IYO, is the piano the most difficult instrument?

[jbmajor]

This is an extremely over-discussed, and perhaps relative topic in general about which instrument is the most difficult to master, but I think the allure of the topic is wanting to know that one can play what is considered the most difficult.  
There seem to be a lot of insightful, intelligent posters on this board, so I thought I'd ask this question here.  

I'm asking this question in terms of the overall amount of skill needed to play said instrument that contributes to its degree of difficulty.  I've heard the french horn and violin are also difficult, but most people seem to think that piano requires the most skill.  Agree or disagree?

[rlefebvr]

I don't believe the piano is the most difficult to play at all.
It is however one of the most challenging musically and requires and even demands a great knowledge of music to be well played.

For my money, the violin and it's screeching sound is the hardest to master as far as the instrument itself is concerned.

[Piazzo22]

All instruments are equally difficult if you take account of the exigences in pieces that are played for that instrument.
So, you cannot play a poliphonic piece on an oboe, but you have pieces equally difficult for that instrument in other aspects that not include poliphony.

The level of exigence for the most difficult pieces in all instruments are the same.

[Spatula]

Well for learning curves, I think both the piano and the violin are the hardest to get a solid hold on.

[Tash]

i was contemplating this last year, and came to the conclusion that each instrument has a degree of difficulty, but that's relative to who you are and whether you're naturally good at it. like i can play the piano, maybe not completely mastered it, but then i have to sing at uni and i suck at it and have issues with singing the right pitch and stuff, so to me it's quite difficult. however my friend is a fantabulous singer and it's much easier for her to get the right pitch and sing with expression and it sounds really good, but stick her on a piano and she's useless.actually i don't think i'm getting to the core of the whole question...oh well

basically i think it's relative, depending on the individual's abilities

[Daevren]

Piano is one of the easiest instruments.

Sure, it has very hard repetiore, but the instrument itself is pretty easy to play.

Anyone can get a good tone out of the piano, while on violin only a few people have a really good tone. Its the same with some other instruments where you have more control over your tone, guitar, sax, etc.

The piano is the most logical instruments, you play it with two hands, you have 88 keys, the same octave repeating several times, all keys are even in size, you don't need any callus on your fingers/hands, no intonation problems. How can it be easier?

The piano is so easy you can actually play whole orchestra reductions. Just imagine how hard that would be on a violin...  

[monk]

Yes, piano is one of the easiest instruments.

Of course it's not easy to play the piano VERY good and to tap it's full potential. But violin, french horn, harp, clarinet or trombone (to name a few notorious examples) are MUCH harder.

Best Wishes,
Monk

[klavierkonzerte]

the violin has dozens of left/right hand techniques (harmonics, pizzcato, flying staccato, sautille and ricochet bowing) to name a few.
and you have to deal with intonation.
it's way  harder than any instrument.

[squinchy]

I think the piano is one of the easier instruments to start on for the reasons Daevren discussed; there are so few things you have to do properly in order to produce a musical tune on it. It would be one of the hardest to master, due to the enormity of its repetoire.

Little pokey-quasi-annoying note:

Wouldn't the viola be harder than the violin? You still have to worry about tone quality, intonation, bowing techniques, shifting, posture, and vibrato, but you also have to recognize the instrument's unprojecting range, the sluggish (but rewardingly beautiful) C string, a wider body to work your wrist around in high positions, thicker strings to develop callouses on, and more fingerboard to become familiar with, to mention a few.

[jbmajor]

basically i think it's relative, depending on the individual's abilities

I think this is very true.

[jbmajor]

Piano is one of the easiest instruments.

Sure, it has very hard repetiore, but the instrument itself is pretty easy to play.

Anyone can get a good tone out of the piano, while on violin only a few people have a really good tone. Its the same with some other instruments where you have more control over your tone, guitar, sax, etc.

The piano is the most logical instruments, you play it with two hands, you have 88 keys, the same octave repeating several times, all keys are even in size, you don't need any callus on your fingers/hands, no intonation problems. How can it be easier?

The piano is so easy you can actually play whole orchestra reductions. Just imagine how hard that would be on a violin...  

Well, this is also a very good point.  In terms of actually playing the instrument, the piano is one of the easiest; as it's difficulty lies in its tremendous repertoire, which is what unfolds the instrument's difficulties.  

For instance, it took me about twice as long to play a simple three-chord song on the guitar as it took to learn a couple of complete authentically transcribed Billy Joel songs on the piano.  Granted I wasn't playing either particularly well, but neither was I on the guitar.  

