PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Which is easier piano or guitar?

I agree with this from the comments


………I find it's not difficult to be a low skill guitarist and be able to play things at a very basic level and most people would say it sounds fine. If I did the same on the piano, it would not impress at all. Piano takes more skill to get to playing anything that sounds halfway decent ……You can play guitar badly and still play enough to sing a pop song cover with your guitar,

The way the guys compete in their poker face skills looks amazing

I agree guitar is easier to fake play than a piano.
I base this on the fact I have never seen a piano being played around a camp fire

I spent a while looking at polls of "which instruments are easiest to play" and "which instruments are hardest to play" and was intrigued often to find the same instruments in both lists.

The short answer, I think, is that some instruments are easier to get started with and to play something passable, but all instruments are difficult to master.

Depends.

I've known people who play both. Some say guitar is easier, some say piano.

I suppose it depends on the way your brain is 'wired' or your aptitudes.

With piano, it's horizontal. Bass on the left with one hand, treble on the right with the other. So one hand comps the other plays melody.

The guitar is vertical, bass on top, treble on the bottom. So both hand are playing comp and melody.

So it's whether you can do different things with each hand, or multitask with both hands doing the same thing.

Notes ♫

It may depend on which one you start with.
I went to piano lessons at an early age so keyboards were pretty easy for me later in life.
Then I got a bass, which usually is single note stuff; seemed easy.
Then I got a guitar .. hardest thing to learn for me by far.

I would note that a knowledge of theory helps make learning any instrument easier
That said, on a keyboard there is one middle C .. on a guitar it could be in one place on this string, or this place on another string, or ..

TL;DR:For low-skill comping, piano is much easier than guitar.

I play and have taught both.

Learning chord shapes on the guitar is made more difficult because the B string is tuned a major 3rd above the G string, instead of being tuned to a major fourth. That obscures the guitar chord shapes. But if you take that into account, you can see the these are all the same shape. For example, look at the fingering of an E major chord:

E: 0 2 2 1 0 0

If you move each finger to the next highest string (up a fourth), and duplicate the note on the high E string to the low E string, you should get an A chord:

A: 0 0 2 2 1 0 Not an A major chord

But it's not an A major chord... until you adjust the note on the B string a half step up

A:0 0 2 2 2 0 0

You can see this pattern as you move through the circle of fourths:

E: 0 2 2 1 0 0
A: 0 0 2 2 2 0
D: 2 0 0 2 3 2
G: 3 2 0 0 3 3
C: 3 3 2 0 1 3
F: 1 3 3 2 1 1

At the point where you get to the F chord, you can see that it's just an E chord moved up one fret.

These are what are referred to as "cowboy chords", and the C and G are typically simplified a bit to require less fingers.

Once you see how the E, A, D, G and C chords are related, you can apply that pattern to the minor chords, and so on.

However, even knowing about the pattern, they still have to be learned by rote.

In contrast, the underlying scales that make up piano chords are a bit more obscured. Going the sharp way round the circle of fifths, the altered note is the major 7th of the scale. That is, C major has no sharps:

C: C D E F G A B
G: G A B C D E F#
D: D E F# G A B C#
A A B C# D E F# G#
E E F# G# A B C# D#

There's a pattern to the addition of sharps and flats, but it's not immediately obvious how it applies to chord shapes. So learning the chord shapes on the piano tends to be purely rote memorization. Fortunately, similar shapes can be grouped together:

C, F, G major: white/white/white
A, D, E major: white/black/white
Ab, Db, Eb: black/white/black

Once you know the fingering for a piano chord, it's relatively easy to transform it a variant (minor, suspended, major 7th, etc.).

When I teach piano, I'll start out teaching accompaniment first, because it's fairly easy to learn and puts people on par with beginning guitarists.

Although I'll show a student the root chord voicing, I'll have them learn the voicing in the right hand with the fingers between F (below middle C) and E (above middle C). Think of it as keeping the piano in "cowboy chord" position. It's easy to move around from chord to chord without having to thing of inversions (just like a beginning guitarist) and keeps the chords in a nice register. All the left hand has to do is play the root of the chord.

For example, instead of voicing a C chord in root position as [C E G] it'll be voiced as [G E C] with the left hand playing a C note.

This approach is basically playing chords on the piano the same way a guitarist strums on the guitar.

But unlike the guitar, there's no awkward stretching of fingers, it's easy to move from one chord to the next, and it's less painful than fretting strings. It's easy to learn "complicated" chords such as Fmaj7 by treating them as Am/F. You can do the same thing on guitar, but it sounds a lot better on piano.

