Making a list of the hardest musical instruments is an interesting task because, fundamentally, most instruments come with their own set of challenges (OK, recorder, tambourine, triangle and a few others, you're off the hook here).
But it's undeniably true that not all instruments are born equal, and that some present more of a challenge than others. Here, then, is our list of ten of the most demanding instruments which, despite their many virtues, will push you further and harder than most. And, for luck, we've selected one brilliant piece of music written for each instrument that will make all that toil worthwhile. Better get practising....
What are the hardest instruments to learn?
We begin our countdown with one of music's most familiar, yet also most taxing instruments to master.
1. Violin
Top of our list of hardest instruments to play is an instrument that will be familiar to many a classical musician.
For all that it is one of the world’s most popular instruments, the violin is one of the hardest on which to make an acceptable sound, sometimes even after years of learning it. I should know - I play it myself, and I really don’t know how my parents put up with all those years of screeching.
The problem is that, unlike a piano, the violin doesn’t give you any help: you have to make all the notes yourself, and woe betide you, and your audience, if you don’t have an inborn sense of relative pitch.
There’s also the coordination issue of doing two completely different things with your right and left hand. It’s an expensive instrument, unless, of course, you want a model that makes you sound screechier. Plus, it’s all a bit high maintenance, having to hold up the instrument with one hand, while scrabbling away for dear life with the other.
But don’t let that put you off. The violin, as we know, is capable of sounding heavenly. It will guarantee you a place in an orchestra, if you’re half decent, and there’s nothing like the feeling of mastering something difficult, or at least, making a respectable fist of it. Why else would I have kept going with it all these years?
- What instruments make up an orchestra?
- What musical instrument should you learn? Here's the five things you need to ask yourself
Worth it for: Great pieces of violin music? Golly, where do we start. We have a whole list of great violin music. From that list, we'll select one beautiful piece that will make all that arduous violin study worth the effort: the Violin Partita No. 2 by Bach.
2. Organ
On the surface, playing the organ looks like a pretty cushy gig. For one thing, you’re always guaranteed a seat. And if you happen to play the piano already, you may be thinking it’s just a question of transferring your skills across. WRONG!
Ok, well not completely wrong. It is true that the organ involves a lot of pianistic fingering technique. But, I for one, had a shock when I started learning the organ and realised that not only were my feet under nearly as much pressure as my hands, but I had to learn how to coordinate the two.
Then there were the other complications, not least negotiating all those stops, in addition to expression pedals and swells. As for learning how to accompany a congregation or a choir - which, actually, is the organ’s raison d’être in any church - that’s next-level stressful. For better or worse, I never got that far with my organ journey. Maybe you will, and you’ll be all the tougher for it. It certainly worked for Anna Lapwood.
Worth it for: Getting your moment in the sun in the final movement of Saint-Saëns's Symphony No. 3 'Organ'. You kick off the movement with a rousing C major chord, and go on to provide much of the movement's drama and exultant joy.
3. Oboe
The first of two woodwind instruments to make it onto our fiendishly difficult list, the oboe is a tough one to learn chiefly because of the sheer amount of multi-tasking involved. Yes, your fingers are working hard up and down the instrtument selecting the right notes. At the same time, though, mouth, lips, tongue and breath are all busy providing the instrument's distinctive reedy sound.
Another challenge facing the oboist is the knack of breathing in through your nose while breathing out through your mouth. Takes a bit of getting used to. Worth it, though, we think, for the rewarding of creating (and we know not everyone is with us on this) one of the most distinctive and beautiful sounds across the orchestra.
Worth it for: Francis Poulenc's soulful Oboe Sonata, dedicated to the memory of his friend Prokofiev. All three movements are beautiful, but the poignant, elegiac third movement contains some wonderfully soulful oboe writing.
4. Percussion
It's not as simple as tinkling a triangle once in a while. Unlike other types of musicians, percussionists have to play a whole range of instruments. And solo percussion works can be eye-wateringly difficult. If you don't believe me, just watch this.
Or, for that matter, this.
Then there's the nuisance of carting a battery of instruments around, not to mention the challenge of appeasing your neighbours enough to let you practise them. On the other hand, as a percussionist, you get to be the one to deliver that almighty crash, bang or wallop at a climax of one of the greatest symphonies, and surely there can be no musical experience more cathartic than that (provided, of course, that you don't mistime your entry).
Worth it for: Hmm. Yes. we had a go at this one too - percussion's most exciting orchestral moments. We'd probably go with the snare drum part that provides the unmistakable rhythm to Ravel's much-loved Boléro (you can hear it in your head right now, can't you). Or the incredible battle between two sets of timpani that lends the finale of Nielsen's Symphony No. 4 such drama. You even get to retune the timpani as you battle.
5. Accordion
Talking of coordination - it is the thing about playing the accordion, given that you have to operate buttons with one hand and keys with the other, all while working the bellows and doing your best not to sound like a wheeze bag. To be fair, not all accordions were created equally difficult.
One type will allow you to play chords with a single button, so you don’t need to learn how to build chords before you can play them, or propitiate the accordion gods every time you give a performance. But when you watch a virtuoso accordionist like Ksenija Sidorova, for instance, you realise that some instruments were designed just for superhumans.
Worth it for: Astor Piazzolla's Libertango. See (and hear) below!