Piano's difficulty lies in being able to use each hand independently(as well as together), with finger speed and precision, and is 51% a mental game.  

[donjuan]

I agree with a number of people here the violin is more difficult than the piano, but what about wine glasses filled with different volumes of water?  ha- now THERE is a challenge!  Imagine if someone transcribed Rach 3 for the Wine glasses!
donjuan

[Nightscape]

The French Horn is an extremely difficult instrument to play.  Anybody can play a note on a piano, and even on the violin it is easy to make a pitch (regardless of tone).  But to even make a pitch on the french horn is difficult.  You must work with a very small mouthpiece, so you must have tight lips.  You have to worry about your right hand placement in the bell and how it affects the tone,timbre, and intonoation of the instrument.  It is very easy to 'miss' a note (to crack the pitch), So you must always have the right pitch in your head before you play it- having the right fingering will not guarentee anything.  For example, one fingering may be able to produce up to 5 or 6 pitches (much more than any other brass instrument).  And then, of course, you have to worry about the usual brass instrument problems - like circular breathing, a good even tone, keeping a steady pitch(especially hard on the french horn), spit collection, and not injuring your lips.  It's also the only brass instrument played with the left hand.  It also hurts!  The bell cuts into your thighs and can become painful if you have to play it for too long.  Let's not forget about tuning either... there are 10 pieces of adjustable tubing that affect the tuning of the instrument.

And there are so many important horn parts and solos in the orchestral repetoire!  It's almost frightening, really.

[liszmaninopin]

I think that the piano's main difficulty lies in the complexity of the music played.  Besides the organ, harpsichord, and other keyboard instruments, the piano has a much more complex part than all of these other instruments.  I can't imagine a horn or a violin playing a 4 part fugue, for example.  In the sense of repertoire, I feel that piano (along with the organ) is one of the most difficult instruments.  But in the sense of tonal and volume control, it is probably middle of the range IMO.  Achieving a good legato effect is very challenging on the piano, and even more so on the organ.  However, a quick, staccato effect is something rather easy on a piano.  All instruments have their own challenges.

[Max]

The hardest is viola - as no-body likes it, even if you do play well.

[super_ardua]

No violin,  and viola are.

You can hunch and play good piano.  But you'll find it quite difficult to play anything better sounding than a cat in agony if your posture is slightly wrong.

Also playing octaves and thirds etc. are much harder on violin.

[Rach3]

The hardest instrument is undoubtably the 'cello.

There is nothing inherently easy about piano, it is not at all like pushing buttons. It is one of the few instruments which requires a truly complete musician, capable of understanding soloistic playing, large-scale musical structure (sonatas), and true counterpoint - which taken together might explain why there are surprisingly many pianist-conductors.

The hardest instrument to 'get to work' is arguable - French Horns, Bassoons, and Double Basses come to mind. Then again they don't nearly go as far as pianists or violinsts. BUT - do not dare suggest any inferiority to these instruments! They have Mahler, Mozart, and Edgar Meyer, respectively.*


*sidenote - anyone here heard Telemann's Taffelmusik? Incredible music! The bassoon solo is hair-raising!

[Spatula]

Piano is one of the easiest instruments.

Sure, it has very hard repetiore, but the instrument itself is pretty easy to play.

Anyone can get a good tone out of the piano, while on violin only a few people have a really good tone. Its the same with some other instruments where you have more control over your tone, guitar, sax, etc.

The piano is the most logical instruments, you play it with two hands, you have 88 keys, the same octave repeating several times, all keys are even in size, you don't need any callus on your fingers/hands, no intonation problems. How can it be easier?

The piano is so easy you can actually play whole orchestra reductions. Just imagine how hard that would be on a violin...  

It's easy for a total noob to play mary had a little lamb on a piano ... cause I mean all you need is less than an octave span of keys but impossible for on violin.

Next time...you could probably pick anyone out at random and make them sit infront.  

you play the first few notes...they follow along because they actually see you press different keys to make the individual sound..

try that on a violin...sounds like a dying cat simply because the way that the bow strikes the strings and the hands hold down the specific chords is so touchy and meticulous.

Even trying to do that on trumpet is no easy task for a n00b either.  But its the "easyness" of the piano that allows for more voicing and ideas to flow than say a single voiced instrument ... a recorder (bernhard what do you say??? am I right or wrong??? happy happy happy!

Bernhard-sempai...anou..sou desu ka??

