“You just... well... shake them” *yeah, for the piano you just click on them*

"Ukulele only has 4 strings, it's easier then guitar" "Shakespeare's books have less words than modern novels, they're easier to understand"

Mojo's formula is quite simple. Hardest instruments: "Though it is easy to learn, it is hard to master" Easiest instruments: "Though it's hard to master, it is easy to learn"

Okay, percussion gang here. At high levels we're required to know how to play ALL of those instruments, and even something as "simple" as the triangle or tambourine has a lot of depth behind it. Freshman year percussion studio class we had a whole THREE WEEKS devoted to nothing but triangle, and another three weeks to tambourine, and another three weeks to cymbals. No drums, no keyboard instruments, nothing. Beyond that we had juries where we were required to incorporate x amount of instruments in original compositions, so you had to keep up with your skill on the "low skill" percussion instruments. Not to mention the fact that getting a good tone out of a keyboard percussion instrument is largely due to correct mallet selection for the repertoire, consistent striking locations (not hitting the damn nodes), and correct stick control. Plus, using four mallets is ridiculously hard. Especially when you have to swap between two and four.

Top 10 hardest instruments: "The basics are easy, but it's hard to master" Top 10 easiest instruments: "It's hard to master, but the basics are easy"

Any instrument is "easy" to play if your just going to play the four chords of pop.

"there's not really much to playing the xylophone" **shows marimba player using four mallets**

I played the marimba for 7 years in school, and it’s NOT easy. Especially getting 9 marimbas to play difficult pieces together. Getting the right sound and dynamics. Getting the correct notes to play. With 4 mallets. I am a violinist now but will always have a respect to marimba players.

*Top 10 Easiest Instruments in the World* "Number 1. The triangle" Actually, the *triangle* is the hardest instrument because no one has played *Flight of the Bumblebee* on It.

" *iF yOU CaN pLAy iT eASy , yOu CaN pLAy iT haRD* " - DumbMojo.

I play clarinet and even I can tell that percussion isn't easy. Percussion is the group that my band director has to work with the most because of all the different rhythms and timing they have to learn and perfect for each piece.

Legit; watching you guys react to this made me feel better about me playing my Native American drum, I felt inferior to all other non-native instruments 😅. I always thought "I'm just hitting my one drum with my one stick, it's not very impressive looking for non-natives"🥲. But watching you guys say how those instruments aren't as easy as they look even with less drums or strings and whatnot...it made me feel better. I feel validated in my pride of native American drumming. Also, using our rattles! I have played the Native American drum and rattles. It IS more difficult than you'd think. Even more so for us actually. In my tribe, we aren't allowed to hit the center of the drum hide because it's seen as disrespectful. Our ancestors/grandma are in the center, so you'd be hitting them basically.

My perspective as a percussionist is this: yes, some percussion instruments, like the egg shaker, are not very hard to learn or play. We can all agree on that. But, NO percussionist plays only the egg shaker. How about maracas, vibraslap, cowbell, woodblock, temple blocks, suspended cymbal, crash cymbals, toms, snare drum, bass drum, ratchet, gong, slide whistle, triangle, tambourine, timpani, bells, xylophone, chimes, marimba, vibraphone, steel pan, congas, bongos, and castanets, just for starters? Each instrument has its own technique and mallet requirements, so the thing that makes percussion hard is not how hard each individual instrument is, rather how many we have to know how to play. And yes, I am lightly offended by this video. But who cares? Real musicians appreciate every instrument in the band. And about that xylophone comment, if you’re playing xylophone in a band or orchestra and you miss a note, literally everyone in the hall hears it. It’s not something you can afford to miss notes playing. And one last gripe: they showed a clip of a bunch of kids playing xylophones, and then immediately switched to a clip of somebody playing MARIMBA. They don’t even know the difference between the two, so they (DumbMojo) have absolutely no authority in making this video.

One time, a percussionist told me, hit the triangle, that’s easy. Now, hit the triangle with the same strenght and produce the same sound 10 times in a row.

