Something I just read online made me cringe:

"The violin is far more difficult than the guitar. Violins terrify guitar players the way trigonometry scares high school freshmen. It looks impossible" - David Segal, Washington Post.

Well, no, and I even fail to see where his cheerful arrogance comes from. On the contrary, I have always thought the guitar was harder than the violin. Not "far harder", just harder. In violins the entire right hand is limited to the manipulation of a bow or just one finger for plucking. However, we guitarist have a litany of right-hand techinques, arpeggios and dynamics for every single finger to consider. Then, when it comes to left-hand technique, there`s less distance to cover, and the polyphony and speed of the guitar requires more work of the left hand. Put these two hands together, and we have a convincing argument for the greater difficulty of the guitar. Just generally, the greater range of the guitar ups the ante on what is required of it.

What are your thoughts on this matter?

I have to say I don`t agree. Violinists have to manipulate the bow in many, many different types of strokes, not just the basic one. They have to adjust the amount of bow used, the pressure used, the tilt of the bow, and a number of other things, varying based on the stroke used. They have to produce all the different styles of playing using the bow, which I think is more difficult to manipulate than one`s own hand.

As for the right hand, violinists often play single notes, but they do sometimes do chords, at which time it can be very hard to get their hands into the right position. They don`t have frets to use, so they must simply "know" where the notes are. They also have less space to work with, even though they are required to produce just as many notes.

The holding position of the violin also makes it more difficult because it is not particularly natural at first.

I have played the violin more than 10 years, and my brother has played guitar for about 2. I think that classical guitar is possibly an exception to this, but for a standard guitar -- I do believe that violin is more difficult. I`m not great at guitar, though, so there could be things I haven`t seen (I did consult my brother on this though).

Sorry, I forgot to say that I still don`t agree with the arrogance of that statement, because even though I think violin is harder, I don`t think it`s enough harder to have made that comment. I think he made it because a LOT of people play guitar but really don`t know a whole lot about it and don`t play that well (and it`s considered, because of that, a "pop" or "folk" instrument, while violin is considered more "intellectual"). I`m not saying that`s true -- just saying that`s why the guy made the comment.

CLASSICAL guitar is one of the most difficult instruments there is. Chord guitar is one of the easiest. It depends which one is being talked about.

Liz

Classical is super easy. i have played guitar for 9 years now. 4 of which were mainly classsical. Now i play blues and jazz.

Oh yes, sorry about the confusion. I meant classical guitar. Yeah, the one with all the rasquedos, tremolos, Mauro Guilani`s 120 arpeggios for the right-hand, flamenco, yeah that kind of thing.

And on muscle-memory an interesting issue comes up. The frets certainly make it easier to learn the guitar, but just like with the violin where beginners have those little colored strips, the more you play, the less you really need frets. I can play familar peices blindfolded, and Segovia (the greatest guitar player who ever lived) composed a finger-breaking study while he was being treated for blindness. But at the highest levels of ability, where you have to stop vibrating strings so they sound for just the right length of time, independently controlling the dynamics of each right-hand finger, and of course, where things get a heck of a lot faster as well, things are different...

I suppose because guitar is easy to learn, and is capable of making very good music at beginner/intermediate levels, few leave it at that and don`t bother to take it further and assume that`s all there is. But guitar is a lifelong career where there`s always room to improve. Plus guitars have an incredible range in terms of styles of music and polyphony that there are always things to explore with. Even Beethoven said so. But that`s just our opinions.

Who is segovia?

Andrés Segovia (1893-1987) is considered to be the father of the modern classical guitar movement, as well as the best classical guitar player the world has seen. Many feel that without his efforts the classical guitar would still be considered a lowly bar instrument, played only by peasants.

When he was young, he fell in love with the guitar, but was discouraged by his parents, because the guitar then wasn`t considered a serious instrument worth study. Heck, even today to some extent it isn`t. So with a few teachers and a lot of his own ingenuity and techniques, he taught himself the classical guitar. In his teenage years he played several concerts in Europe, and he finally came to America in 1928 for his first concert in New York. A concert guitar was a welcome novelty for concert goers, and he like in Europe he overwhelmed the audience with his technique and musicianship. His rousing success in New York led to offers for more appearances in America and Europe, and a trip to the Orient in 1929.

Eventually he acheived world-wide fame, and composers such as Heitor Villa-Lobos began to compose original pieces specifically for the guitar. Segovia himself had also had also begun to transpose the masterpieces for the guitar.

Segovia also made his mark in guitar pedagogy. He had many students throughout his career, and honestly, this is where I feel he made one of his greatest contributions. Some of the world`s very best classical guitarist today had received their training from him. For instance, there`s Christopher Parkening, John Williams, Elliot Fisk, Julian Bream and Oscar Ghiglia. And to be honest, I feel that some of these guitarists exceed Segovia`s playing abilities, which is widely felt to be the ultimate in guitar. For instance, most of his chord changes in "Asturias" are far too slow and stick out like a sore thumb in the middle of a song that fast. In contrast, John William`s performance of it is near seamless. Nonetheless, he`s considered to be the golden standard of guitar-playing for almost all guitarists.