[CC]

Piano got its reputation as a difficult instrument to learn because too many students were never taught how to practice correctly, in which case you spent your entire life learning almost nothing unless you devoted all your time to it -- even then it was iffy.

Therefore, the more pertinent question is, "how much difference does it make if you use the correct or wrong practice methods for learning piano?"

If you are lucky and get a good teacher or learn the correct practice methods, you are a concert pianist in 10 yrs; if not you are barely passable amateur for life. That difference can be bigger than any difficulty difference between piano and other instruments!

[bachmaninov]

Well... Let me put it this way!

It would take me 8 minutes to teach a 4 year old how to play mary-had-a-little-lamb on the piano.... Whereas it would probably take me 3 hours to teach a 4 year old how to hold a violin correctly.

[squinchy]

Well... Let me put it this way!

It would take me 8 minutes to teach a 4 year old how to play mary-had-a-little-lamb on the piano.... Whereas it would probably take me 3 hours to teach a 4 year old how to hold a violin correctly.

It took me almost two months of 45 minute weekly lessons to develop a decent posture and bow grip on the viola, thank you.

[jbmajor]

Sure, the piano is the easiest to learn something simple, but it arguably has the most difficult repertoire of all instruments.  How many other instruments require the technique of counterpoint, as well as tremendous speed and precision?

I would say once you know how to make a musical sound on a bowed instrument, the hardest part is over.  The rest is just further developing and applying that technique to more difficult pieces.  

The ultimate question in difficulty is, if you take the hardest piece of music from each instrument, which one would you be able to learn first.

[Piazzo22]

Guys, all instruments are the same!!! Can´t you see?!!

[teccomin]

Piano is hardest in a way that you have to micromanage so many different layers of voice. Hence piano has the greatest demand in musical knowledge and experience. Which is why most conductors were pianists.

[sashaco]

The question is essentially incoherent.  It is easier to play the melody "frere jaques" on the piano than it is on the violin.  Is that playing the piano (or the violin)?  If it is, then the piano is easier than the violin.  Is it easier for a pianist to play a Beethoven Sonata with a level of expressiveness and accuracy equal to a Brendel than to play the Beethoven violin concerto at a
comparable level?  Depends on the individual, as several have noted.  For most of us either would be impossible.  Is it harder to rise to the top of the solo-piano-playing world or that of the violin?  Depends on which has more competitors, more than on the nature of the instrument.  It might be harder to get a decent sound out of a flugel horn  (sp?) than out of an oboe, but it's certainly easier to become a world class flugel-hornist, since fewer people are vying for that honor.  An ordinary pianist with five years experience would have a hard time learning the accompaniment to a Beethoven Violin Sonata, while her equivalent in the Violin could make a reasonable stab at the violin part.  Does that mean that the violin is easier, or that the Sonatas were just written that way, or that Beethoven expected more of the violinist in terms of colours, or that....?   I could frame the question another 30 ways, but you get the point, I'm sure.  You have to figure out what you mean when you ask the question- then perhaps it can be answered.

[peterjmathis]

I'd say the piano is somewhere in the middle. It's not nearly as difficult to get started with as the stringed instruments, but not as easy as, say, the recorder, which has far fewer notes available.

I think many people might see it as hardest because it was their first instrument, however. The piano would be more difficult for a completely musically untrained person to learn than the violin would be for someone who can already play the piano, if that makes any sense.

[dss62467]

I think it's an impossible question to answer unless you've tried learning all the instruments.   There are instruments out there that look extremely difficult to me.... like the violin, or cello.  The trombone and bugle look hard to me, too.  The idea of not having specific keys or strings baffles me.  I think any instrument is easy to a degree to learn, but to master is a whole different ball of wax.

Listen to your basic garage band drummer, then put him up against someone like Buddy Rich...

Then you might want to change the argument to which genre is harder to play?  Classical is easiest to me, I'm at a loss if it comes to learning jazz.  My father wants me to learn Theoleus Monk... please.  I can barely get through Vince Giraldi.  And I don't even do that well.   I have serious admiration for people who can play everything.  And a lot of affection for those who just try and enjoy themselves.

[dss62467]

I asked my teacher tonight what he thinks it most difficult.  He is quite accomplished in both the violin and piano, and without hesitation, he said the violin is much harder.  Apparantly it's very important to start learning when you're young because you don't notice how terrible you sound for so long.   It's much easier for me to sit through the novice piano students at his recitals than the violin players.   That's painful.