I think the mistake people often do is just because someone can transfer their skills and get an ok sound out of an instrument quickly it means it's easy. If you're a good percussionist then then you've already laid a lot of the ground work for tonnes of other percussion instruments. It's like with language, English is easier to learn if you're a native speaker of another germanic language (Swedish, Dutch, etc.) than if your native language is Korean. Because the languages are related and you already have a lot of the foundation ready.

Percussionist here who plays varsity marimba for high school Frontline: When I was first learning, there is so much that goes into the sticking and mallet technique. You have to have your hands gripping the stick a certain way, hit the center of the bar (even with four mallets and with you’re perception of the center being warped with the angle) thinking about up stroking, not pushing the mallet into the instrument, prepping the hands over the next note, moving in the direction you’re playing, pulsing on the pulse marks to match the music, and so much more all while looking up at the other frontline players to match what they’re doing as well. Mallet instruments take so much time and work to master. During the summer, only the drum line and frontline sections have to take 3 hour practices each week, and by the end of it, you’re hands are blistering and you’re arms are sore. Don’t ever downplay percussion, frontline, or drum line, instruments for being seemingly easy to master. They’re not.

I’m a professional percussionist and I‘m personally offended

Showing a marimba while talking about a xylophone is like showing a recorder while talking about a flute

I just appreciate the fact that even Brett and Eddy know how hard it is to play a marimba.

I once played cymbals in orchestra (i was the pianist, but one piece had no piano so i was asked to do cymbals) and keeping track of 100 measures of rest was no joke. Percussionists, who have to play many different instruments, are AMAZING.

By this logic, running should be the easiest sport actually. All you do is get up and run.

The real top ten easiest instruments: 10. All 9. instruments 8. get 7. really 6. difficult 5. at 4. the 3. highest 2. level 1. Kazoo

Anyone who plays recorder well knows it's extremely difficult. Between producing a pleasant tone, playing in the third register, constantly adjusting pitch, creating vibrato with finger shading, applying the many tonguing techniques, playing in both bass and treble clef, learning to transpose fingerings across F, C, and D instruments, and using the many extended recorder techniques, there's at least as much to deal with on recorder as on more modern instruments.

I’m really confused as to why kazoo wasn’t number one

“Triangle is the easiest” (Flashbacks to Leonard Bernstein trying to get the percussionists to play that triangle part)

"A flute has no strings, therefore must be extremely easy to learn" -DumbMojo

As a percussionist, this video offended me to a whole new level. I mean like, come on. We literally have to learn and master the techniques of every single percussion instrument. Just think of it this way. You have to learn violin, viola, cello, and double bass in a few weeks because you have to play them all in your upcoming concert. Sounds challenging, right? Also, don't you just love how DumbMojo shows literal movie clips of some of the instruments as valid evidence? All I can say is, many thanks to TwoSet for supporting us percussion players.

I play the recorder and the clarinet (and a bit of sax). If anything, the recorder is the hardest at a higher level because of tuning, alternate fingerings, extended techniques that are essential at a grade 7 level, which isn't the same with the clarinet. Even though it was easier to get a sound out of the recorder, making it sound good was so much harder than the clarinet or sax

DumbMojo: Four strings makes an instrument easier Also DumbMojo: The violin is the hardest instrument to play Me: :confushon:

*DumbMojo:* * Says the ukulele is easy to play * *Me, a ukulelist:* * expects TwoSet to agree with them * *TwoSet:* * defends ukulele honor * *Me:* THIS IS WHAT I LIVE FOR!!!

i think she should have to learn each and every one of these instruments and then play them in a concert hall solo.

