Is piano better than guitar?

nick parkin

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Greetings!

Lately I've been playing alot of guitar but my progress is so/so. I was learning the goodbye to romance guitar solo which is surprisingly easy, however I still feel that the guitar does not feel as natural for me. I spend a lot of time playing each little lick super slowly to get the muscle memory down.

Any-who, I've started college again and decided to start learning piano. I already knew a little about sheet music and so far I've practiced two hours a day for 3 straight days and I'm loving it. Even after two hours I still want to keep playing. The piano feels more intimate and I feel I can express more emotion as well as the notes and progressions make more sense to me since its all laid out in one straight line unlike a guitar where its 6 strings.

I really love classical piano and am learning chopins 4th ballade to start and i'm loving learning it so far. I know thats ambitious for a newbie like me but I already understand the level of practice it takes to learn this stuff. Plus I have two hours a day for 4 days a week in between my classes. I practice all the same licks for two hours straight so it becomes muscle memory and i'm actually making some decent progress. and Im loving it so far. I also feel a really personal connection to ballade No. 4 and it reminds me of a girl who broke my heart as well as the progression of the piece has lots of parallels with my life over the last few years.

Like I said it feels more intimate and natural for me when I play piano and I am just loving it. I don't know if this is temporary though. Maybe im liking it because it is a new experience? has anyone switched from guitar and piano and liked it better?
 
Women seemed to think if you played the piano, you were sort of like Heathcliff, a brooding character with a dark past, full of pain. They could save you. It helped if they'd had plenty to drink first. I was like WTF?
 
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Well, I learned from lounge-lizarding, that girls can sit next to you on a piano bench. The seat for a guitarist is usually only big enough for the guitarist. So, I never bothered playing the guitar in public.
Well I do have a lady friend who is teaching me and the seat is defiantly big enough for two.
She does have a boyfriend however we get along very well and they are in a long distance relationship so ill still stick around just in case anything falls through
 
The greatest standards in music have been played on the piano. Eddie Duchin is one of my favorites, along with Roger Williams. I own a piano and would like to learn how to play it. You've made a wise choice.
 
The greatest standards in music have been played on the piano. Eddie Duchin is one of my favorites, along with Roger Williams. I own a piano and would like to learn how to play it. You've made a wise choice.
I just have a love for chopin and how much emotion can be conveyed in his pieces
 
I play both but I'm a better pianist than guitarist. I wish I had time to be better at both.

Chopin and Rachmaninoff are my favorites on piano. I want to find a teacher to learn blues piano at some point as I adore blues in general.

I don't think one is better than the other. It's a personal thing. Play one or the other, both or neither. Try out the sax or trombone or trumpet. Music isn't about finding the best instrument it's about finding the one that lets you pour yourself into the music. Whether that's a melodica or a Stradivarius is completely beside the point... Just keep making music. :music:
 
Learn piano. Play 10 notes at one time. You'll learn theory and breeze through sight-reading. Then, you can play any other instrument more easily. If you write, piano is a great aid and to accompany yourself. All just my $.02
 
I started both @ very early age, but piano first @ 6 years old, guitar starting @ 8-9 years old. AFAIR, the trickiest bit @ the opening stage for each is instrument "fitment", fairly straightforward @ a (Steinway baby grand) piano and, in the case of my brother and I, (Lowrey) organ. In the early 60s there wasn't a "student/down-sized" version of these instruments for us, we simply sat @ and learned, from our grandmother at our grandmother's home (upstairs from our own home) using her Steinway BG and the Lowrey (w/ 360-degree Leslie! Of course we didn't realize how potentially cool that Leslie speaker was until ~ 9 years later, when we adapted it to our geetar amplification scheme). So that's it regarding "standard" keyboard fitment.

Early geetar fitment is altogether a different matter as so much of (eventual) "success" with mastery of the geetar depends, IMO, on the build and "feel" quality of the first instrument(s) -- plural in case one starts out w/ acoustic and electric variants. There are out there, even back in the stone age 50s & 60s, so-called "3/4 scale" geetars, more suitable for young hands. I never had one of those, for starting @ age 6 my first acoustic was an older cousin's Martin, a little OO-18, while my first electric was a Japanese-built Teisco "Strat" model, from which I graduated to a '62 Gibson SG Special (Polar White; still have it and it remains unmodified) @ around 1969/70.