[end]

Hi,

I'm an interesting case. Gift-challenged (I'm not trying to be humble), I'm learning the guitar (classical), the piano and the violin. I find the piano the easiest. The violin is VERY difficult, but the one I love the most. I study several hours per day. The piano, sometimes I pass weeks without playing. When I go back, in a few hours I'm producing something nice (for my poor standards).

Though quite difficult, the guitar is an incredible instrument. I can play nice things on the guitar, very difficult pieces, beautifully. And I've been playing it for less than 3 years. If I'd play my guitar in public (and I have), people would enjoy it. The piano, yeah, too, but I know very few pieces. The violin, I wouldn't dare to play it in public just now. Mind you, I'm talking about playing for a "public" of non musicians (family and friends), just normal people who likes a bit of classical music.

The violin difficulties are not only about intonation. The bowing's so complicated! So complicated! I'm learning ricochet, for instance... Jeez... if you don't love it (I love it), you will give it up...

But then, I listen to Liszt's étude d'éxécution transcendante no.12, or 4, then to Paganini's variations on god save the king (violin), or Paganini's carnival of venice (violin), and I think, at that high level, they're all surely equally difficult.

Sight reading: easy on the violin, OK on the piano, impossible with the guitar. I don't know a single piece by heart on the violin, nor on the piano. I play reading. For the guitar, I have to memorize the piece.

So, from my own experience, if you're gift-challenged like me, and you want quick rewards, try the classical guitar, or the piano. If you're willing to work VERY hard to get the easiest piece sounding just about acceptable, if you're willing to be really humble and to be confronted with your limits, your weaknesses, then, the violin is for you.

I can play the guitar or the piano late at night. The violin: no way! I'm always self-conscious when I'm practicing, sorry for the neighbors. I'm always telling them to hit the wall if it becomes unbearable! They say they like it and they wish they could hear it better! There must be something terribly wrong with their ears!

I was told about the French Horn: it's VERY difficult to get started. Very difficult. But once you get the kick of it, it's not so hard.

Just my 2 cents.

BTW: somebody said nobody likes the viola. I love it! I'd like a violin with five strings to get that fantastic viola C string. It's beauuuuutiful! Viva the viola!!

[wogandmush]

Once you get past the initial stage of learning I would say all instruments are as hard as you make them.

[kookaburra]

No, I disagree.
Violin is WAY harder.

The piano is a complete instrument, in that if you learn piano, you learn all the theory principles and all the notes, which can then be used in learning any other instrument. So you have more notes to learn, if you think of it that way, but this is an advantage if you want to then learn another instrument. With a piano, you press the key= you get the note. this is what makes the piano easier, because you can play a tune even if you don't have an ear. Whereas with an instrument such as violin, you have to train your fingers to be in exactly the right place to get the right note, and besides it's more than that with pressure and position and etc. So in that way, the piano is easier; you don't have to work so hard just to get a note.

But yes, once you get past the first few years of basics, an instrument is what you make of it.


 

[roseli]

as many said, it's easy everyone can play it lol buuut the problem is the changes you have to make on your brain to play it well. you've to play for hours to coordinate your fingers, and get some strength on your unused hand, and be able to open it the max you can to play a octave.
and read the music? you have to be able to read 2 different things for 2 hands, and those hands move in different velocities and with different intensities.
lol this are my problems since I just started lool I can play music, but the piano it self... no yet... it's like a car, you can drive it, but it takes years before you are a real driver.
an instrument that I love and I think it's difficult, it's the portuguese guitar:

you can jump the 1st 40seconds : )

[synthex]

?

[kookaburra]

?

Your insightful observations are appreciated by all.

[berniano]

Harp is harder.................physically, that is.

But the difficulty lies in the hand position, ammount of muscle required to produce good tone, and the necessity to create accidentals by using pedals or lever VERY quickly. Also, it is very difficult not to buzz strings with finger nails, and bang the harp with sloppy pedalling.

The difficulty in piano lies in the complexity and counterpoint found in much of the advanced repertoire (all the hardest piano repertoire I've seen is WAY more complex and layered than the abosultely most difficult harp pieces), plus the necessity to develop an adaptable touch and attack.

So basically, between harp and piano it's mainly a matter of muscle or mind................. whichever you prefer to exert harder.
Take it from pianist who has chosen neither to major nor to double major in harp performance, despite intense pressure from harp teacher, parents, and orchestra conductor combined.   
......And it was my piano teacher who would have been fine had I been a whole-hearted harpist.
Harp is SUPERB for gigging, though....I'll grant it that. Easy way to make good money.