As a percussionist I’m actually going insane from this list. I’m fairly new to percussion (~2 years) and having played marimba (and xylophone for that matter) triangle, bongos, tambourine, shakers and cymbals, they are all shockingly technique based. They look super simple but often require super precise hand movements. For example, to get the proper sound from a shaker you need to ensure your doing the proper motion just rolling the beads inside isn’t playing it. Tambourine and triangle are more simple to do just a few small hits but they definitely get difficult when you have to do a bunch of repeated beats and keep in time. Also doing rolls for both of those are pretty hard, with triangle it can sound really messy if not done properly and tambourine there is a specific technique where you tightly drag your thumb around the edge to create a roll, it is hard to do (I still haven’t learned how yet 😢) Lastly, (I didn’t mean for this to be an essay whoops) cymbals are in the same area as triangle and shaker in the sense that getting a noise out is easier but it can sound reeeaaaallly messy if you don’t get the proper seal, motion, speed, mute when they crash. That I you for those that have read my percussion rankings and thanks two set for appreciating the percussionists ❤

"Of course it's hard to be good with English, but learning the alphabet will take no time at all."

Dumbmojo: “smaller instruments are easier” Piccolo players: *facepalm*

As someone who has played recorder in symphonic band, it is not easy. the fingerings are similar to a saxophone, but it mostly requires changing your air flow like you would when playing trunpet to change octaves, as opposed to a sax having an octave key. plus not to mention, anyone can make sound out of a recorder but it takes practice to actually achieve a GOOD sound like most wind instruments

"of course it's hard, but it's easy" 🗿✨

“dumbmojo is back” knew it

I’ve actually seen a jazz percussionist doing an INSANE triangle solo.

They shows NEIL PEART, the GOD of drumming, for their “bongos” clip. I’m at a loss. He was well known for bringing and playing an entire percussion section to live performances, he was a fucking beast. I honestly would love to watch your guys’ reaction to Rush’s live performance of Xanadu from Exit… Stage Left, it’s a work of art, and all three band members are virtuosos in the rock community.

As a percussionist, I can confirm that mallet instruments are easy to play a note on, but hard to make them sound good.

Ukulele is easy to learn. Took me about 3 hours. And no, it's not because I've been playing guitar for 17 years. I'm just a prodigy.

“The xylophone is easy to play” **shows a marimba**

As a percussionist, when she said xylophone and showed the marimba clip, I actually died inside. I play the marimba, glockenspiel, vibraphone, and all mallet percussion instruments. It takes so long to learn how to use more than 1 stick in each hand (especially for chords because of how far of a stretch your hand needs to do to play while also staying in time). Plus, you need the right mallets, right dynamics, and yknow what? I'd like to see the lady try having 4 mallets in her hand playing 16th notes on the marimba in the piece Bamboo Warrior. Or better yet, have her do what I did for that piece. I played Cabassa, Gong, Suspended Cymbal, Taiko Drums, Wood Block, AND 4 MALLETS ON THE MARIMBA. Have her do that in that piece. She'll move it to the hardest instruments. "Maracas. How hard could it be?" You need to get the rhythms right because when you shake them for straight 8th notes, sometimes its delayed. Crash cymbals. They're heavy and you sometimes need gloves so the leather straps don't burn your hands. And you need to hit them at certain angles to have a good sound. Triangle. Listen to Night In Bald Mountain. Listen to the triangle. Thats all im gonna say. so go ahead Miss Dumb Mojo, please keep dissing all of the percussion section instruments.

I played the vibraphone all throughout high school. Didn’t take me too long to get through the basics. My first year I only did the warm ups on the marimba and played the percussion instruments the rest of the year, but my second year I got to play the vibraphone and I had a bit of trouble because they immediately got me playing with 4 mallets and I had to move from chord to chord really fast. So, I had a lot of trouble learning how to move my mallets different distances and keeping making it intuitive to hit for different notes at the same time. Overall, I would say that it isn’t too hard to learn the basics though, especially if your already familiar with piano playing.

"Ah yea the xylophone is pretty easy" _shows footage of a MARIMBA, being played with 4 MALLETS_ It even said marimba in the f***ing title card!! ._. "Ah yes the tambourine is very easy" _shows footage of a beatring_ Beatring doesn't have a head! Tambourine does! "Ah yes cymbals is easy" _shows footage of clash cymbals, one of the HARDEST percussion techniques to pick up for beginners_ .. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

"Piano is also easy to play, just sit in a stool and hit those piano keys": DumbMoJo

I paused at 8:25, haven’t gotten to #1 yet but I’m gonna guess triangle.