I continued playing piano and geetar throughout my childhood, through my teens, and through (undergraduate) university where I was a double-major that included musical composition and theory, for which the piano was a MUCH handier instrument for assistance w/ my work (read: musical creations, study of theory, etc.). But the geetar got me outta the house and working w/ other musicians, both in garages and @ small clubs. And it was the geetar which, years later during graduate school, helped me get jobs @ recording studios, sitting in with bands, learning the art of buying and selling and trading vintage instruments and more. I think my last "serious" moment w/ a piano or organ occurred somewhere/time in the early Nineties, while the geetar I played daily through the 80s, 90s, earned $$ with it and still play it several hours a week still. It's been my portable friend and confidant for some 45 years and has accompanied me places @ which any keyboard, even those elementary Casio/Yamaha sorta thingies, could travel and/or be used, cuz an old OO-18 and '40s J-45 don't need no juice to operate.

My take-away on the piano vs. geetar: If you're a serious player who practices and learns and is genuinely talented, the geetar will take you miles farther down Music Road. But that's been my experience and, as we all well know, results vary.
 
So Nick, in response to your question, in the long run mastering geetar proved to be better pour moi than mastering piano/organ. I should have added above that I also had a ~10 year relationship w/ a genuine "classical" geetar of very high build & sound quality, and while I stuck with it for a decade, my interest in picking (heh heh) it up and playing scales and the usual classical geetar literature, e.d., Segovia's Bach transcriptions, pieces by Sor, Giuliani, Tarrega, Villa-Lobos, and the rest of 'em, my interest in the playing thing waned to the point where I held in higher regard the nylon-stringed work emanating from Leonard Cohen and (can you imagine!) Willie Nelson, @ which point I set it (a 50s Fleta) aside and returned to steel-stringed acoustics.

nb: There is one "classical style" piece I still play, but on steel-stringed acoustic and even occasionally electric geetar: "English Suite" (Opus 31), written by John Duarte in 1967. I also occasionally mess around a bit w/ the "flamenco" called "Mood For A Day" thing that Steve Howe wrote & performed for the Yes album Fragile (1971).
 
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Well playing piano is not a negative and I suggest you experiment and play more piano but perhaps has organ mode, too? And get into not just guitar riffs but compositions like the Doors. (..and many other bands.. just came to mind..) LIke the long studio cut of 'light my fire'.. try riders on the storm, too. Don't try to be a ''speed guitar" star. Play to make other players leads really shine in the balance of the composition(s). You should read up on finger hand exercises for musicians, too. Don't become an invalid and not get out and walk about. keep in shape, eat right.

I Regret I didn't take many guitar lessons nor piano but if I had the time and money (I did take drum lessons from a friend who took lessons I paid for half and he taught me what he learned. A few years later I could jam with many because I had the ability to because I jammed with records on a cheap ass harmony finger bleeder from woolworths.. LOL. Then graduated to a classical guild mk.II. 2 hours min a day.. many 4-5 hr days, too. I listened to many genres on radio, Lps and 45's. And electric guitar didn't take long to get used to reproducing tunes. I love to play with recordings of 'James Brown' imo king of Soul, who arranged a really good horn section.. so did 'Chicago'.

--- IF guitar is your most familiar instrument? The more you jam with recordings? the easier the chords and short riffs will come automatic. No shit!~ you'll say 'did I just play that?' ((Inverse is you really suck sometimes? :D so take a week off! When you come back? you'll be surprised at all that hours practice you did!! (don't do bars.. study and physically work out (not in the bedroom! **)

Point #27,450? lol! the more dynamic you really are is being familiar with as many instruments as you can try out and experiment, too. e.g. Try tuning your guitar(s) to E flat.
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** No subjective comment on g'friend... lol she's probably more interested in you going to College and future and if music is what you have in common or just friendship... , but most women can decided to take out options on planning your future? including she owns the living room and bedroom decor? :D So plan now on getting a big place now.
 
You're getting a lot of snarky responses to this. I'll try to deal with it seriously. No instrument is inherently "better" than any other instrument. Play those which make you feel good. If you have a natural thing for the piano, go with that, and enjoy the journey. It sounds to me like you are very much in touch with what you like. Listen to that and go with it.
 
Well, I learned from lounge-lizarding, that girls can sit next to you on a piano bench. The seat for a guitarist is usually only big enough for the guitarist. So, I never bothered playing the guitar in public.

Hrmm... I'm guessing you never played acoustic guitar and sang in a college town.

:p
 
To the OP, I've played more guitar than piano though I was pretty handy at my peak and my mom was quite handy on the piano.

I never thought of the piano as more emotional or expressive. More percussive and more dynamic for sure but not more expressive in my opinion.
 
Girls go for the dude who can sing with the guitar. :p










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