Sorry, just had to get it out of my system. I'm tired of diva harpists who tell me that they hate the piano,  but who also could never fathom half the counterpoint of a Bach Fugue or Chopin Ballade.


Berniano

[bapdoo]

IDK, it's a tie between the harp and bagpipes for me. (Not that I play any of them...)

[iansinclair]

Do you prefer roast beef or Tuesday?  It's the same kind of question: you are comparing very different things when trying to figure out what is the hardest instrument.  I have -- in the course of a somewhat odd career -- played (and made a living playing) classical organ; piano, harpsichord, guitar, recorders, flute, and french horn -- all to a high amateur level.  Each requires its own set of skills and has its own booby traps.  Variations in literature... things to learn about interpretation... sheer muscular technique... and on and on.

For sheer absolute treachery, though -- and thus apparent skill level required to survive, never mind do a decent job, I'd pick french horn.  Not only is it far and away the most difficult of the brasses to play, it also picks up many of the problems of intonation of the strings.  Advanced technique is amazingly difficult (as has been noted, there is no such thing as a "correct" fingering for any particular note, never mind any particular passage).  The worst of it is that the horn is commonly horribly exposed in terms of orchestration, and trust me -- if you are the first horn in a symphony, and boob, you have 3,000 people in the audience who know all about it.

[gregh]

Wow. Lot of replies, and reasoned and thoughtful replies at that. I largely agree with pretty much everyone.

Every instrument has its challenges. And--this is one of Greg's Laws--there's always more to it than you think. If you're involved in it then you see the challenges of whatever it is that you're doing, but you may be totally ignorant of what the next guy faces. He's working just as hard as you are.

For instance, being totally new to piano, play a high C. Now, being totally new to trumpet, play the same note on the trumpet--you can't do it, you can't even get out of the staff. And some trumpeters never get to the "double high C" in their lifetimes. Play a middle-of-the-staff note on trumpet and it may sound dull, or pinched, or out of tune. Or the notes don't "speak" right away, or you can only play them loud. So many problems just in generating the sound. On a piano, hit the key and the tone and intonation will be correct. Trumpet is an athletic instrument in that it takes not just skill but a great deal of muscular conditioning to get through a performance.

Trumpet is just the other instrument that I know well enough to talk about. French horns were already brought up, and I believe they are, indeed, more difficult, although composers don't demand the same range from them. The long plumbing puts the partials so close together that it's easy to hit a wrong note, and I don't even understand what they're doing with their other hand stuffed up the bell.

Even a recorder, played by grade school kids, becomes a lot more difficult if you want to really play it in tune. Each recorder is different enough that you need to spend time with a tuner to figure out how to finger notes for that particular one, and also to play louder and softer notes in tune since it goes sharp when you blow hard and flat when you blow soft.

The challenge of the piano is largely summarized by playing more than one note at a time, I think. Using two hands independently is what I find the most difficult--left-hand part is good, right-hand part is good, put them together and it all falls apart. I never had that problem with trumpet.

[iansinclair]

Trumpet is just the other instrument that I know well enough to talk about. French horns were already brought up, and I believe they are, indeed, more difficult, although composers don't demand the same range from them. The long plumbing puts the partials so close together that it's easy to hit a wrong note, and I don't even understand what they're doing with their other hand stuffed up the bell.

Just as a brief comment -- the range of the french horn is actually greater than the other brasses, and is all used.  The usable range (for an F horn, as most are) is from the F two octaves and a fifth below middle C to the F an octave and a fourth above middle C (4 octaves).  From middle C up it's all playable natural (that is, without valves) although use of the valves can, on a particular horn, make certain notes either sound better or be more reliable.  Which differs from horn to horn...  There is at least one familiar place where almost the entire range is used -- in the finale of the Dvorak Sym. #9 (New World), the first horn starts in the middle (more or less) of the range, goes to a fifth below the top, and then drops to the fundamental.  Sometimes.  It's not uncommon for the first horn to take the first, higher, part, and either the second or fourth to take the lower...

[gregh]

Just as a brief comment -- the range of the french horn is actually greater than the other brasses, and is all used.  The usable range (for an F horn, as most are) is from the F two octaves and a fifth below middle C to the F an octave and a fourth above middle C (4 octaves).

Ah. Sorry, when I meant range I wasn't thinking of the difference from top to bottom, but rather the high end. There's a lot of trumpeters that go past what they call "double high C". High C for trumpeters is the same as piano, two ledger lines above the treble clef (modulo one step if it's a B-flat trumpet). Double high C is an octave above that. I meant that French horns usually aren't asked to play that far above the staff, although I have no doubt that some horn players could if called upon.