3:35 I'm a percussionist and that was very SACRILEGIOUS

when I was in band, we didn't have enough percussionists so the teacher had some flutes and clarinets play the instruments. This one kid was unlucky enough to play the triangle, and every sectional, the teacher spent half of it trying to get her to hold the triangle right, play the right rhythm, play the right tone, etc. Triangle isn't easy. You have to hit it at a precise angle to get the sound you want. 45 degrees is the sweet spot, but it depends on the piece you're playing and the conductor's preference. not to mention how stressful it was. the triangle's sound cuts through the sound of the band, so if you fuck up, the whole band stops and stares at you. there are also many sticks to hit the triangle with, and you have to use the right one to play the note depending on the dynamic. There are lighter sticks for piano, and heavier ones for forte. You also have to control the pitch, tone, and the amount of ringing, and know when the muffle it and when to let it ring.

Friendly reminder that "the percussionist" is not a drummer, they usually play "anything that needs to be hit with something"

Xylophone being one of the easiest makes me immediately think of “danse bohemian” by Randall standridge

Hol' up surely a kazoo is easier to play than bongos & tambourine.

"And you well... Shake them." And I just push keys on my piano.

"Of course, it's difficult to play well" is just DumbMojo's Ling Ling insurance

"and well... just shake it" ok i'll just blow air into the clarinet.

the tambourine (its actually called pandeiro) is a core part of the samba genre and is one of the hardest to play in a pagode group, followed by the tamborim, cavaquinho, and so on, this just makes every brazillian cry

Classical Singer: What about the voice? Is that easy or hard? DumbMojo: The voice is an instrument?

"Percussion is Easy" Me, a Tabla player- Yeah, we'll see about that

I think that what they said about the ukulele is so true. It’s very easy to learn the basics! I picked it up in an afternoon, and I’m no Ling Ling!

For the triangle, in my school band, we are playing this song called Shipwrecked and one of our percussionists has to play the triangle kind of like squeezing it for two 8th notes then letting it go for two 8th notes. It’s not difficult for him cuz he’s the one who actually practices, but I’ve thought of it a pretty difficult to play. In my opinion, all percussion is hard. I play the clarinet and it’s easy one you know what you are doing, but for some people it’s difficult cuz of all the keys and fingerings and air control. I can’t see my self playing percussion cuz I’m so used to wind instruments. Props to all you percussionists out there 👏🏼

Let's be honest here, all instruments are difficult to play if you want to play one professionally. Percussion, difficult. Woodwinds, difficult. Brass, difficult. Strings, difficult. Basically, almost every instrument requires a different set of skills.

"the ukelele only has four strings so it's easier" Watchmojo low key dissing violins AND bass.

5:00 “you simply stick it in your mouth and blow.” *that can be interpreted in other ways*

That moment when my small towns percussionists get mentioned in one of my favorite youtubers videos