6. French horn
You may be thinking ‘oh it only has three valves, what’s the problem?’ But it is extremely easy to be terrible at the French horn. In fact, many a professional has cracked notes in concert.
That’s because the horn’s primary range is in a particularly high part of the overtone series, where the harmonics are very close together. So it’s easy for a player to hit a wrong note. Plus, the French horn has a small mouthpiece, which requires more lip and muscle control than, say, a trumpet.
It’s one of the heavier brass instruments, and also one of the more expensive, with a passable model setting you back at least £1000. Then there’s the yuck factor of emptying out the spit valves.
I would say you’re better off avoiding the whole headache altogether, except for one thing: the French horn has an absolutely gorgeous sound. Warm, velvety, noble, at times heartbreaking (think the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, or that serene little melody in the second movement of Dvořák's Symphony No. 7), it is, you could say, a sound worth labouring for. Then again, maybe not.
Worth it for: Aside from the two achinfgly beautiful melodies mentioned above, how about Benjamin Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings? As mentioned in our piece on the best horn concertos of all time, the great thing about this work is how Britten teases out all the different facets of most warm and soulful instrument.
More of the hardest instruments to learn
- 10 easiest instruments to play
- Musical instruments for children: 10 of the best
- 10 pieces of classical music for children
- How can I get my child into classical music?
7. Harp
Hang on... I know I might have mentioned elsewhere that the harp was in fact one of the easiest instruments to play. But, beyond beginner level, it actually gets pretty darned hard. Modern concert and orchestral repertoire makes serious demands on harpists, with blisters being an occupational hazard.
Then there are the practical concerns: the sensitivity of the strings, the faff of tuning them, the headache of transporting the instrument, the prohibitive expense of buying it, with a full-sized pedal harp typically costing tens of thousands of pounds. Plus solo repertoire for the instrument is actually fairly limited.
And yet, the harp is such a beautiful instrument - both in looks and sound - that it's easy to overlook the obstacles. You can just picture yourself, clad all in white, playing arpeggios on some Grecian portico. That is, until the grim realist in you kicks in.
Worth it for: Mozart's Concerto for Flute, Harp and Orchestra. Really shows what this instrument can do, and the incredible soundscapes it can provide.
8. Double bass
The orchestra's largest stringed instrument, the double bass demands strength, stamina and some very well-trained ears: because the pitches are so low, it can be difficult to hear the finer nuances of intonation. Plus, you have the frustration of putting in all that hard work, and then rarely getting the chance to shine as a soloist, at least in classical music.
On the other hand, though, as a double bassist in an orchestra, you serve an essential function: providing weight and dynamic power and reinforcing the rhythmic foundation. And we haven't even begun to discuss the many wild joys of being a jazz bassist.
Worth it for: The double bass gets some urgent, searching work right at the beginning of the tense opening movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 2:
9. Bassoon
Affectionately nicknamed the ‘clown of the orchestra’, the bassoon needs a hell of a lot of puff to get going and you may well not find the initial sound agreeable. As for the actual ‘playing’ part, that comes with its own complications: temperamental reeds, multiple fingerings for some notes, the sheer size and weight of the thing.
It’s expensive too, with a decent instrument setting you back several thousand pounds. All in all, playing the bassoon is a pretty big undertaking, maybe that’s why you don’t tend to get hordes of people doing it.
Worth it for: Yet those who do tend to be pretty passionate about it, and listening to the bassoon at its best - not least in that iconic opening of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring - you start to understand why.
10. Theremin
Known for its use in science fiction films and its eerie sound - like that of a descending alien spacecraft - this rare electronic instrument is ferociously difficult. For one thing, you play the theremin without touching it, adjusting volume and pitch by moving your hands over an electromagnetic circuit.
For another, it is extraordinarily sensitive: the slightest loss of control will show up in the sound, as will any other interferences in the instrument's electro-magnetic field, which is why, if you're sharing the stage with a theremin player, you need to keep a distance of at least a metre and a half.
According to Carolina Eyck (pictured), one of the instrument's main exponents, the theremin's sensitivity is also its biggest asset: 'you can pull out emotions only possible on the theremin,' she said in an article for the Financial Times. But the fact remains: if you want to be pulling any emotions at all out of this instrument, you will need to sweat for it.
Worth it for: Hang on while we consult this useful guide to best music for the theremin. And yes - we think the wonderful world of film scores is the place to look for the theremin at its eerie best. In particular, its role in providing the dreamlike atmosphere of Miklós Rósza's Spellbound:
And the last in our list of hardest instruments is....
11. Bagpipes
The marmite of instruments - you either love them or hate them - bagpipes are not for the fainthearted. For a start, they require an extraordinary amount of air, which can be quite overwhelming for a beginner. Then there is the fiddly playing technique.
Grace notes are just about everywhere in highland pipe music, particularly if you take on the elaborate art music genre known as pìobaireachd. As for that deafening wall of sound….you’ll need a good pair of earplugs if you want to practise indoors.
That said, the bagpipes have so much going for them - versatility, antiquity, wow-factor - quite apart from the fact that they give you an excuse to wear a kilt. Surely it’s worth overcoming a few initial hurdles to play this rugged beast of an instrument. Then again, as a bagpipe (and marmite) lover myself, I would say that.
Worth it for: 'Scotland the Brave', of course.
