True.. except the whole "shapes" idea on guitar is a superpower of the instrument. If I want to play in something that's in E in F.. I just move every note up 1. Or use a Capo. But a pianist has to transpose every sharp and flat carefully. Their finger positions literally change. I can play in any key on the guitar because the shapes are the same. A pianist has to learn them all separately.
Yes thats how it is at first. then you realize everything you play sounds the same because those shapes are neither musically nor harmonically intuitive or interesting. Inversions, Intervals, triads, voice leading are for a Lot of guutarists foreign concepts.
If you're a strummer, guitar is good for your confidence. Most people don't notice a wrong strummed chord, but a bad note on a piano can really stand out.
@@subzerokosnot true. If your intonation sucks have fun playing melody. It won't happen. Being a decent woodworker is as much the job of s guitar player as being a player. We're obsessed with wood type, pickup type, string guage, etc
That isn't true. To master any instrument is to play it at the highest level and requires intense dedication whether it is piano, guitar, xylophone, violin, recorder or voice, there is not a point where you stop and say okay, I've mastered this.
@@matotuHELL Tim Henson ? Lol look at youtube there are dozens of random guys cover Playing God better or nearly as good as him. Once you have all the basic technique down and perfect you can play 99% all the song out there . That's why there are so many good guitars players on youtube, they must be out number the good piano players on this platform at least 10 to 1.
@@matotuHELLnot possible, piano is well over difficult to master it, and every guitarist knows that. If you play like a professional, with all emotions, pedals… there are no comparison
I play both. Started off on guitar and then learned piano. Have to say piano taught me more in 1 year about music theory than I ever got from playing guitar. Everything made sense and actually made me a better guitar player for the new understanding too
Nearly all instruments are hard to master. The thing that changes is the expectation. The more capable an instrument is, the more you're expected to be able to do with it. The only instrument that would be easy to master would be one which couldn't be played substantially better after a short learning period.
As a piano player, I was always hella frustrated with finger positioning on the guitar. Like, when you play the piano, of course, you can hit a wrong key or accidentally slip and hit two keys at once, but that's fairly easy to control, even when you're playing fast. With guitars on the other hand, if you dare move your finger tip half a millimeter off the center of the fret - you get a pathetic messy fart instead of a clean note. And you're supposed to play chords, not just single notes. I can play pretty complex stuff on the piano, but when it comes to the guitar, anything that's harder than a bar chord will be a nightmare for me.
In a band context, if the singer says "hey, my voice is kind of tired. Let's do the next one in G," that's not really that hard on guitar, even if you don't know a lot about how the shapes might change. Meanwhile, there's no capo big enough to fit around a piano.
I saw a video where a violinist says to change the scale of the song to a pianist, and the pianist changes the scale just like that! My mind was blown. Wonder how much practice it takes to get to that level.
If you're in a band and have a pianist, one of two things is almost certainly true. You're either financially successful enough to travel with a real piano, meaning you have a professional pianist who transposes on the fly like that without thinking, or you fit the 95% scenario of a band with a keyboardist who can either do that or simply press a transpose button. The bottom line is that it's going to be really, really hard to find a band where this is a problem.
Piano also has the status advantage. Person plays the guitar: hey, that's cool. Can you play song X? Person plays the piano: holy shit! They must be a musical genious!!
This absolutely happens with the piano too bro. If you play something: "Omg that's so cool, can you play Golden Hour/Rush E...?" If you play classical: "Omg that's so cool, do you know any 'real songs?' "
I play guitar. Piano is something I really want to learn but keep putting off for one reason or another. And I'm pretty sure I'll struggle harder in piano than I do on guitar simply because my brain is incapable of moving any two of my limbs independently. Guitar requires both hands to be in time always, but your two piano hands could be doing two very different things and the ability to do that seems like a superpower to me. Massive respect to piano players (and drummers)
A piano guy I played with said it's harder to emulate the rhythmic things you can do on guitar so that's probably it. You can only push keys on the piano but guitar has other stuff like muting and harmonics
When I was learning piano I started to get interested in learning guitar too, and whenever I looked up online which was easier they always said "Guitar is much easier". I got a guitar and, for me at least, that couldn't be more wrong.
Piano is definitely a better instrument for learning about music notation and music theory in general, as each symbol corresponds to one note (unlike guitar, where you can play the same note on multiple strings). This, among other reasons (such as no need for callouses) is why I think anyone interested in learning an instrument should start on piano if they can. Then again, the size of a guitar makes it feel so much more manageable, so it might be tough to convince people about this.