I play both to various degrees of incompetence.

I started with the piano and got a guitar at some point after. Neither one is actually "easy".
The piano is good for visualizing music theory. Learn a few simple chords on the guitar and you can start playing songs quickly but the same thing is possible on the piano.

Mastering either instrument takes years of dedicated, concentration and practice. The more you learn, the more you realize there is to learn.

The piano is simply 88 keys. The guitar is 6 strings and a multitude of different tunings of those strings.

It's not easy to pick one to say which one is harder. Neither one is easy to get proficiency on without a lot of time spent on the instrument.

Our 88 stringed "guitar" (as Tom Leher describes them). Since my stroke, I find this much easier to play one-handed than any of my 6 & 12 stringed guitars. We rebuilt the action for its hundredth birthday 4 years ago.

To me they are equal in difficulty.

Pick your poison.

For me the answer is ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Saxophone!

(But I've been playing that since I was in middle school.)

I get along better with the guitar.

But perhaps it's because of my saxophone background. Similarly to the guitar, with sax, both hands are used to play the same notes.

On the guitar, I like the fact that I can bend strings, and with the right FX settings, sustain more. It helps me make music that sings. I also like that both hands are doing the same thing. Bass and treble parts are vertical. So both hands play the bass and comp parts.

Piano has no sustain, and you can't bend notes (I'm not talking organ or synth here). Plus it's horizontal. Left hand does one thing and right hand does something else. I can't do that as easily, and it takes more practice to learn a piece.

But, if playing synth, with one hand on the keys, and the other on the joystick or wheels, synth is easier than guitar because it's easier to read music on the black and whites.

I would think the definitive answer is, — it depends on the person.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

My 3 pianos, including two with fully weighted keyboards and a Yamaha C5 Grand, all have sustain. It's the right-hand pedal, or have I missed something?

I can't play either one, so I pass on this question.

I'm not sure what we are trying to establish. If we are advising a potential musician the original advice that you can get away with very basic guitar playing whilst basic piano is pretty unsatisfactory as far as the listener is concerned. Nobody has pointed out that on a guitar you learn chords which is a start towards understanding scales and harmony. A friend and I who are both guitarists were trying to bring a pianist into the line up and they were lost without 'the dots'. Guitarists can shout chords at each other but this fairly well trained pianist had no idea what an 'F chord' was. They could play any sheet music in front of them but were lost without it.

And don't forget, no one ever took a piano to a campfire or beach. So if we are advising potential musicians go for guitar and then piano later if you like. And by the way I always advise acoustic guitar. An electric guitarist needs a band and you can't plug in at a beach or campfire!

Good point, Bob. It's a very subjective question.

If somebody learned guitar, and was a proficient guitar player, and was then asked if playing the piano was easier, then it's obvious what the answer would 'usually' be. It all depends on the skill level achieved with each instrument.

However, this clearly wasn't really the point of the video. The video showed two virtuoso performers sharing their skills. It was entertainment. ( I think the guitar won - )

A fun and entertaining video, actually. Clearly a set up

The Vinheteiro YT poster is quite unique. I've watched many of his publications over the years. Clearly a proficient musician, who prefers to constantly and expressionlessly stare at the camera when he could just as easily constantly and expressionlessly stare at the ceiling, or his shoes, or a fly on the wall. Yes, "poker face" describes it well.

A broadly skilled musician? Absolutely.
Unique? Yes. I guess being unique is important.

Nevertheless, always expect something a little bit 'out there' from this contributor. A very talented musician.

Bob brings up some good points. Like I posted earlier guitar playing is easier to fake. Most pianists start by music lessons while many guitarist start by just learning chords and copying songs off of records/CDs. Some pianists, like my wife, must have the dots; If I say lets jam to C-Am-Dm7-G7 I get the deer in the headlight look. However most, if not all, pianist/keyboardist in bands can jam without the dots while many guitarist would freeze if they had to read the dots.

On a side note Bob many guitar amps are battery powered so yes you can play an electric guitar on the beach.

Sorry I didn't explain myself well. I can't in a word or two.

On the piano, I hit a note, and I get an attack, then the piano note which, depending on the pitch, either slowly or quickly decrescendos to silence. How long do any of the highest octave notes on your piano sustain?

On my sax I can hold a note for roughly one minute, depending on the pitch and the volume.

