Which musical instrument is the most difficult to play?

If you have ever compared the difficulty levels of playing specific instruments over others to determine the type of instrument you want to play or just out of curiosity, here are some ideas to consider.

Each instrument and voice, also considered an instrument in its own right, brings challenges and difficulties that the player or performer should overcome.

Playing an instrument is demanding and challenging, to say the least. Therefore, can we place the difficulty levels of playing various instruments in categories?

We can answer this question better by examining each instrument's different challenges and attributes a person should have to play an instrument. Beginning students or advanced ones will face challenges no matter their choice. Each instrumentalist has to develop their technical, physical, and musical attributes in their instrument-specific way. Therefore, I prefer to celebrate each instrument's differences instead of categorizing them as being more complex or demanding than others.

I began learning the piano at six and switched to the cello when I was nine. As a simple example, the most noticeable difference between these two instruments was ensuring that the tones I produced on the cello were in tune, as opposed to piano playing, where the required tones were readily available. This difference adds an added concern that string players deal with in general. The string player must ensure that the left hand is positioned correctly so that each tone is in tune.

There were other issues I had to get used to, like the different activities the left and right hands do in string playing. The left hand enables the different pitches, and the right hand, with the help of the bow, produces the sound. In the long run, the body's muscles need to develop according to these activities. Each hand of the player needs to master a different technique.

Even though, as a cellist, I normally read one line of music, I still had to adapt to a whole new way of making music.

Woodwind and brass players' playing depends on how they breathe and blow into their instruments. The challenges become much more different.
Musicians playing these instruments have other concerns when they play. For example, a flute or clarinet player will have to think about when to breathe during long phrases. This is much different than what I do as a string player, even though I have taken deep breaths before starting a new passage.

Also, flute players blow into their instruments differently than clarinet players, and these are instrument-specific techniques the performer has to master.

Then, there are brass instruments with varying techniques for producing sound. For instance, a player has to buzz their lips in order to play the trombone. Of course, there is much more involved than buzzing the lips. But this in itself presents challenges the player must conquer in order to produce good-quality sound.

Percussionists have to develop precision in their coordination. They normally learn a whole range of different instruments to meet the demands of orchestral settings. Their challenges are different from those of blowing into an instrument or drawing sound out of it.

Sometimes, it is more difficult for a beginner to make initial sounds on specific instruments, such as the oboe. However, this does not mean that when someone can make any sound on any instrument, it qualifies as the most desired sound. Still, this is not a good way to categorize difficulty levels.

Consider its qualities if you are trying to decide which instrument to learn. How do you see yourself making music? Which qualities of an instrument appeal to you the most?

Mastering each instrument takes years of practice and hard work. No matter what instrument someone plays, they must do their due diligence, practice, and persevere.