1. always keep a keyboard / piano with you as a reference, even if you are learning guitar. 2. Guitar seems harder than piano because notes are a mess, not laid out in a linear fashion. So starting is harder. But over time, as your muscles start to remember notes, guitar actually becomes easier than piano - at the end of the day you are training one hand vs both (independently) on piano, and add feet too to make it even more complex.
That muscle memory thing is so true, whenever im done with learning a piece on piano and start learning a new one i forget the old one immediately, but i never forget the bass line of a song
I play both at jazz level, more guitar, and I agree. If you're trying to match a melody piano is way easier as you just change inversion. Piano it's all easily spelled out. I just figured out why a guitar song works by playing on piano and seeing the voice leading. The same voice leading to make the melody on guitar often requires you to play chords in different places on the neck to achieve the same thing. I know a chunk of music theory and chords are more of a black box on guitar since the spread of notes is less clear. I view guitar chords as a unit in this fingering is this sound profile more than individual notes. Piano the spelling is very clear and you have 100% control over the spread of notes all the time.
I think a case for guitar can be made due to the fact that scales are the same no matter what (excluding the weird B string interval difference). A major scale is a major scale with the same shape all around the neck whereas for piano you have to kinda think about it. Also the fact that you have to worry about two separate lines on piano whereas for guitar, although picking more complicated parts can be challenging, you're still playing one unified line.
I mean, tbh there are styles outside of picking. Carter style, fingerstyle, percussive, etc. A lot of soloists pieces have all the bass+main melody+ treble.
From a mechanical perspective guitar is more difficult (about 90% of the time) muting on guitar can be tenuous. And when playing arpeggios or any sort of melody that quickly moves between high and low registers the guitar becomes a bit more efficient due to the fact that the length of a standard 88 key is 54 inches and the neck length of most guitars are around 30 inches, not to mention that even intervals like a 5th 4th or even an octave can be just a string (or two) and a few frets away However, while the piano may give more mechanical freedom for melodies and chords, the music written for piano is more numerous and sometimes more complex
Piano is well over difficult to master it. With guitar you can easily hide a false note. With the piano you need to separate perfectly your hands. You need to put emotions and control of the volume with 3 pedals( so a lot of stimulations) Some studies has shown that piano is more difficult when you play in different place, or an with an another piano. ( the 32 pianist play badder with false rythme sometimes)
If you're a guitar player, get a keyboard as well. Just a cheap Casio or Yamaha. Even if the aim isn't to master piano or to perform with it, it is still so useful just for understanding musical concepts or for song writing. I use a keyboard all the time for trying stuff out like creating a pretty bad backing for my guitar playing or trying out a bassline against chords. You don't have to play it well for it be useful and sometimes coming up with an idea on keyboard can be great when you transfer it to guitar because it can break you out of making things up based on familiar shapes.
been a guitarist for almost 18 years without knowing theory, only now i have decided to learn things and also learn the piano, and its so much easier to match chords and voice leading, and i can write the guitar and baselines all together in a way that is theoretically right
This is THE video I needed. I was pretty confident playing the piano, but after 3 years of having moved abroad, my skills of playing vanished. Now it‘s time to bring them back^_^ So, I bought a guitar, and it… it feels like a completely different world, I love it 😂❤
bro's like IceCreamSandwich (youtube animator), super halarious but your videos actually have some great info about guitar/music. keep it up, your videos always make my day! 😂
When I was casually learning piano, I used to just plink away on keys and feel like I was doing some cool stuff, and now that I'm casually learning guitar every other time I play something it sounds awful and I have to google something like "why does my guitar sound bad" and it'll be like "you should move closer / further from the fret" or "your other finger should have been muting this completely unrelated string" or whatever lol. That said, the portability is definitely the reason I've practiced so much more guitar!! And it's very satisfying when something finally sounds good
Music theory is the exact same whether it's on a piano or a guitar... Also playing two easy chords with different rhythms using both hands on piano is way harder than playing an intricate chord on guitar. You should try it. Guitar is ez, you just learn what chord shapes are and get away with that.
As a pianist, nope. Piano is much harder to master, the technique is ridiculously difficult when you get to very technical pieces, making you literally rethink every wrist rotation, arm movement, dynamics etc. But i do agree that for learning music theory is easier
To play guitar at the highest level you have to think every single note through including wrist rotation, arm movements, how far along the string you are going to pluck it to get the right tone, how to ensure other strings are dampened (or left to ring). Really no instrument is harder to master than any other, all virtuosos are performing at the limits of human ability.
