Guitar - Easiest or Hardest Jazz Instrument?

[pauln]

Some top Jazz musicians (that did not play the guitar) have suggested that the guitar is the most difficult Jazz instrument (Barry Harris? Miles Davis?). Not sure anyone has suggested that the guitar is the easiest instrument (although I tend to think so).

What do you think, and why? For those that play any instruments other than guitar, your thoughts and comparative experience is also encouraged.

[kris]

I would separate jazz from the difficulty of playing an instrument.
First I would ask if the guitar is an easy instrument to learn at all?
It all depends on the level of the playing you want to reach.
You can say that every instrument is difficult.
If someone thinks that he already plays simple chords on the guitar and it's easy, ok.
A professional musician may say that this is not a playing but fun...may make comments about articulation, rhythm, hand placement, etc.
Technical mastery of the instrument and playing jazz is another matter.
What kind of jazz do you want to play, styles are another difficulty for each instrument.
For example, the violin ... how much time does it take to play the bow correctly?

[Bobby Timmons]

Hammond is the most difficult jazz instrument. You have to hold down bass, chord, and melody at the same time. Guitar only has to do melody or chord 1 at a time. Although chord melody is pretty tough and most advanced players utilize it.

[ragman1]

The number of threads we've had here on this subject...

Fact is, some people find it easier than others. Depends who's playing it. It's only a bit of wood with strings on it :-)

[himself]

Hammond is the most difficult jazz instrument. You have to hold down bass, chord, and melody at the same time. Guitar only has to do melody or chord 1 at a time. Although chord melody is pretty tough and most advanced players utilize it.

I would not agree with this. Instead of long explanation (my English is not good enough), have a look at this video, please.

The quality is poor, but the funny explanation and nice playing is a good example, I think. There of course are many of others.
If you play multiple notes at the same time, it is not so important, if you play them by hands, or by foot, I would say. You still have to "thing multitasking".

[kris]

In the case of the organ, you simply have more options. You just need to be able to correct everything.
Synchronization requires a lot of work, but that's the nature of this instrument.
You use all your fingers to create a sound on organ;
10 fingers = 10 notes simultaneously plus bass foot.
On the guitar you will not play so many notes at once ...
That's why the guitar is a much more difficult jazz instrument because it requires constant thinking in the correct voice lead - you have to combine.
For example;
on the piano you will play all the chords, but to make these chords sound the same on the guitar as on the piano is not possible.

[orri]

I think to some extent, that the thing that is hard about guitar is how easy it is in the beginning.

Compared to other instrument you can with relatively little effort, be able to play something that sounds like music on a guitar.

You can learn cowboy chords and power chords and start making music.

There are also well known motifs like the ostinato in The Man Who Sold the World, which are rather easy, and you progress through a bunch of somewhat easy to learn iconic rifs and motifs.

You can progress at this stage without any kind of routine or methodic approach, you can pick up the guitar when you feel like and put on a song and find youtube videos and tabs for it or try to learn it from ear.

If you feel you're really liking the guitar, you might continue and learn the pentatonic scale and the 5 pentatonic boxes but I think after that "stage" it seems to me that many hit a threashold and don't advance much further.
You can of course get quite good within this stage. You can know enough to play in a band and learn cover songs, you'll learn songs faster each time, your timing, rythmic feel, form awareness, and musicality can improve significantly.

But then you do need to get a across a valley to advance further to the next level.
You basically have to learn the names of each notes on the fretboard, how to read sheet music, learn a bunch of scales and chords all over the fretboard and develop some kind of a habit/routine..
When learning other instruments, in many cases you don't learn to play anything without learning the names of the notes, and you have instruments like clarinet and saxophone which you need to start each practise session by assembling your instrument and tinker with reeds, so practising becomes kind of ritualistic.

So when you learn the guitar, you can get a lot of early rewards for rather little amount of effort, and then you reach a point where you need to spend a lot of effort (that other instrumentalists did from the beginning of their journey) and the rewards for that effort are less noticeable and come much later than you're used to.

[pingu]

I’ve tried other instruments
Tpt , sax , pno , bass , hand percussion (various)

I found guitar easiest (for me anyway)

I also like that you can play lines with
articulations …. and you can play
diads and three note riffs etc and
also comp convincingly ….

but I do think that really the instrument chooses you !

[Bobby Timmons]

I would not agree with this. Instead of long explanation (my English is not good enough), have a look at this video, please.

The quality is poor, but the funny explanation and nice playing is a good example, I think. There of course are many of others.
If you play multiple notes at the same time, it is not so important, if you play them by hands, or by foot, I would say. You still have to "thing multitasking".

It's not the custom for the guitarist to pound his foot to be the drummer. It is the custom for the organist to be responsible for the bass of the group simultaneously with chord or melody duties. That's way harder than playing several notes at a time on guitar.

