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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.
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06-30-2023 05:27 PM
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Originally Posted by Cunamara
Originally Posted by vintagelove
Last edited by Jimmy Smith; 06-30-2023 at 07:51 PM.
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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.
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One of the easiest to play, one of the most difficult to master.
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Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
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Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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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?
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Originally Posted by Jazzjourney4Eva
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Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
Bandoneon - Wikipedia
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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.
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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....Last edited by DawgBone; 07-01-2023 at 09:54 AM.
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Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
That is wishful thinking.
Some instruments are simply physically harder to play. Keyboards are very easy. The guitar can be hard. A trumpet... ouch...
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Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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Originally Posted by DawgBone
I read somewhere that Toots Thielemans practiced Giant Steps on harmonica every day.Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 07-01-2023 at 02:12 PM.
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Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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.
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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:
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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.
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Originally Posted by vintagelove
Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
Originally Posted by vintagelove
Are you proficient at jazz Hammond?Last edited by Jimmy Smith; 07-01-2023 at 07:35 PM.
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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.
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
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.
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Great post!
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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!
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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...?
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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.
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Originally Posted by kris
What's happening at the end of this song?
Today, 07:55 PM in Ear Training, Transcribing & Reading