During the time I'm holding that note, I can make it louder and/or softer again and again. I can alter the pitch to a degree using my lip pressure on the reed. I can change the tonal color by changing the shape of my oral cavity or the degree of breath support in my diagram. I can add some distortion by adjusting the muscles in my throat, and I can 'flutter tongue' to get a tremolo effect.

I can't do any of that on the piano.

With FX pedals, I can do some, but not all of these on an electric guitar.

But it comes with a price. I can only play one note at a time on the saxophone.

Every instrument has its own capabilities of expression, which are governed by the physics or electronics of the instrument itself. That doesn't make one better than the other, just different, which is why we have a symphony orchestra instead of dozens of violin players.

I started on drums. Percussion, but not melodic percussion like piano, or marimba. In retrospect, that was a great instrument for a person who went on to be a rock/blues/jazz/Latin/country musician plus one who writes BiaB styles.

I wanted to play euphonium (baritone horn), but in 7th grade, all the instruments for the school were rented. Then the tenor sax player's family moved. I wanted to play anything melodic at that time, so when the band director asked who wants to play sax, I guess I was more enthusiastic than the others. Even though it wasn't my first choice, it was a good fit, as I not only got first sax in the all-state band every year, but I got section leader, which goes to the first alto by default. Better than that, I got in rock and roll bands, and I am making a career in music. I couldn't do that with baritone horn.

I played in rock, blues, or jazz bands after school, and since every songwriter doesn't have the good taste to put a sax part in every song. I learned bass, keys (mostly synth), and rhythm guitar (simple barre chords) from the other guys in the bands.

That allowed me to switch instruments on stage - good show biz. I could go back to the drums and let the drummer come out front to sing, I could switch to guitar, bass, and/or keys, and got a lot of experience playing different instruments live. Through the years I taught myself flute and wind synthesizer. Finally, after years of playing just barre cords on the guitar I decided to get serious, and not only learn other chord types, but to play lead guitar and melodies on it.

This also helps me write BiaB styles. Who knows better about the role of each instrument, and how they interact with each other to make the music than one who has experience playing each of those instruments for a living?

Back on topic…

So with decades of practice on multiple instruments, I find guitar easier than piano. But that doesn't mean guitar is easier than piano for everybody. My experience, my physical advantages/limitations, and learning the things I learned at the age I learned them shaped my preference. Someone else might be different.

So IMO the definitive answer to which is easier or more difficult is - It depends on the musician.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

A lot of that comes from how one learned or was taught to play. I think lots of formal teaching begins with reading and playing notes and doesn't focus much, if at all, or playing chords except in the case of, e.g., guitar and ukulele. Even with piano teaching, chords 'happen' when one plays the lines of dots. How often do non-chording instrument players learn or get get taught about chords? When they are it's as likely as not, I think, to be as part of music theory, rather than as part of actually playing their instrument(s). Do challenge me if I'm wrong, because this is just my limited exposure.

There is an "easy" entry to guitar with so many songs being just three or four chords and with a capo to normalise the fingering. In quotes because I know even that isn't as easy as it appears. On a piano all the notes over all the octaves are laid out logically and consistently. It's "easy" to learn where the notes are (same disclaimer) and with electronic pianos there's even a capo-like option available.

Personally I think chords and the ability to play by ear should be much more commonly taught than they are. I find it silly that they're often not, because most reasonably accomplished will know the sound, but sometimes don't know how the chord names and notes relate. Perhaps worse still is that I think often that they don't know becomes a barrier in and of itself.

As a child I asked my grandfather, who was a pretty reasonable pianist, to teach me. He declined because "I only play by ear and that's not the correct way to learn; you should learn properly". My schools never taught me, I couldn't afford either lessons or a piano, I didn't then learn. I was almost 60 before I started, with virtually zero music education before. It's hard. I wish I'd know as a child what I know now and had pressed my request of my Grandfather. C'est la vie.

I certainly can say though, that at least in jazz circles, calling the chords is not uncommon with any instrument and knowing what types of scale work well over what chords is also pretty usual, as often is the ability to just play in a different key than usual (I definitely still struggle with that unless I have a lead-sheet in the different key). Common also is the ability to recognise when the music has gone in a different direction than expected and to follow it.

One thing I find slightly odd is that pretty much everyone can tell when a piece of music is coming to and end, or when there's about to be a change to another part of the music, e.g., verse-to-bridge or whatever, yet I think that's also not taught as often as it should be (IMHO).

Ha ha. That gives a whole new meaning to Jobim's "One Note Samba"