@@vodkaman1970no piano is well over difficult to master it with the independence of the hands … the 3 pedals… it would be easier to master guitar than piano if you took 1000 people.
@@zoteck9177 There doesn't come a point where anyone truly masters an instrument, so no, piano is not more intrinsically difficult to master than guitar. There is always something more demanding to tackle and the people who are at the highest level of playing on any instrument are all pushing at the limit of what is humanly possible.
Yeah as someone who plays both, piano is much more difficult. The repertoire alone is insanely more difficult than anything on guitar. People that don’t play the piano don’t realise, but it’s much more than just playing the right notes. Everything from voicing, dynamics, rotation of the wrist, tone quality, speed at which you press the notes, pressure behind the fingers when pressing the notes, along with all the musical aspects such as rubato and feeling, plus with the pedal, piano definitely makes for the more challenging instrument.
@@ldgaming4213 That is another thing. Piano is almost an emulation of an orchestra. In classical music, when you delve deep into music theory, you can vary the tone quality of your some of your notes to almost emulate the timbre of an instrument in an orchestra, for example you may have some high notes that feel quite energetic so you press the note quicker to highlight the energetic feel and emulate a piercing flute sound, whereas you may have some more deep, bass notes which you emulate a brass instrument by pressing the key slower but still maintaining the weight behind your finger. It’s all about varying the emotion, making it interesting for the audience. As for your second point, I agree. Just because you are pushing a recorder to its absolute maximum doesn’t mean it is harder than another instrument. While it may sound like I always think piano is harder, I don’t - I do think guitar is harder to pick up. With piano, it’s pretty easy to play a chord, but it’s much harder to get the shapes on the guitar and strum correctly. I also think piano is easier to pick up music theory with. But, like violin, I think guitar is an instrument that is hard to begin with, but gets progressively easier over time as you get better. However, I think the piano is the opposite - easy to pick up and begin with, but as you progress, it keeps getting harder as new techniques are added and new things to think of are introduced.
I've been playing jazz piano for about 9 years but also started learning guitar/electric guitar because it seems like the closest instrument we can get to the most objectively best instrument. Harmonically you can play complex chords (compared against monophonic instruments), less steep learning curve when learning chords because of similar hand shapes, melodically you can make it sing similar to a human voice with vibrato and good phrasing and sliding, rhythm guitar can provide a pulse similar to drums, the ability to play bass/chords/melody/rhythm at the same time, it spans 4 (or 5) octaves, super extensive repertoire of many many genres even across time and countries, portable especially if you get the mini 6 string guitars, pedals allow for endless tones and effects, more affordable, lastly and least importantly most people enjoy guitar. I'm still trying to figure out which has a higher skill cap, like how long would it take to play like Steve Vai or Franz Liszt?
Soooooo your music ia dope af... i'm newly obsessed... and these videos are hilariously entertaining and educational. Your personality/sense of humor is literally perfect! I literally cant!
Guitar is one of the most difficult instruments if you push your playing. Cuz it's very unstable from take to take, pretty much like vocals. Piano or drums, for example, are much more stable and predictible.
Disagree, guitar on standard tuning is so much easier Like, I know that major 3rd is 1 fret to the left and 1 down, minor 3rd is 3 frets to the right 5th is 2 frets to the right and 1 fret down octave is 2 frets to the right and 2 frets down and how am I supposed to translate this knowledge to the piano? is 3rd black? is it white? which one is it? should I count each note, should I do what? There's no other way around but remembering triads, like I know every note on piano, but I can't count them on the fly like I can with guitar which is much easier compared to the lines of black and white keys For example C major on guitar is the same shape as B major but on piano C major is 3 white keys and B major is 1 white and 2 black and F# major is 3 black much harder to remember compared to 1 shape for major triads on guitar guitar is 200% easier for chords and scales
Depends on the type of music you're playing tbh I don't think a guitar solo from a 1970s peice of music is comparable to one written for the piano a hundred or two hundred years earlier If you were to compare classical guitar to classical piano on the other hand, or contemporary piano to contemporary guitar, the argument becomes clearer
As a semi good guitar player who tried to learn the piano- no Sir, you're wrong. If any halfwit Chad can play Wonderwall on a guitar, than this is an instrument for the masses.
