Guitar - Easiest or Hardest Jazz Instrument?

[Litterick]

A man who keeps his guitar on a stand in his living room will, most likely, want no more than to play the chords of the rock songs of his youth, and some of the solos. He did a lot of work to get that far, but has no ambition to go further. His guitar is an instrument for emulation, and an attractive decoration for the room. His wife hates it.

[Bobby Timmons]

Guitar at the easy end, cowboy chords specifically, isn't all that hard. Lots of people can learn to do that. Playing more advanced stuff on the guitar gets more difficult just because of the geometry of the instrument. Advancing on the piano, each step builds upon the previous steps in a very logical manner whereas with the guitar, each step frequently feels illogically divorced from the previous information.

I think an argument can be made for Hammond organ being a particularly difficult instrument, thanks especially to playing the bass parts with the feet simultaneously. Playing solo guitar (we don't talk about chord/melody piano, so why should we talk about chord/melody guitar?) is also a challenge, but perhaps more by way of the ongoing problem solving resulting from the instrument being a matrix rather than a line of available notes.

Drumkit is also a difficult instrument to play at a high level, given that you might play in a different time signature with each foot and hand. Doing the ongoing math on that is hard.

You're right. All instruments have aspects that are quite challenging and I wouldn't want to mess with. Drums - having to keep overall time plus each limb requiring good feel relative to each other; wind instruments - just creating the sound, plus memorizing how to play every note and then choose them musically; guitar - traumatizing your left hand, etc.

I disagree.

I taught myself to play Bach on Organ in a relatively short period of time. Sure, playing all 3 voices is hard, but try playing a Bach fugue on guitar. It's WAY harder.

You can disagree, but you're still wrong. We're not comparing what instrument is the hardest to play a fugue on, we're comparing jazz instruments. Being in charge of bass, chord, and melody largely at the same time and being responsible for 2 parts of the rhythm section is the hardest thing to do in jazz. Regardless of keyboard being more conducive to facility. The musician still has to be able to conceive and hold down everything. Guitar does get extremely hard for advanced playing but I think if you normalize the typical duties between B3 and guitar, B3 is harder.

[rpjazzguitar]

At the advanced level all instruments are equally difficult.

Genius gets applied to each and mere mortals struggle to keep up.

But if we talk about the hardest to get to, say, a level where you can perform for people, I'd say chromatic harmonica.

Nothing to see, nothing to feel and the organization of the instrument is awful (and every other way is worse).

How the great players can play jazz on it is amazing.

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

One of the easiest to play, one of the most difficult to master.

[rpjazzguitar]

One of the easiest to play, one of the most difficult to master.

You can blow into and get a few notes, but it takes a bit of work to be able to isolate a note. So, it's not so easy. And, then you come up against how 12 chromatic notes are organized using blow/draw/button-in/button-out.

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

You can blow into and get a few notes, but it takes a bit of work to be able to isolate a note. So, it's not so easy. And, then you come up against how 12 chromatic notes are organized using blow/draw/button-in/button-out.

I was referring to the guitar, sorry.

[kris]

As for the guitar.
See how popular the guitar is and how many people want to play it.
Despite thousands of guitar players, there are really few players.
where are they?jazz?

[rpjazzguitar]

I was referring to the guitar, sorry.

LOL! Apparently the same thing applies to both instruments.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

At the advanced level all instruments are equally difficult.

Genius gets applied to each and mere mortals struggle to keep up.

But if we talk about the hardest to get to, say, a level where you can perform for people, I'd say chromatic harmonica.

Nothing to see, nothing to feel and the organization of the instrument is awful (and every other way is worse).

How the great players can play jazz on it is amazing.

Bandoneon is even harder among the harmonica instruments. Different notes on the same button wether you push or pull, that problem applies both to the bass and to the treble sides of buttons.

Bandoneon - Wikipedia

[vintagelove]

You're right. All instruments have aspects that are quite challenging and I wouldn't want to mess with. Drums - having to keep overall time plus each limb requiring good feel relative to each other; wind instruments - just creating the sound, plus memorizing how to play every note and then choose them musically; guitar - traumatizing your left hand, etc.

You can disagree, but you're still wrong. We're not comparing what instrument is the hardest to play a fugue on, we're comparing jazz instruments. Being in charge of bass, chord, and melody largely at the same time and being responsible for 2 parts of the rhythm section is the hardest thing to do in jazz. Regardless of keyboard being more conducive to facility. The musician still has to be able to conceive and hold down everything. Guitar does get extremely hard for advanced playing but I think if you normalize the typical duties between B3 and guitar, B3 is harder.

You're the one who's mistaken because you're completely forgetting one of the most important factors.

