the eye (or ear).  No way its easy !

[hempnall]

Chopin is quoted as saying to one of his piano pupils..

'you must sing if you wish to play'

In fact, he was very interested in the technical difficulties that singers face, such as breathing.

So maybe musical instruments aren't so different to each other.

The above quote troubles me because I have an awful voice and I constantly think that Chopin woudn't rate my playing.

[jinfiesto]

Chopin concieved all of his music vocally... I think there's a definite relationship between piano and voice. Although, I think by nature, the piano has the potential to be more "virtuosic" than any other  instrument.

[richard black]

As a pianist who spends most of his working life in the company of singers, I would tend to suggest the opposite is true.

[soliloquy]

Various instruments are difficult in their own ways.  I would say of the major instruments, the string instruments are by far the hardest and slowest to learn, but that the piano has the capability of being the most difficult, simply because of the massive size of the repertoire at the utmost extremes of the super-difficult works for piano (Xenakis, Finnissy etc) excede those of most other instruments.  I have seen the string works of Ferneyhough and they are managable compared to Tract or Synaphai, for instance; other instruments just do not have the capability of requiring as many simultaneous physical and mental actions, to put it as simply as possible.  The voice, though, is not something you "just have" and the great singers practiced hours and hours and hours.  Do you know what a "castrado" is?  That's dedication, btw.  Sure some people can just sing, but do you think the sort of people you're talking about, the ones who can sort of sing some pop songs well or have a big voice in their church choir, would get into Curtis or Juilliard? (of course not saying these are the preeminent schools for voice; they are all in Italy/Germany/Austria)  Just like there is a difference between "being able to play the piano" and "being a pianist", there is a difference in "being able to sing" and "being a singer".

[pianoplayer88]

I totally disagree with you on that. Yes, singing is easier than piano, but it's a lot harder than you think. I've been taking voice lessons since February 2005 and I still haven't learned everything there is to know. There is the breathing technique, using your diaphragm and your lungs. Posture. Head voice, chest voice, warming up. The list goes on and on...So you might want to rethink that.

[richard black]

I've been taking voice lessons since February 2005 and I still haven't learned everything there is to know.

I should think not! I know plenty of singers who are in their 30s, have been studying hard at singing since about 20, and still haven't learned - well, never mind 'everything there is to know', simply 'how to sing well'.

On the other hand, it's not their fault if the standard of singing teaching is, with honorable exceptions, dismal. Plenty of piano teachers leave a lot to be desired (I've been lucky, having had 3 good, and only one really bad, teachers in my life) but at least in teaching piano you can see what you're dealing with. In teaching singing, neither the pupil nor, most times, the teacher knows what muscles are doing what.