ive been playing the piano since i was ten (now 35). im no pro by all means and quit piano lessons when i was 18 and played it very occasionally since then. i started guitar just for fun a few years back but got really invested like a month ago or so and my progression leaped since then. both instruments have their pro and cons but for me the biggest pros for the guitar are: i love the sound, you can manipulate the sound by choosing a pick or fingers (my preferred method) and you can play it literally anywhere you want. got a baby taylor and i just love to practice while laying in bed. such a cool instrument ❤
Finally somebody speaks the truth. Pianists will never agree on that, they just too afraid to admit piano is easier. Definitely not because piano make more senses on it design, trust me. Source: random guy graduated from Walmart Uniqueversity
It's really the repertoire that makes piano a difficult instrument to master. As a pianist you are often a bit of a one-person orchestra and people also know to expect that from you. But of course there are some really amazing and difficult things to do that you can do as a solo guitarist too. I would say that learning and memorization of piano repertoire generally takes more time than guitar repertoire but they can both be extremely demanding technically. Guitar can be a much more expressive instrument and producing a good sound takes a lot more effort.
I play both guitar and piano well, but guitar often feels harder, because, when pressing bars, my fingers often touch other strings making them unable to produce sound and that makes my fingerstyle sound worse. Also, I am not always able to play barre chords. Both these things do not take place in playing piano: you just press a key, and a sound produces. On the other hand, I almost cannot play piano with my eyes closed, which I can easily do with guitar. Playing chord songs is easier on guitar.
The piano is relatively straitforward when it comes to getting the sound that you want out of it. The hard part is learning other peoples rythem and paterns. I was able to get a relitively good grasp on it in around three months.
Played guitar for 9 years. I'd say guitar is not hard for the reasons you mentioned. Finger dexsterity, especially for the left hand, gives guitar its difficulty later on. I would say piano is easier to pick up but harder to master because piano players have to control up to ten fingers and play many notes at once, while guitar players only use 8 fingers and usually stick to 1-3 notes at a time even at a high level.
Hey you touched on something but I just wanted to double down on it - the piano muscle memory you refer to. It's because finger shapes and movements differ from key to key to key. On piano, it's easy enough to play a C scale - hit all the white notes. But move over just one semitone and play C# ... well now there are some white notes you can't hit and some black notes that you must. Completely different shape. Times 12. Times another 12 for each mode, if that's your poison. Some are easier and some are harder, but they are all a bit different. On guitar, the same shapes apply across all keys - learn them once and you're done.
Guitar is just harder tho like it hurts when you first start playing especially on an accoustoc and most people couldn’t even make a nice noise if they never picked up a guitar
Guitar is physically harder and Piano is mentally harder. I play both and multiple hours of classical practice for 5 seconds of the piece really makes it hard to wanna keep going 😭
It's harder to play guitar if you play easy pieces on both instruments, but just try to play the hardest guitar piece and concerto for solo piano 1st movement Op. 39 No. 8 allegro assai by Ch. V. Alkan
That’s an understatement… piano is sitting on a beach with a drink in your hand. Guitar is getting kicked in the balls while throwing up and having diarrhea.
i can't play piano for shit and it's confusing as hell to me then again I've spent like an hour or 2 trying to play stuff on piano and been playing guitar for 2 years
The argument about translating muscle memory for one song to another is not valid. That depends entirely on the nature of the music. If we're talking about playing accompanying guitar chords and having that translate between songs, then the same thing applies to piano. That translates immediately. But if we're talking about playing classical guitar music, then there is a lot of muscle memory that musicians develop uniquely for each piece. Some things translate, like arpeggios, scales and other common patterns, and that applies to piano as well. I think arguing that piano muscle memory translates less quickly is apples to oranges. People saying that must be comparing completely different types of music.
I like them both, but for the most part, I play totally different music on each. He's right about music theory, but understanding one does help a lot with the other. Bottom line: the piano is the best all around instrument, but the guitar is the coolest and most fun.
Ive played both and guitar is definitely easier. Maybe not to just hit the nites and them sound okay, but as far as madtery piano is far more difficult.
Beeing able to play the piano is easy, beeing able to really PLAY the piano on a high level is hard as fuck. Classical piano has some of the hardest repertoire.
I believe there is no such thing as an instrument being harder than another. Playing a note on guitar is harder then playing the same note on piano. But you can play things on the piano that are imposibble to play on guitar so there is just the same learning curve for both.
