Bob Marley once in an interview, said, “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” And it’s true. I have seen people healing their emotional and physical pains through excellent music. And when it comes about learning music, guitar and piano are two of the most prolific musical instruments.
Are you doubtful about choosing between the guitar and piano? Well, it’s a common phenomenon for beginners. Therefore, I jotted down my experience in music arena to help you to decide the piano or guitar: which is easier to learn for the beginners?
Guitar or Piano: Which One Should You Choose to Learn as a Beginner?
While learning guitar is quite a smooth curve, the piano learning offers you with more significant opportunity to understand the musical theories. Thus, it makes it difficult for the learner to choose between the two options.
Memorizing the Notes
A piano comes with a repeated pattern of notes with its keyboard. It makes the memorizing and learning process easier for a newbie. A piano teacher makes the process even more comfortable as he declassifies the whole process into two separate teaching method-
- Teaching the use of 7 white keys
- Teaching the use of 5 black keys
It makes the entire process delightful. When a learner masters the primary purposes of the above keys, the teacher moves forward with to play the rest of the notes.
On the other hand, each of the six strings has different sets of notes. Moreover, the pitch rate also influences the output. Therefore, the complex arrangements make it difficult for a learner to learn the guitar initially.
Understanding the Musical Pattern
Musical patterns are also a quick learning process in a piano. Sadly, the guitar has more complex musical patterns and requires a considerable amount of practice. So, for the beginners’ piano is always an easy learning option. If you want to learn more about patterns, you might look up here.
Let’s Not Forget About the Tuning
A piano is usually in fine tune and doesn’t require adjusting the pitch, sound, and notes. Whereas a guitar asks for regular, almost daily, tune-up, and it is a robust thing to master. Thus, the guitar learners are easily demotivated as they often go away from the original musical notes due to the lack of proper tuning. A beginner usually gets to tune his guitar once a week when he sees his teacher.
Playing a Chord Is the Ultimate Goal
When I started playing my piano, it took me around four months to play my first song on the keyboard. As a pianist learning both the musical chords and scales are essential to perform a soulful song.
On the other hand, a guitarist promptly learns to play a song. Guitar playing doesn’t need musical theories, which makes it easy to learn. Moreover, most popular pop songs come up with guitar sound helping the beginners to learn them instantly.
Piano Vs. Guitar: the Ultimate Fingerpicking Skill
Irrespective of the musical instrument you want to play, you can’t do it without mastering the fingerpicking skill. Most of the beginners find it real tough job to assimilate their fingers with the strings and keys respectively of their guitar and piano.
Mastering the Fingerpicking for Your Guitar
It is all about the positioning of your right-handed fingers (considering one as a right-hand user). Usually, one should pick the E, A, and D strings with the big finger and G string with his index finger. Lastly, the thumb should control the last three strings to play a quarter of a note. It requires many practice session to get used with your finger positions.
The Art of Fingerpicking for a Piano
Commonly, amateur learners try to use their wrist and arm instead of their finger to play their piano. Rather, it is easy to use your finger to play piano notes. While you learn the fingerpicking for a keyboard, you should check Piano Lamp position so that the lighting is in perfect place.
- Move your fingers and knuckles so that they are not positioned too straightforward and flat.
- Always keep calm and keep your shoulder, fingers, and knuckles flexible.
Quick and Prompt Satisfaction
When it comes to learning any musical instrument, there is nothing more pleasing than the first few tones you successfully play. When the sound hits your ear, it instantly fills you with heavenly joy.
And a piano is the best option to get such gratification quickly. You sit in front of your piano, move your fingers gently, and press the keyboard mildly to hear your 1st audible note. Whereas, in a guitar, you need to know about the tuning of the strings first. It requires excellent coordination. Therefore, you will not be able to play notes on your guitar as quickly as in the piano.
Preference Is the Key
I might write up a million words to advocate between the guitar and piano, but at the end of the day, it comes down to your preference. If you want to learn a piano to understand the soul of music, you must go for it.
On the other hand, if you are more interested in amazing people with your songs, the guitar turns out to be the best option. It requires little time to play a popular pop song on the guitar.
Final Thoughts
Although I have shown you all these advantages and disadvantages between a guitar and a piano learning process, I am in a dilemma to recommend you one. Nevertheless, the piano comes with a better opportunity for you to realize the music in detail. On the contrary, the guitar offers you a quick succession of playing a full song. Therefore, it is really up to you to select between the alternatives.
With all my experiences, I would probably give an extra edge to start learning the piano as an easy option for a beginner.
