what do you think is the hardest instrument to play? i play the trombone and i think trombone is the easiest. but my teacher said, the trombone is the hardest instrument to learn and to play. because its very often for the beginner and some advanced trombonist to play the right tune/note. because of the slide position.

I would put the trombone somewhere in the middle. Tenor and baritone horn are probably the easiest. Bass tuba and euphonium are somewhat more difficult than that, but in bands the euphonium gets much more difficult parts. Cornet is inherently fairly easy, flugel horn a bit more difficult and trombone close to both. Orchestral horn is probably a bit more difficult than trombone with trumpet close (easier to get the right note, but physically more demanding). Most difficult is probably the long Baroque natural trumpet (as played by Michael Laird and Crispian Steele-Perkins), with the natural horn close behind it.

i dont play a brass instrument but i would say the horn is the most difficult

french horn - because the harmonics are so close

How about natural trumpet? Pieces written for it are set ridiculously high to get the harmonics closer together....

Edit: ooh, kenm beat me to it

French horn is not a brass instrument - its a French horn - I speak as a horn player myself...

Huh? Are you saying that horns are above the category of 'brass'?

What? I also speak as a horn player, and horns are brass!

They're made of brass,
have valves like other brass instruments,
the sound produced is produced by the same method of other brass instruments (i.e. long metal tube, mouthpiece, vibrate/buzz lips to mouthpiece),

How is the horn not a brass instrument? It certainly isn't string or percussion, and there's no reed or sound hole for it to be classed as a woodwind instrument.

Are you joking or something?

edit: Lynda Cox would have classed the horn as a brass instrument.

Its not technically though. You get them in woodwind quintets! I dont make the rules obviously, but the horn is technically not a brass instrument.

french horn is a brass instrument! who said its not?

That's certainly the way I think of it, having come to it via tenor horn, Bb cornet, Eb soprano, trumpet and the odd excursion to trombone. However, trying to categorise things rigidly often leads to argument. Most people would think of the bugle as a brass instrument, so it's also natural to put the key bugle with it. The ophicleide is a member of the key bugle family, but can also be thought of as a version, in metal and with keys, of the serpent or the lizard (a tenor cornett). Since the last two are made of wood, it seems a bit odd to call them "brass", even though their embouchure is similar, and most people don't.

Sorting this sort of thing out is sometimes helpful, as in organising an encyclopaedia, but usually pointless, and you do much better to consider the characteristics of each item in detail or, even better, measure them. For instance, teachers who play only trombone will have no difficulty in teaching baritone or tenor horn, euphonium, or bass tuba, and may be very successful teaching trumpet, but are unlikely to be as successful as a specialist would be in teaching orchestral horn, because of characteristics in which the horn differs from the other brass and, in particular, its very different history before about 1800. The period from 1750 to 1800, in which it was more likely to share the concert platform with oboes and bassoons than trumpets and trombones, has made it an honorary member of the woodwind, and its continued presence in the wind quintet has perpetuated the tradition.

The fountain of all knowledge has spken!

He certainly has!!

Absolutely, we should have a 'ask kenm' section, he knows everything!

Of all the brass instruments I've tinkered with (Euphonium, Tuba, Cornet & French Horn) I've found the French Horn the hardest by far, I think the main problem is the pitching, after playing in Bb for so long everything is so close together and it is easy to miss pitch a note. Also switching between the Bb and F side of the instrument at the middle G totally changes the fingering and that just adds to the confusion! Still I wouldn't swap my French Horn for the world!

What on earth does 'technically' mean? My understanding of technically is 'down to earth/scientifically/truthfully/in reality'.

The saxophone is not made of wood, but the sound is produced by the vibration of a piece of wood which is amplified by the metal body. Metal flutes are woodwind because they were originally made of wood.

To quote the encyclopedia:

"The brass family can trace its ancestry back to herald French horns, hunting horns, and military bugles. The main instruments of the brass family include the trumpet, trombone, French horn, and tuba."

Steve

i totally agree with French Horn being the hardest

its ironic how something with a tiny mouthpiece has a huge range in the right hands...sound beautiful also!

the french horn is a brass instrument it has a mouthpeice is made of brass and is in the brass section
anyway the french horn is in a wind quintet (wind instruments are brass andwoodwind) woodwind are the woodwind family brass are the brass family and wind is both of them

Just to add to the comments, the French horn is indeed a brass instrument, the only reason it is also used in woodwind quartets is because of its tone and sound.
"Technically" speaking, its made of metal/brass & uses a metal mouthpiece, theres not a trace of wood on the whole instrument! Unless you are counting the cork stoppers which stop the rotary valves?

I have rubber stoppers lol!

Come to think of it .... so do I lol

perhaps the NATURAL TRUMPET i.e. the one used in the Baroque era like the one Bach intended for Brandenburg 2 is the hardest?

Today in a conversation with my brass teacher, he said he thought the french horn is easy once you get into it - in fact far easier than the trumpet or trombone. However he also told me to 'go and get drunk, then play the slow movement from the Rimsky Korsakov .' Ah well, I'm not complaining!

Is he a good horn player?

The melodic/solo register of the horn is from around the 8th to 16th harmonic, as good as free-blown. Composers like Beethoven and Mozart used means of coaxing extras out, something you can't do on other brass. So I think your teacher is just winding you up

No he was serious, I know my teacher. He knows what he's talking about, but fair enough if you disagree.

How about soprano cornet?

According to the Guiness Book of Records, the hardest instruments are the oboe and the horn. So the horn should be the hardest brass instrument.

i agree

Do you play horn? Or any other brass instrument?

Im very sorry, i am obviously very wrong. My mum who went to uni to study horn just once told me that its not strictly a brass instrument, she is obviously wrong too.

well said to all the trombone players! i'm a trombone player too and i find it really quite easy too. i reckon its hard 'cos people are always asking me how you know where the slide goes and in truth, when your playing something, you are acting on instinct for that perfect note. and that is harder than valves or what have you. to play the trombone, with a perfect note, not too flat, or too sharp: that is hard. in theory, valve instruments only need to rely on tuning slides; so do trombones too. but a perfectly tuned trombone can never get an absoleutly perfectly tuned note instantly, if you get my meaning, because the slide is never really in the same exact place for the same note, unless your like a super duper kind of trombone player like you guys probably are. d'oh! i contradicted my self! ah well

As you say, slide positions are not always accurate. For that matter, because of the way brass instruments are constructed, the length of tubing added by a valve is not always exactly right either. Brass players learn to adjust the pitch of the note with the lip. When I tried the trombone, many years ago, my slide positions were very inaccurate, but because I had done quite a bit of brass playing by then (mostly on tenor horn), I could get fairly close to the right pitch. The tone, however, was very feeble when the slide was wrong, much better when it was near the right place.