Ps: A large chunk of the specifics of this information was pulled from classicalguitar.net. Check it out for more info, but then, there`s a litany of more information on Segovia online.

pps: A bit of Segovia trivia - he could sustain notes so long that they could induce a mild form of hypnosis refered to by journalists as the "Segovia hush". He was also had perfect pitch and never needed a tuning fork to tune his guitar.

Wow he sounds like a good player

The violin is much harder and here`s why:

-Violin has a arch bridge, so when u play u will have to move all around. W/gutiar the strings r all down so it`s easier.
-violin doesn`t have frets so when u shift to different postions like the gutiar u will have to know where they r. Violins don`t have those dots when doing bar chords.
-Violin is also harder cuz there is so much to do in a song. Some notes r so high that u need to go into 5th position!
-when playing the violin u r not looking down at your fingers. Some cases u r holding the insrtument. Gutiar everything is down rested on your shoulder.
-Not to mention most ppl who play gutiar r good in their teens or early 20t`s. That`s why most bands r young. The violin has many old ppl who wave mastered it. The reason for that is it takes a longer time to master.

hmm this is is quite the topic!! I think I agree with both sides to a certain extent, admittadly learner violinist do have those little sticker strips that kind of act like frets but I`ve never seen one that goes all the way up the fingerboard, usually after a certain point they dont use them any more as they have had to learn to play/tune by ear. I`ve found it very difficult working my way up the positions and getting used to the notes getting closer and colser together as you go up the fingerboard and there is a lot less space to play with so you have to be very accurate. But I also can appreciate the difficulty in playing the guitar, I personally wouldnt know where to start, its the chord thing that loses me! Anywho, I think a lot of people think the violin is harder because when they hear learners or try and play themselves it sounds absolutely awful ( I know it did when I started) so I guess people immediatley assume it is a really hard thing to learn, and with the guitar you can strum something very basic and it can sound bearable even nice, but if you look at a professional violinist and professional (classical or whatever) guitarists I would say they are pretty much on a par.

talk about sitting on the fence eh?!
why the hell not!

yes

Just to clarify:

1) Classical guitar is a totally different animal than rock/chord guitar is. There are a million and one techniques that most have never heard of (tambolo, pizzicatos, tremolos, raqueados, harmonics etc.) and it takes a lot of disciple and dedication to get good, and then still more to get concert-worthy. All over the world conservatories have programs for the classical guitar, and even Hendrix as we know him wouldn`t be able to make it in.

2) There are the old masters of classical guitar (John Williams, Julian Bream, etc.) well into their 70s as well as relatively younger players (Sharon Isbin, Andrew York, the Assad brothers). Same with the violin (old: Midori, Perlman and Stern. Younger ones giving the older ones a run for their money: Joshua Bell, Hillary Hahn, Janine Jansen - all approximately in their early twenties).

3) Difficult pieces will have you dance along all fret board positions. I’ve played pieces that have had me hit notes on the 15th fret, and on a classical guitar, the fretboard fuses into the soundbox on fret no. 12! And at the speeds that are required, there’s no time to count frets, so your fingers should have learnt where to have gone long ago without the use of your eyes.

I think in its essence, the argument may be primarily about the range of music available to either instrument. Really challenging classical guitar music starts where violin music ends. And then it takes off and rockets into the stratosphere. Notwithstanding the differences in tone of the instruments, Paganini`s Caprices are chop sui for any professional classical guitarist. And the difficult pieces in the guitar repertoire would be impossible for any violinist to play. Not very hard or extremely difficult - just plain impossible, as the violin just isn`t made for anything much more complex than two simultaneous but independent melody lines. However, the violin is far less forgiving than a guitar when it comes to good tone, so playing simple stuff cleanly takes ages, and then something like the Caprices or Tzigane maybe a decade. And then with the ability to sustain a note for ages, a violin gets to be far more lyrical than a guitar is. So does the technicality of the violin make it harder? Or does the increased range on the difficulty of guitar pieces win out at the end of the day?

It’s a matter of how you look at things, I think. But believing the sophistication of the music created by instruments to be the ultimate test, I think the guitar wins.

Well, there`s no reason to compare other style of guitar playing to classical violin playing :p

If you look at classical guitarists` movements of the left hand, I think you would agree that guitar is more difficult (fret or no fret). As for the right hand, it`s harder to compare since the bowing movement is different from the strumming or plucking. But the right hand for the guitar has a lot of techniques that require very different right hand positions and movements (except probably the tremolo, but you have to do that at 300bpm).

But I think you can write very difficult pieces of music for any instrument.