The physicality of the instrument. It is physically difficult and even painful to do the harmonic equivalent of what's a cakewalk on a keyboard. Sure if you're playing simple things it's "easy", but at an advanced level, keyboards are just so much easier.

Playing jazz is really no different than playing Bach. I simply chose the example because they're both hard. Honestly, it's a lot harder to play on a purely technical level. It's like soloing with both hands and your feet simultaneously.

[DawgBone]

You guys are both wrong.

Pedal steel guitar requires both hands plus both feet for the pedals and volume control along with your knees for all the levers, of which there can be many. It's just not a popular jazz instrument. Never mind there is E9 necks and C6 necks on the same instrument. Have fun....

[vintagelove]

At the advanced level all instruments are equally difficult.

That is wishful thinking.


Some instruments are simply physically harder to play. Keyboards are very easy. The guitar can be hard. A trumpet... ouch...

[DawgBone]

But if we talk about the hardest to get to, say, a level where you can perform for people, I'd say chromatic harmonica.

Nothing to see, nothing to feel and the organization of the instrument is awful (and every other way is worse).

How the great players can play jazz on it is amazing.

You're not really wrong, it is a difficult instrument, but it isn't as difficult as a pedal steel. I've tried my hand at both. I have a couple of Hohner Chromonicas and the layout is definitely screwball because there are no fully repeating patterns when it comes to scales. There are skips here and there and enharmonic tones to avoid in scales per the layout. Annoying. The most difficult part is there are no reference points but your brain. The sound of a good chromonatic harp player is a thing of beauty. It's a very expressive instrument somewhere between an organ, accordion, and a horn.

[rpjazzguitar]

You're not really wrong, it is a difficult instrument, but it isn't as difficult as a pedal steel. I've tried my hand at both. I have a couple of Hohner Chromonicas and the layout is definitely screwball because there are no fully repeating patterns when it comes to scales. There are skips here and there and enharmonic tones to avoid in scales per the layout. Annoying. The most difficult part is there are no reference points but your brain. The sound of a good chromonatic harp player is a thing of beauty. It's a very expressive instrument somewhere between an organ, accordion, and a horn.

I fool around with chromatic harmonica in standard tuning, but I've never tried pedal steel. I love the sound and I've read a little bit about how it works. Not easy.

I read somewhere that Toots Thielemans practiced Giant Steps on harmonica every day.

[DawgBone]

I fool around with chromatic harmonica in standard tuning, but I've never tried pedal steel. I love the sound and I've read a little bit about how it works. Not easy.

I read somewhere that Toots Theilman practiced Giant Steps on harmonica every day.

With the steel I forgot to mention there are all sorts of different pull arrangements you can set the pedals and levers to in order to sharp or flat notes. The standard is Emmons and Day E9 setups, named after their originators but guys like Paul Franklin and others will use or add different pulls to get access to different chord voicings per the pedal/lever pull arrangement. Modern pedal steels can come with a lot of additional lever options including the now somewhat popular "zero pedal". Most of the good steel players are extremely adept musicians in general compared to your average guitar player. I would rate steel as probably the most complicated instrument, even over hammond, for these reasons.

To get an idea of what is happening on a steel here is the great Tommy White giving a clear example of how the legs are working though his volume pedal foot isn't particularly busy on this solo piece. His emmons here is not really complicated in terms of lever layout but rather close to a standard arranged steel. I think Skip Ellis here on the forum is/was a steel player. No doubt he could provide much greater insight than I could as I only dabbled. My steel didn't have enough levers. The standard now is 3 pedals 4 levers. Anything less and you are kind of lacking in terms of an instrument to grow into.

[Skip Ellis]

I played steel for 35 years - about 20 full time; gave it up due to lack of work. Made a lot of money doing the theater production of "Always...Patsy Cline". Great instrument and a lot of fun to play...but...you have to do it every day or you lose your touch, especially your bar hand and being able to play in tune with no frets. Plus, you have two tunings to master: E9th which is the neck that earns you money and C6th which is the 'jazz' neck. The old timers (Emmons, Byrd, Remington, etc.) played all the jazz stuff on open C6th tuning with NO pedals - pretty scary. Not a lot of new players as the things are expensive - you can maybe get something decent for $3K used and $6K-$8K new. Anything cheaper on the used market will probably be someone else's headache...PLUS.... all us older guys can't lift them any more - my double neck (2x10) Emmons guitar weighed about 90 lbs in the case, plus amps with 15" speakers and tons of headroom, plus a seat to carry all your accessories is another 60 or 70 lbs. Scares me just thinking about it.

Here's some good stuff by the master:

[vintagelove]

I don't think it's the hardest (because it lacks the physicality and endurance aspects), but I can say that the steel is definitely harder than it looks.

