Bilbo:"I would say that playing the carillon or at least practicing it would be a challenge. "

Ahhh...the good old days of listening to the carillon while strolling across campus at UNI. What a pleasant memory!!

It must be amazing to hear the overture on a Kazoo... Unfortunately the link did not work for me ("station not found" error

the hardest instrument for me is flute and the easiest is percussion..
too many fingering in flute!!!

For me the flute is one of the easyist instrument i have every played. But to others tis different for them. The hardest for me is actually the clarinet (which i play too) and the piccolo. But every one is different so it depends on what they think.

I think Guitar takes the longest to sound very good on, and the keyboard/organ/piano/harpsichord <- take your pick from those.

Flute is the hardest at first (first 6 weeks), but much easier after your learn to get a good tone, and then a vibrato.

I think Trumpet can be hard, after all, it takes a long time to get a nice clean sound that is not just BLASTING your ears off. I have not heard a good trumpet player who has not been playing for at least 6 or 7 years.

Clarinet takes a lifetime to master, and the tones it makes are unreal when a player has mastered the multitude of sounds a clarinet can make. A clarinet can almost "talk".

The double reeds are also very hard, oboe, bassoon. I love them both, and few players truly master them in less than 5 or 6 years.

Violin, (or any related string instrument) an instrument to master if you want to play in a orchestra, and have a real chance of making it, since there are so many players!

Flute is the hardest at first (first 6 weeks), but much easier after your learn to get a good tone, and then a vibrato.

It takes much longer than 6 weeks to attain a good tone on flute...You might get to "acceptable" at that point, but any serious player will be doing tone exercises daily (even after a quarter century or more) in the effort to improve their sound. And I certainly would not suggest teaching vibrato to anyone who has been playing for only a few weeks. This is a very complex topic, but most people would agree that no one with that little experience is ready to incorporate vibrato into their playing in a musical way, and at that point, it's pretty likely to destabilize one's playing.

The double reeds are also very hard, oboe, bassoon. I love them both, and few players truly master them in less than 5 or 6 years.

I don't think anyone can claim to have mastered an instrument in so short a period of time. One of my favorite flute-related quotes is from Jimmy Galway and goes like this: "I don't consider myself as having mastered the flute, but I sure get a kick out of trying!" Even after about half a century of playing, he doesn't call himself a master, and he's a fantastic flutist (though not suited to everyone's tastes). If he's not a master, how can us poor mortals become masters in only 5 or 6 years? You may be highly proficient, but there's always something we can learn or do better when it comes to playing.

I love playing piano, but it is a challenge (not exaclty hard), and I enjoy the challenge. Percussion- alot of people say percussion is very easy. Yes it is... at first. When you get into the 4-mallet technique, it starts to get harder. Some of the drum rudiments are rough when you first play them. Another thing about percussion that is hard, it is not an instrament, it is a group of instruaments. To be a good percussionist, you have to master all of them. I would say piano is a percussion instruament, so if you think piano is hard, you think a percussion instrument is hard.

I have to defend the use of the term master in 5 or 6 years in this case. The levels above master would be grand-master, or expert, or professional. Master is something less to me than any of those. It is a term I pull from Martial Arts, the master is very good, but not a grandmaster yet, and not the best of the best. In chess the same thing, a master is very good, but maybe not great. Grandmaster would be great. I know Galaway is so often misquoted like the ultradoctorine on modern flute to many people, but to me, he is just one person, and does not dictate my opinion on flute in and of himself. (Yeah, I wrote that correctly, it is suppose to read that way!) I actually think he is a great flutist, and above a master.

So, the term "master" is not a flute term at all. It is a generic term used to describe something and has different meanings to different people. To me, based on my extensive experience in Martial Arts and Chess, I use it as I listed above, and that makes me correct in my understanding of the word. Remember perspective, if you forget that, then you may lose the point and miss all the great ideas in between. I understand the flute perspective here, and I attempting to change what has been said, and broaden the meaning of the word "master". There are too many absolutes in this art, to the point people are making a science of this art. That is an oxymoron! I am only attempting to open people's minds to another point of view that is valid and makes sense.

Thanks for reading my little rant... It is my opinion and cherish it, and I respect yours as well out there everyone. I am just clarifying my words since everyone speaks slightly different.

Well said Roger,

I have earned a master's degree so I could be considered a "master" by others but since I acheieved this degree, I can't tell you how much I've learned about flute playing. I don't consider myself a master by any stretch yet either. It is an art and the learning capacity for any individual is always going to be there, even on any one given piece of flute music. The interpretation possibilities for music is boundless.

Then too, being a master shouldn't be something that you achieve with time. some people can 'play' for a few decades and never really master their ability on their instrument no matter what their instrument is.

Thank you, and it seems you know what master means to you as well. I probably could sum it all up in 1 short sentence:

A master is someone who has become more than just very proficient at something they do.

Easiest:Hands down flute..maybe because I've been playing it so long or that it's just plain out easy/
Hardest:Hmm..probably trumpet for me..or trombone.there's like1 fingering for 5 notes and going from that one fingering to all the notes kill me..but its getting easier and easier..
but all instruments become easy after awhile of practicing and hard work :]

you can't say hands down, that is my fraze...

Oh, ok, you have permission...I am a pushover! :-P

easiest: piano. anyone with a finger, toe, tongue, other orifice that protrudes from the body (ew, you perv...) can play mary had a little lamb.
hardest: flute. why? ask anyone who doesnt play it to try. most cannot get even a sound out and when they do, they do not have enough air to pull it off for very long.

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better yet... try the piccolo trumpet. it takes a set of lips to play a c6 on a Bb trumpet, let alone a c6 on a piccolo trumpet...

ok i say sax has got to be hard, or any instrument with a reed(because it is apparently hard to get a sound out of them) but flute is also pretty hard(at first at least) but evry instrument posseses its opwn individuqal challenges like for xylophojne you either have to know the key possiton or be able to memorise music, flute has tricky note to get out, piccolo is hard to play in tune,ect. so it is not possible to realy find which intument is the hardest as it is and individual thing

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sorry iu am click happy

ok i say sax has got to be hard, or any instrument with a reed(because it is apparently hard to get a sound out of them) but flute is also pretty hard(at first at least) but evry instrument posseses its opwn individuqal challenges like for xylophojne you either have to know the key possiton or be able to memorise music, flute has tricky note to get out, piccolo is hard to play in tune,ect. so it is not possible to realy find which instument is the hardest as it is and individual thing