Okay, sure. I'm a classical orchestral percussionist who spent three years as the head of a world percussion ensemble. Let's get into it. Xylophone - reading music and learning key placement is a big hurdle for beginners. Any tonal instrument will have this. For xylophone players, choosing the mallet you use is important because it's the only way you have to change the timbre. If you've ever wanted to spend hours researching plastics, resins, rubber thicknesses, yarns, and various types of wood, this is the instrument for you. Xylophones also have fairly narrow bars for each note while also being very horizontally wide. However, many musicians will perform on a venue-provided instrument rather than traveling with one, and there is no standardized size. You need to re-learn the distance between notes on the fly every time you play on a different xylophone, which can make it hard to build muscle memory. Maracas - rhythmic accuracy on the maracas is extremely difficult because the weight of the beads inside will determine the time between when you move the maraca and when you hear its sound. Sharp, distinct sounds require precise wrist flicks, which take a lot of practice to learn to control the dynamics of. One of the hardest things to do on maracas is to create odd-numbered rhythm patterns, like two sixteenth notes connected to an eighth note. This is because the sound happens when the beads hit the edge of the maraca, so you need to get the beads high enough inside the maraca that they can come back down without making them go so high as to hit the back and ruin the rhythm, all while keeping it in time. Cymbals - they're showing and talking about two different types of cymbal here. A pair of hand-held crash cymbals are hard to play properly because if you just clap them together like one of the monkey toys, you will profoundly crunch the sound. You need to hit them together and then separate them apart in one continuous movement so the sound can resonate, but if they rub together there will be a loud and unpleasant scraping sound. Quickly repeating hits at low dynamics without crunching the sound is one of the hardest things you can do on the instrument. The suspended cymbal requires an understanding of the mallet you use, and if your piece moves between distinct hits and smooth rolls, you will need to rapidly change mallets during the performance. Dynamics control on suspended cymbal is very challenging for beginners, as the choice of mallets and the size of the cymbal will affect how long it takes to reach different dynamic levels over the course of a roll, and good players will look at the dynamics a roll is supposed to begin at and understand their cymbal well enough to judge how much earlier than written to come in to create the composer's written effect. Bongos - bongos have three main striking timbres, each with their own technique, and if you cannot play them all then you are not playing bongos. Bass is in the middle of the drum and can use the palm of the hand or the fingers depending on preference, and the challenge is to avoid a flat or deadened sound, which can happen if your hand stays on the drum for too long or if you hit too close to the dead center. Tone is on the edge, and is what people typically think of as playing bongos. Slaps are a higher-pitched sound that is often louder, played close to the edge. Getting a good slap sound requires a knowledge of the speed required as well as how to properly cup the fingers, and it is the hardest sound to produce on the instrument. It isn't uncommon for beginner bongo players to have swollen or dislocated finger joints or to experience fractured or broken fingers as they learn this technique, and many beginner bongos players will bind their fingers with medical tape to avoid injury as they learn. Tambourine - tambourines combine the hardest part of the bongos with the hardest part of maracas. Tambourines have bass, tone, and slap techniques, and you can also shake them to get just the sound of the shakers without the drum tone. Slaps continue to be difficult, as is judging the timing of your shaking to produce an even, consistent, on-tempo rhythm. Depending on the region of music you're playing, tambourines also add finger and hand rolls. Finger rolls are also present in Turkish drumming and are easy to understand the concept of but difficult to keep steady and consistent because some fingers of the hand tend to be stronger than others. Hand rolls are a full-hand movement that comes from the wrist, and have similar issues with dynamic consistency and rhythmic evenness in addition to requiring a lot of stamina. Tambourines are also deceptively heavy, so developing the stamina just to hold it and keep it in motion for an entire performance can be challenging for newer players. Triangle - any time you have a metal instrument being played with a metal mallet, you are moments away from a timbre disaster. The hardest part of a triangle is to avoid excessively abrasive sounds to keep it feeling light instead of clang-ey. Hitting a triangle off-center will tend to make it rotate on its string making it hard to play repeated notes in tempo, so there's a surprising amount of physical accuracy required. In more advanced repertoire, you can play a triangle with one hand and mute it with the other to create more rhythmic complexity, which is hard to get the hang of initially.

I am a percussionist and this is insulting at a level that goes beyond personnal

How dare she roast a xylophone, one of the hardest instruments in percussion, SACRILEGIOUS.

I am genuinely shocked that they did not put bass in this haha. At least bass gang dodged that bullet.

*"we're not a roasting channel, we're a simmering channel"* - Eddy Chen, 2020

I'm a percussionist. My instructor in high school made me learn every different way to play the tambourine. Then I had to learn a tambourine solo. That was the most difficult experience I've had.

reminds me of the hours I spent on practicing the tamborine of the Carmen Suite.