[Bobby Timmons]

You're the one who's mistaken because you're completely forgetting one of the most important factors. The physicality of the instrument.

What, you can't read now?

You can disagree, but you're still wrong. We're not comparing what instrument is the hardest to play a fugue on, we're comparing jazz instruments. Being in charge of bass, chord, and melody largely at the same time and being responsible for 2 parts of the rhythm section is the hardest thing to do in jazz. Regardless of keyboard being more conducive to facility. The musician still has to be able to conceive and hold down everything. Guitar does get extremely hard for advanced playing but I think if you normalize the typical duties between B3 and guitar, B3 is harder.

It is physically difficult and even painful to do the harmonic equivalent of what's a cakewalk on a keyboard. Sure if you're playing simple things it's "easy", but at an advanced level, keyboards are just so much easier.

Playing jazz is really no different than playing Bach. I simply chose the example because they're both hard. Honestly, it's a lot harder to play on a purely technical level. It's like soloing with both hands and your feet simultaneously.

You're completely forgetting that just because an instrument is more efficient for facility, the musician still has to be able to execute the music intellectually and tactilely, which is usually at a higher level because of the efficiency advantage. That's why if an upright bassist plays a tactilely more difficult instrument, guitar can usually be more challenging. Even though guitar is more efficient to play than upright bass. The music that is standard for a guitarist to execute is more in depth and therefore more challenging.

Are you proficient at jazz Hammond?

[fep]

Easiest to execute a good note... keyboards including organs, pianos etc. Just push a key and you get a perfect note.
Easiest to play a simple scale... keyboards including organs, pianos etc.

Hardest to play at a very high level... keyboards including organs, pianos etc. There are just more parts/notes/rhythms to coordinate simultaneously. (Drums can be difficult in this way also).

Guitar, probably somewhere in the middle of the pack of easiest vs. hardest instruments.

Should every musician play keyboard? I think so.

[vintagelove]

What, you can't read now?






You're completely forgetting that just because an instrument is more efficient for facility, the musician still has to be able to execute the music intellectually and tactilely, which is usually at a higher level because of the efficiency advantage. That's why if an upright bassist plays a tactilely more difficult instrument, guitar can usually be more challenging. Even though guitar is more efficient to play than upright bass. The music that is standard for a guitarist to execute is more in depth and therefore more challenging.

Are you proficient at jazz Hammond?

Are you proficient on guitar is the question.

I suspect you never played guitar at the level of physical difficulty to see why keyboards are much easier. Advanced harmony on guitar is physically hard, like painfully hard(those same harmonies on keyboard are not only a breeze to play, they're also easy to see, and very logical). You can't separate that out of the consideration. If you could, there would be a LOT more amazing trumpet players out there. There aren't, because the trumpet is fkn HARD. Outside of harmony, playing fast is very difficult and often takes years to reach real technical facilities, and many never get there, even with lots of practice. The keyboard is like a walk in the park in comparison.

As for organ, I haven't played pedals in years as I sold my organ a long time back (had a dual manual, 32 pedal organ for years). I was good enough that teachers who heard me practicing in music school thought I was an organ major.

[kris]

Great post!

[kris]

As for the Hammond organs.
It's a very heavy instrument and I would never choose to play it.
A beautiful instrument, but it usually takes several people to transport it.
Horrible!

[princeplanet]

A Jazz guitarist knows his instrument is hard to master, but he can't say for sure it's harder than other instruments. Same goes for other instrumentalists. But show me the freak (surely they exist?) that can play jazz at elite level on multiple instruments and let's ask him which is hardest. I'd believe him, certainly above the rest of you guys who are just taking a guess...?

[vintagelove]

A Jazz guitarist knows his instrument is hard to master, but he can't say for sure it's harder than other instruments. Same goes for other instrumentalists. But show me the freak (surely they exist?) that can play jazz at elite level on multiple instruments and let's ask him which is hardest. I'd believe him, certainly above the rest of you guys who are just taking a guess...?

I'm definitely more advanced of a guitar player, but I play keys well enough, and I taught beginner sax trumpet etc (all the band instruments) for like 15 years. I'm not guessing. I can tell you the guitar is hard, both the keyboard and sax are incredibly well thought out, capable instruments, and the trumpet.... that thing is for masochists.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

As for the Hammond organs.
It's a very heavy instrument and I would never choose to play it.
A beautiful instrument, but it usually takes several people to transport it.
Horrible!

You have to be good enough to be able to make a contract including a technical rider that requires the local promoter to rent an organ for you. The backline provider will deliver it in a flightcase on wheels so no broken backs for the stagehands. Until you are playing in that league you have to help yourself with something else. (BTW those little toys sound great! Listen to sound sample "organ 3".)