I picked up on Piano very quickly, but still haven't been able to even play guitar badly, let alone well. (Though I stopped playing piano for the last 4.5 years, so even that is probably in the bad category again...).

So, those of you who play and give lessons, what do you think?

The poor under-rated kazoo. That's my take anyway.

The nose flute is pretty easy, but it has toy status also.

Overall, I think the autoharp might be the easiest. You just push the buttons and strum.

Among the more accepted instruments, I think the guitar is an easy instrument to play simply. I find the piano more difficult, but many people think opposite. And, let's not forget the ukelele.

Mike

Kazoos are fun but they are a novelty item as well as washboards and jugs. Years ago on the Tom Snyder show, there was a Kazoo group playing classical music. They were really good and played counterpoint but one still had to smile because the tone of the instrument is pretty quirky. Hundreds of thousands of children learn to play soprano recorder, but I have yet to hear a school performance that didn't make me grimace. Yet, with diligent practice recorders and penny whistles are lovely.

To play anything well requires practice. You can compose on the computer using music notation and the new 2004 Finale program allows you to tap out the rhythm of the notes on a single key and enter the pitch later. But that's composition and not performance.

Jean

The accordion, with a button that plays either a major, minor, or seventh chord, was thought of as a toy by serious musicians. That has changed. The autoharp allows people to play major and minor chords without even knowing what notes are in them. The harmonica, especially the ten-hole harmonica configuration, is set up to allow one to play a scale that is useful in a diatonic musical setting.

The simplest instrument to learn to play with some quality? The human voice.

Mike

That's an interesting side point.... why would some instruments be toys and others not? Don't you "play" all of them? If a guitar or piano or anything else you play for fun isn't a toy, what they hell is it?

For a long time, any instrument that was simple to master and/or had a limited useful range or tonal ability, was considered a "toy" by the music community. More recently, the musician's union would classify certain instruments as "toys" and therefore not in the union's territory.

Slide whistles, kazoos, autoharps (which were invented to teach music, since they were so simple to master), harmonicas, melodicas, Jew's harps, ocarinas, pennywhistles; the list goes on. Some folk instruments were considered similarly.

Nowdays, not only are there virtuosos on such instruments like Bryan Bowers on the autoharp, but any device that produces a useful musical tone is accepted as an instrument.

I was listed in the old Nashville union book under Jew's Harp (I can rip off a decent fiddle tune on one), and I have friends who can burn up a pennywhistle. There is also a band that has been on national tv that plays exclusively toy instruments, like plastic guitars and drums. Anyone know their name?

So, I agree with you, the "toy" is being accepted more now as a real instrument.

Mike

Well, the tambourine has it's finer points.

I was taught to play tambourine by a man who played it on several hits. His name was Tom "the Hitman" Cerone. He played Drums on "Sugar Sugar" by the Archies, and he played percussion, including tambourine, on records by the Monkees, Wilson Pickett, and Neil Diamond.

Tom spent hours making me hit at exactly the same time as the snare did. He made me learn a "circular shake." I had to shake on the eighth notes exactly with the hi hat or the click track. I also had to start the first shake without any little pre-jingles.

I don't believe he would have actually shot me, but he threatened to and I know he owned a gun. I learned well from him and one of the things I learned is: the tambourine isn't easy. It goes back to what uriah said.

All the Best for Christmas,
Mike