[djtango]

Was mildly triggered by your comment at first, being a pianist, but on reflection you're right. The skill floor for the piano is objectively lower thanks to being percussive. But my god is it difficult trying to sing with a percussive instrument while also accompanying yourself with and extra 2-3 voices.

Timbre, vibrato and dynamic control over a single note mean that people will pay to listen to a beautiful singer or sax play a single line of music but my god does a pianist or guitarist have to work to keep up with that.

[loeg]

I think a big part of it is you can sound good playing piano quietly. It's hard to play a woodwind quietly and sound good. Yes, the pros can certainly do it, but it's a difficult skill to master. They're instruments designed to project without electronic amplification.

[djtango]

Totally fair. My fiancee plays flute and I was quite blown away by the intricacies required even playing at even an intermediate level

[ag315]

I've played both piano and guitar for many years now, and the distinction I'd make is that piano is easier to start out on than guitar, but harder to get good at--in the long run the difficulty of mastery is probably about the same on both, but they have different learning curves.