yikes

The chinese pipa is probably the hardest instrument to play. Marching band instruments are the easiest to play, Ive played trumpet for 4 years. Finger picking instruments take the most dexterity in fingers such as the pipa and banjo. Blowing air does not count.

? How can blowing air NOT count!!!??? How much do you think I practiced on my all metal band cutting piccolo to play piano? just piano! not pianissimo! Never mind that, how can blowing air NOT count? How do you think all those lovely instruments sound good? DYNAMICS AND SOUND CREATED BY BLOWING AIR! How would an orchestra sound if they only played mezzo forte? Would they be a bit plain and not interesing? Probably yes.

Sorry for spazing at you, but its true

i still think the kazoo is the hardest. ive been tryin to master it for years, with just no luck. oh man, its so early.

dave, I can`t help cracking up on what you say sometimes!

the hardest instrument is(fact) piano. What other instrument do you have to read two cleffs at the same time? As ive learnt, you can play faster on the piano then anyother instrument, wich makes it that much harder. going fast isnt the easiest thing, but since you can, once I got to harder songs, more then half of them either have 32notes on the left hand or 64notes on the right. Piano cant hold a note as long as other instruments, so it has to fill in the spots with other notes. and whoever said sax was easy is really stupid, i play that as well. its hard to play 16th notes let alone 32notes. geesh, this one song i had before was full of them... try getting your fingers around something curved like that. I go to a performing arts school and the people who play flute and clarinets would probly slap you if they found out people said it was easy. since their instrument is flat(most of the time) their expected to play whole songs of just 32notes. Yes, all the instruments i just named are easy to start, but once you actually get good, your music gets brutally hard.
but pianos still by far the hardest to master.
Jen

Actually, piano isn`t the hardest, for the following reasons:

Intonation

Tone colour

Virtuoso techniques

All these are non existant on the piano, they`re pre-set as soon as you hit the keys. Trust me, I`ve played piano and violin, and violin is ten times harder.

Marimba has to read two octaves at times as well ... of course it *is* a keyboard, but still .. it isn`t the piano and it does use two clefs.

The Theremin.

couldn`t you also say it has to do with the person as well?

i am so friggin uncoordinated and i can`t read two clefs at the same time, thus, although the bassoon might be harder than the piano for some people, i find the piano really challenging... =/

I searched on google, and learned a bit on theremin, and I do believe it is, or close to the hardest instrument. It`s really bizzare...

I`ve played around a (friend`s) theremin ... it`s definitely weird but not as hard to play as you might think. It`s like singing with your hands. If you can play music by ear in any capacity the theremin is not difficult to get a handle on.

I find classical guitar and piano to be the hardest instruments ... mainly because I was never good at either. Flute is my main instrument ... followed by oboe. I played the bassoon in high school and college, and while it was more challenging than any other woodwind I played, I DID learn to play. Not so with guitar.

I can pick at a piano and play some elementary tunes (heart and soul anyone?). I never wrapped my mind around the guitar at all. I bought a guitar once and sold it a year later. My husband plays classical guitar and even when he`s tried to teach me it requires far more coordination that I`m capable of.

I think the piano is the hardest to master...anybody can easily pick it up and play a tune, but who could actually play it for a church, choir, band ect. Very few can. I have been playing piano for 8 years and I am just begining to play for small groups in my church.

Of course the hardest instrument the play is the triangle. YOU HAVE TO HIT IT! I mean, sure some istruments might be pretty hard such as guitar with all the playing up to 6 notes at once, string bends, harmonics, hammerons, pull offs, vibrato, trill and all that, but triangle is SO much harder, do you know how much skill you need to hit a bit of metal with another bit?