[himself]

It's not the custom for the guitarist to pound his foot to be the drummer. It is the custom for the organist to be responsible for the bass of the group simultaneously with chord or melody duties. That's way harder than playing several notes at a time on guitar.

These several notes are several layers (melody, comping, bass - you can literaly hear how separated they sound in the video). The difficulty is thinking of all this stuff at the same time. Regardless, if you play them by foot or hands.
In my opinion.

[kris]

When I started I just liked the sound so I got on with it. I didn't think it was easy or difficult, I just did it.

is it easy for you to play smart at a fast tempo by thumb??

[kris]

It's not the custom for the guitarist to pound his foot to be the drummer. It is the custom for the organist to be responsible for the bass of the group simultaneously with chord or melody duties. That's way harder than playing several notes at a time on guitar.

[ragman1]

is it easy for you to play smart at a fast tempo by thumb??

I don't know, I don't play smart at a fast tempo by thumb.

[Bobby Timmons]

These several notes are several layers (melody, comping, bass - you can literaly hear how separated they sound in the video). The difficulty is thinking of all this stuff at the same time. Regardless, if you play them by foot or hands.
In my opinion.

Is that how all jazz guitarists play? No. Do jazz guitarists hold down bass in the group? No. Is he holding down bass and chord/melody simultaneously? No. Organ is way harder because you're responsible for holding down bass and chord/melody independently as part of the expected minimum standard of play for the instrument. Even though playing jazz guitar at a high level is quite difficult as well.

[kris]

There are also bands where the double bass or the bass guitar plays the bass instead of the organist....

[Bobby Timmons]

Playing organ including organ bass is way harder than guitar. It doesn't matter if there are virtuosos on guitar. Is that how most guitarists play? Is that how you play? Is that how you're expected to play in a typical group setting?

In order to compare the difficulty between instruments, you have to normalize what's standard for playing, not tout virtuosos as if that's the minimum or normal standard for the instrument. All instruments are hard at virtuoso level. Doing some basic walking on bass and not taking a solo isn't that hard. Charles Berthoud crap is impossible.

All instruments do have their challenges though.

[kris]

I don't know, I don't play smart at a fast tempo by thumb.

Then maybe try to play "Donna Lee"....

[kris]

Playing organ including organ bass is way harder than guitar. It doesn't matter if there are virtuosos on guitar. Is that how most guitarists play? Is that how you play? Is that how you're expected to play in a typical group setting?

I played with a violinist who played walking bass on fiddles, and it's probably even harder.

[Bobby Timmons]

Ok? I'm sure that's the standard of play for a typical group setting.

[JazzPadd]

I had a jazz jam session buddy a while, who moved to NoLa. Also played in NYC, Tokyo and Seoul. He plays tenor sax but started on guitar. Could still play pretty well. Said he switched to the sax cause he couldn’t play on guitar what he heard. Used to kid me, “Isn’t the guitar easy? You just have to move those patterned boxes up and down the neck!”

i have no basis to judge since, beside dabbling in some world music stringed instruments, all I’ve ever played is guitar. And when I tried to take lessons on the Persian tanbur, Turkish saz, and Egyptian oud, the teachers all said something like, “That’s not a guitar. Play it like this!”

Perhaps I’m born to play guitar or maybe just too lazy to learn another instrument. Either way, I’m happy with our beloved G.

[kris]

It all depends on the level of the person's playing.
There are easy things and there are hard things.
The giants of jazz have such a technical workshop that it may seem easy to the listener.
Not everyone can achieve such artistry.

[Cunamara]

Hammond is the most difficult jazz instrument. You have to hold down bass, chord, and melody at the same time. Guitar only has to do melody or chord 1 at a time. Although chord melody is pretty tough and most advanced players utilize it.

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.

[vintagelove]

Playing organ including organ bass is way harder than guitar. It doesn't matter if there are virtuosos on guitar. Is that how most guitarists play? Is that how you play? Is that how you're expected to play in a typical group setting?

In order to compare the difficulty between instruments, you have to normalize what's standard for playing, not tout virtuosos as if that's the minimum or normal standard for the instrument. All instruments are hard at virtuoso level. Doing some basic walking on bass and not taking a solo isn't that hard. Charles Berthoud crap is impossible.

All instruments do have their challenges though.

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.

[vintagelove]

It's definitely one of the harder instruments.

Keyboard instruments are just so much more technically capable.

[jameslovestal]

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.

You took the words right out of my mouth as it relates to how guitar is fairly 'easy' initially, but gets harder and harder as one advances. My experience when I meet someone new and see a guitar in a stand in their living room is they can play the cowboy (open) chords and maybe sing along. The vast majority will say they can't play single line. Hey, I'm not knocking that. They just picked up guitar as a hobby and never got passed stage-one. This allows me to noodle over the chords their playing until everyone else has fallen asleep!