Yes, I can see that is difficult - but all instruments have difficulties. As I have said, I have known people take to the French horn like ducks to water. Some people thrive where other people don't. It's easy to say, "Oh I can't play that because it's more difficult." It's more true to say it's because it's more difficult for you. (I suspect it would be difficult for me, too). French horn has great difficulty from the close harmonics, and also I believe hand stopping isn't exactly easy. But unlike the violin, you have four(?) keys which the hand stays on. You don't have insane position changing up the neck of the instrument like violinists and cellists do (and harmonics are close - so are notes on the violin especially in the high positions). A cellist at a high level has to be able to leap from a low position to a high position with incredible accuracy. He (or she) also has to keep the bow flowing, much, much harder than it looks, and know what to do when the hand arrives in the right position. He has to be able to do completely opposite things, in fact, with both hands - and it takes a surprising amount of stamina just to keep the arms in a position to do so. Totally, utterly different set of skills to the horn player. But I can't believe that the one is inherently more difficult than the other. And I am sure that all instruments, when it comes down to it, are difficult to play well. Some tend to be easier in the beginning, some are rock hard at the beginning and then get easier, some are a steady progression. None of them are easy to play well.

As I say, I know people who took even to the horn like a duck to water. I'm sure certain personality traits and even physical things make the difference from one person to the next - I imagine a fine sense of relative pitch is incredibly important on the horn as it is on strings. But to play well is not easy on any of them, and the differences are more about us than the instruments. You can say "oh the horn must be more difficult because of X", but if for one person the area of difficulty is not something they find difficult... It'd be like saying "singing must be easy because you don't have to control an external instrument". But I think anyone who says that needs their head examining - for me, at least, that makes it more difficult. For someone with arthritis in their finger joints it would be a different story.

It's not so much a discussion, as a simple contradiction from your part. To quote Monty Python, Sarah is providing a 'connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition'; your riposte, thus far, seems somewhat limited in its depth.

Some people would say that getting their PhD was easy...others would say that their A levels were a real struggle....does that mean that PhD is not necessarily harder because somepeople took to it like ducks to water?

No!

A Levels and a PhD are different levels of the same thing - academic study. French horn and cello are two entirely different animals. I see where you're coming from in a way, but I think your analogy is faulty. You would do better to compare a PhD (or an A Level) in Russian to one in Computer Science. Is one inherently easier? I doubt it - depends on one's talents. I would find the one in Russian easier (though I dare say I would still find it too much like hard work...) - I doubt YAP would agree

Well I think that pruning roses is much more difficult than baking a flan. Not that I know anything about either .

But I am sure one would agree that a A level in General Studies is easier than one in Physics?

I am sure one could argue that an A Level in GS is not an A Level, but having done neither I don't think I'm in a position to make that judgement. And... at the risk of repeating myself, sort of - I dare say there are people who would find the physics easier. (Surely you have met folk who could calculate you to within an inch of your life but don't know what day it is?)

I have yet to meet such folk, but I when I do I shall let you know

And I guess alot of people would argue that the recorder isn't a proper instrument

P.S I love recorder

As the old saying goes, the only reason that universities maintain maths departments is that it's cheaper than institutionalising all those people .

If you go to uni, which you no doubt will, you'll find some variation on the theme... in our case it was such people as could conjugate Russian verbs in their sleep but apparently couldn't button a jacket up correctly, tell the time, know what day it was... et cetera

I just saw YAP's post: says it all! At the extreme I have read about idiot savants who could tell you the day of the week of any date in history but couldn't be allowed metal cutlery... one could say that eating with a knife and fork is easier than knowing the day of the week of August 17th 1483 without recourse to anything outside your own head, but clearly for some it isn't in milder forms, I can tell you for a fact that I'd rather you talked to me in Russian than gave me a set of directions


I think you just narrowly escaped from being sat on heavily by the recorder crew

Hmmm I think I needed a smilie or two in that last post, but have overcompensated here....

I will more than happily converse with you in Russian..although I dare say that you will be much better than me ...after all you are at degree level and me a feeble GCSE

Da? Ya nye znala! Otlichna!

It doesn't really work in Latinate letters though does it.... (And I'm not at all sure I am at degree level any more use it or lose it, as they say )

For some strange reason, I find it REALLY hard to read in latinate letters lol..and to think for 2 years I struggle reading in Cyrillic letters

I have forgotten alot of it in the last few weeks!

But one thing I won't forget is what I said in my GCSE speaking exam in answer to "Describe your sister"

Moya Sestra - Sobarka

Моя сестра - собака

It just looks wrong....

What was your examiner's reaction?

Well, the examiner was my teacher so he knew what I was like. He gave a quick smile and asked more about her...I couldn't think what say so I used the same word I used to describe my house....большой

And that was the end of the Family and Friends topic

Hear, hear!

Well, what I was saying is that all instruments have different difficulties - just because one deems one harder or sounding harder (ie. the fact the harmonics are close), doesn't make the instrument hard/easy to learn.

I think Sarah has said everything I would want to say