2:51- I tries to play the ukulele, and in a few weeks I was just getting used to the strings!!🤣

WatchMojo logic: Instrument A is top easiest instrument because while difficult to master, it is easy to pick up Instrument B is top hardest instrument because while easy to pick up, it is difficult to master

4:59 "just blow, and voilà, you're playing music." "just grab a bow and a violin, pull the bow and voilà, you're playing music."

they roast the xylophone (which stands out in any setting, orchestra, marching, anything) and proceeds to show a 5 octave marimba from what i assume is a vic firth video. i hate it when people cant tell the difference.

Anyone familiar with Brazilian music knows how much work goes into mastering the tambourine (pandeiro), triangle and even the egg shaker.

As a marimba/xylophone player (and generally a percussionist), I am DEEPLY offended by the ranking video. I can’t even make myself try and see pas that and see why it is easy for those people 🙄 Marimba/xylophones are complex instruments, and they require the right sticks and right pressure to produce a good, resonating sound that can set the metal tubes under them echoing the note. Learning to read the music and play at the same time is quite hard, actually. The sticking has to hit exactly on the note, (and of course, sight reading can be improved with practice) and in more advanced levels, the multiple sticks used to produce chords are even harder to coordinate-you’re basically holding a stick between your other fingers, and is very unsteady. To make the sticks balance and have the same pressure as the other one in your hand is proven, quite difficult. the player also has to move around the keyboard to reach high and low notes. If you have a piece that’s quite long and has a large range of notes, it’ll be a lot of jumping around for you. Since it is not a piano and pressing on keys, the pressure you hit the blocks with will determine the sound quality. Don’t even get me started on rolls, flams, grace notes, double flams. They’re even harder. As a level 5 ABRSM percussionist who started playing at 5 years old (I’m 14 now), i can confirm it’s not easy. Level 5 hasn’t even been the start of double sticking, and the repertoire just gets more complicated with easier polyrhythms and more fancy shmancy grace notes and note ranges. Double sticking is I think-level 6/7 stuff. I’ve been to concerts starring master percussionists and it’s so nice to see difference techniques used in their playing. // Edit: I saw in the comment replies: if you try and save the note, it messes up the tempo. That’s true-a block has a sweet spot that you have to get right to make a good sound. There are dead parts of the block (like where the string connects the blocks) that don’t make any good sound. There are sometimes quick parts in music that makes your sticks fly across the keyboard and a couple wrong stick placements resulting in dead notes can mess up the passage real badly. Edit 2: What I was emphasizing in the short piano paragraph was that piano keys are easier to make a sound because it is pressing down on a key that will lead to a mechanism to strike the string to make a note. In percussion, you need to hit the key in a sweet spot (see edit 1)) that will produce a good sound. A piano key is already set at the spot where it needs to be hit, and it is only a matter of how loudly or softly the note resonates. Edit 3: There are over 100 percussion instruments and percussionists have to master most, if not all of them. Triangle, tambourine, bongos, drum kit, mallet, maracas, cymbals etc etc etc! They each have their own techniques, and to actually learn them all and remember them as well requires *patience* and *lots of practice*. To say that percussion is easy because it just seems like hitting things together is an understatement. Not to mention in orchestras, there are usually a shortage of percussionists, and the ones that are there are required to change instruments a few times in a piece. For example a triangle player might have to also play maracas, bongos and tambourine in a single piece. To switch between them and count on time while doing all that is quite difficult especially if it’s a hard polyrhythmic piece. Sometimes percussionists are required to memorize the music, to (let the other instrument sections have the stands). Imagine memorizing a piece for 4 instruments. Yeah might seem easy playing 3 notes on the triangle in a last bar, but you saw what happened in the “Life As A Percussionist” video. You can miss. Not. Easy. Conclusion: percussion is not easy. As are all instruments in their own way and no one should judge the difficulty of instruments unless they’ve tried them all.

"Of course it's easy to play any instrument badly" - DumbMojo in a nutshell

W at drumming up emotion to keep the audience engaged.

"the xylophone is very easy to pick up and play." *marimba*

What they fail to understand is that nobody plays "cymbals" or "triangle". You play percussion, which requires the player to quickly be able to switch and play instruments like marimba, timpani, drums, and all sorts of small percussion like triangle and tambourine. There is a lot to it and becoming an expert in all of them is very difficult and takes time. Melodic percussion (xylophone,marimba etc) can be easy to pick up, yes hitting a note with a mallet isn't hard, but when you have to acurately play fast pieces or use 4 mallets it's extremely difficult. Every mistake is VERY noticable as you can't "hide" your mistakes in the masses like other instruments can do. You're on your own and if you miss, you bet that the conductor is going to give you dirty looks. Small percussion might not be THAT hard technically, but for example there are some really challenging tambourine pieces, which require hard techniques that do require actual training and practice. No it's not as hard as string instruments technically, but often they are relying on you for tempo (especially in youth orchestra's) If you mess up and start going slightly off beat, you'll confuse everyone and mess up the entire piece. Percussion also includes timpani. Quite difficult to master, especially if you have a challenging piece which requires you to tune timpani's mid piece. Sometimes you have less than a second to tune multiple timpani's. It forces you to actually plan before you play so you can set up everything beforehand. Also percussionists always have to set-up up ALL their instruments way in advance, pack them up at the end, carry them to a van, load them into the van, bring them back to a storage location. We're always at the venue at least an hour before everyone else and also leave way later than everyone else. It's a lot of work, especially if you play in an unconventional location (like an outside location) where you can't use wheels, so you have to carry those heavy drums and ruin your back.

“There’s not much to the xylophone” *proceeds to show image of a five octave marimba*

As a percussionists i feel personally attacked

Bruh it takes years and hard dedication to master the xylophone It shocks me that they would even put it in that list. And percussion isn’t just hitting and shaking things unlike dumbmojo thinks and being a percussion student who plays who practice percussion agitates me so much.

"Percussionists, teach us why that comment was sacrilegious." *I've got this one, Eddy...* *...Finally, my time to shine.* *{Inhales}* I have been a percussionist for 7-years now, basically half my life, and I still have not "mastered" any of the instruments--despite playing them almost every single day. I dare you just to TRY the four-mallet grip and play a single chord repeatedly--I'd be MONEY you'd mess up. Maracas aren't the hardest instrument, admittedly, but if you just "shake them," they won't sound musical at all--you need developed touch and feel to get them to sound the exact way you want them to. Oh-ho-ho, crash cymbals... I'm gonna teach you a cymbal technique called a "sting" real quickly: When crashing the cymbals--the right way, with the right angle and approach--you're going to immediately jab those Captain America shields straight into your God-given ribcage and suck up the pain to mute the cymbals as fast as you can. Tell me how that goes. Most people don't know how many different ways there are to strike a bongo, and most people can't even do one effectively or consistently--next time you hear one, just listen to all the different tones and resonances they are creating to create feel in the song. Tribes didn't just go "Oh, it goes 'bong', duhh"--NO, it can create many different rhythms and even be musically independent to sound good by itself. Tambourine--okay, try a thumb roll--or just to create a consistent noise with it. Even all-state percussionists can struggle with thumb rolls because they're just not easy... Lastly--triangle... One of my fellow percussionists played the triangle on "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (aka the 2001 Space Odyssey theme) and he legitimately was cramping so bad after rehearsals that it was hard for him to write, because rolling on a triangle corner for that long will make extended writing look like a break.

"tambourine is easy" go watch a video of a person playing tambourine in a samba or pagode song and then come back, I'll wait

You guys should do a video of trying percussion instruments and if you just barely hit the marching cymbals wrong it'll bruise you like crazy

As a percussionist we cannot let this slidee

As a percussionist, i would LOVE to have a “special talk” with whoever wrote that script

This is like a high-school presentation made by a non-musician the night before it was due.

Trumpet: you blow and press on buttons, that's so EASSYYYY!!!!!

AS A PERCUSSIONIST I AM READY TO SCREAM A XYLOPHONE IS SO HARD TO PLAY I CRY EVERYDAY ESPECIALLY LIKE READING THE NOTES BECAUSE YOU BASICALLY HAVE TO BY HEART ALL THE NOTES IN A BAND OR AN ORCHESTRA! MUSIC GOES BY SO FAST YOU CANT READ AND FIND THE RIGHT NOTE FOR YOUR MALLETS AT THE SAME TIME PLUS I STILL CANT PLAY FOUR MALLETS RIGHT AND I PRACTICE SO MUCH

For the people who say first *WHY AREN’T YOU PRACTICING*

All instruments have different learning curves, to compare them is just plain stupid.

Percussion requirements: 1. It’s “eaAaAaSsSsSsY” so you have no instruction. 2. Must know all scales + music languages. Yep, that’s right, treble clef, base clef, and percussion clef. 3. Must be extremely skilled in all areas. Cannot mess up more than twice. Not even during practice. You waste everyone’s time by needing instruction. 4. If one person is sick you need to cover their part (depends on area but that’s what I gotta do since we don’t have enough extra players). 5. Gotta be very attentive, quiet, robotic like. You can’t be human. 6. You gotta be called lazy + stupid as your part is extremely easy and you barely get solos.. 7. Gotta carry that tempo. Band mates ain’t gonna do it. 8. Change parts on the whim. That’s right, you work on a song doing marimba and next thing you know you’re now doing timpani. Guess what? The concert is tomorrow! Gotta practice. 9. Practicing your instrument is not practicing. In my case I would need to practice timpani or some other instrument. I do not have that instrument at home (it’s big and expensive obv), so I improvised when beating on the bed with the drum sticks with the grip of the instrument I’m playing. I’ll listen to the music while paying along. Parents then tell me “you’re doing rhythms, not actually practicing” or “you’re just beating on the bed, you need to actually practice”. Like damn not every song I do snare or bells on. 10. Share music. You don’t get a folder. 11. Work together like an empire. You get handed sheet music, figure out what part you play (assign non-perm roles), and then learn that part to only be assigned your actual part 10 days later. (I’m in 8th so we don’t have perm instrument yet. Yes we’re playing grade 3, aka higher high school level stuff.) There’s more but I don’t feel like remembering it. Percussion gets roasted too often- Anyways doing all this actually is hard. And then to be told “oh your parts easy, do more” actually kinda sucks. Or have people who don’t know what they’re doing join. Like this girl joined at the beginning and took 5 days to choose an instrument to play. Ended up in percussion. Tbh she picked it up decently, but I bet the only reason she choose percussion was because it’s “easy”. She tryna get out of playing now too xD Ok so to the point, stop thinking percussion is just annoying lazy people who barely do anything. There is more to it than it seems. Check other people’s comments for how it is harder, I ain’t explains that stuff. We need rights for percussion (and non-recognized instruments)!!

They roasted my marimba?! I want to see them try to play the Marimba right now.

I'm a 15-year recorder player and I admit that the recorder is easier for starters because the blowing techniques is simpler than other woodwinds such as the flute, clarinet, oboe, etc, but if your going up to the Vivaldi concertos, sonatas, or Romantic music levels, it's real freaking difficult

Lady: "All these percussion instruments are so easy" Me, a percussion captain trying to teach my freshmen and watching them fail for an entire two years before they somehow get an inkling of what they're supposed to be doing: "You betcha."

I've seen a shocking number of musicians struggle laying down a basic shaker track. It's harder than it seems, getting the feel and the groove right takes a bit of practice if you're not used to it. Bongos. OHHHH BOY. I remember being a naive kit player in high school and thinking I could just hop on some latin percussion like no problem. Turns out, there's a whole different vocabulary to learn and technique to master. The bottom line is, treat every instrument with respect, they are all challenging and worthwhile.

A marimba is so hard to master. Using 4 (I’ve seen some use six) sticks at once and controlling all of them perfectly is insane