[dsclough]

Practicing piano and fooling around in a DAW are completely different realms of music related activities. The pianists all know have given me the impression the activity is many more parts stress if the goal is practicing to be able to play a challenging piece, while working in a DAW can be more like splattering paint on a canvas when done like the parent comment describes

[fortran77]

Ok. I just expected musicianship to be musicianship regardless of the instrument.

[peepee1982]

I have been producing music as a hobby for around 25 years. There were maybe two songs where I had to put some effort into practicing the parts I was recording. Maybe even just one.

The hard parts for me are finding good arrangements, making stuff sound good in a mix, writing lyrics, finding ways to do certain non trivial things in my DAW, reviewing what software I want to purchase, ... Stuff like that.

It doesn't involve much focused dedicated practice. It's just too general of an activity, and it's very easy compared to playing classical pieces on a piano.

[whycombinetor]

The difference here isn't the instrument, it's musical composition vs performance. You can compose and edit piano works in a DAW, or you can perform those piano works on a piano.

[coldtea]

Well, musicianship is musicianship, but that doesn't say much.

But how fun/relaxing it is can differ between instruments and between genres (baroque vs folk or blues) and approaches (e.g. strict sheet music interpration vs improvisation).

Also working with the DAW is more like composing, arranging, conducting, and producing/mixing than playing an instrument.