[indianajo]

I've played both piano and bassoon, well enough to succeed in local competitions on the piano and at the All-State level of the bassoon. I thought the bassoon was harder, and never really got the hang of producing the dark tone most pros get out of the instrument.  I never used any vibrato either, it was a subject not covered in my five years of private lessons. Only recently, watching the NY Philharmonic on HDTV, am I starting to get the idea of how vibrato should sound on a bassoon.  Unfortunately, there is no instrument now to continue my learning, the school owned the instrument.  New bassoons are up over $20000 now, that is probably a skill I won't pursue. 
The piano, the difficulty is that the famous performances are played waay too fast.  I can play now some of the pieces on famous LP's, but I enjoy my pedestrian pace rather than the race Mr. Serkin made of it.      
Violin is so difficult, the pitch and tone of the entire high school orchestra I found a real trial to play with.  The pitch was so much more unison in the high school wind band. Most of those orchestra students were so screechy.  It wasn't until I got to play with the All-district orchestra, that I really started to enjoy it.  
As for the French Horn, I heard the principal at the city professional Orchestra make a mistake the last concert I went to, so it must really be difficult.  

[ranniks]

So far I've played both piano and violin.

Would say they are both as difficult. The piano might be more difficult though.

I advanced swiftly in regards to both instruments.

I mean, try to move the left hand as a beginner on the violin.

I mean, try to play with two voices on the piano as a beginner (some Bach two voices for example). Sure, anyone can press the keys in a piano, but only the ones who persist can feel both hands, both melodies, etc etc.

The violin was not very hard to learn for me. I put in practise though.....Maybe the ones claiming violin is more difficult, don't put in as much effort.

[awesom_o]

The violin was not very hard to learn for me. I put in practise though.....Maybe the ones claiming violin is more difficult, don't put in as much effort.

Can we here you play something? Maybe some solo Bach?

[ranniks]

Can we here you play something? Maybe some solo Bach?

I stopped playing violin because of time-management (I couldn't combine two instruments due to other responsibilities). My words are experiences of someone who played the violin for 3 months. As little as that may be, it gave me enough information to make a speculation for the future.

Just because I said it wasn't very difficult doesn't mean I can suddenly play Bach with the violin. Those are just words out of my own experience sir. if I still played violin to this day, I think I could play Bach on the violin by now though.

You can't just play Chopin a month after starting the piano either. Well, you could, but that doesn't mean it will sound very well.

[awesom_o]

Understood.

I actually played the violin for about 4 or 5 months.

It was twenty-two years ago, so my skills have deteriorated considerably.

Speaking as both a cellist and a pianist, I would have to say that the cello is much harder to play than the piano, but the repertoire is in general less demanding than it is on the piano.

[gregh]

Speaking as both a cellist and a pianist, I would have to say that the cello is much harder to play than the piano, but the repertoire is in general less demanding than it is on the piano.

That's a distinction that I think everyone understands but it hasn't been asserted very much. Piano isn't difficult because it's an especially difficult instrument to play, it's difficult because composers have kept pushing pianists' abilities until it has become as difficult as they choose to make it.

Look up "jazz recorder" on YouTube. The speed of those fingers on the holes, and the finger-tonguing coordination that must be there... wow. Any instrument can be made difficult, depending on what you play on it.

[outin]

Speaking as both a cellist and a pianist, I would have to say that the cello is much harder to play than the piano, but the repertoire is in general less demanding than it is on the piano.

I have had some thoughts on trying the cello recently. I toyed with a violin a little as a kid, but have never liked the sound. Cello has a lovely sound. I have a good ear and a good left hand, but my right hand is giving me problems with the piano. So far piano has been the most difficult instrument (physically) for me (the others being flute and guitar). I guess I should find out if I could have some trial lessons without actually acquiring a cello... not to replace piano but to try something else also before I drop dead. I still have my flute, but playing it seems boring after the piano. Not much interesting repertoire to learn...

[j_menz]

I have had some thoughts on trying the cello recently...... I still have my flute, but playing it seems boring after the piano. Not much interesting repertoire to learn...

Whereas the Cello has those wonderful Bach Suites. 

[outin]

Whereas the Cello has those wonderful Bach Suites. 

Who knows, maybe maybe his music is less boring on the Cello 

[j_menz]

Who knows, maybe maybe his music is less boring on the Cello 

I'm not in a position to judge, rejecting the starting point, but have a listen and see for yourself: