Having grown up playing a range of different woodwind instruments (and piano), I was always aware that I found some harder than others. I was never sure if this was me and that I was better at a particular instrument or if some actually were more difficult than others. I’ve had a look into what other people think and have tried to come up with some sensible answers on whether the difficulty level really does vary.
In theory, getting grade 8 on any instrument should be equivalent, but some instruments are more difficult, so the pieces won’t seem equivalent. For example, double reed instruments are hard to get started with because of the stamina needed, so a grade 1 bassoon piece will be easier than a grade 1 sax piece to compensate.
When you’re choosing an instrument, you might start thinking about which is the easiest to get good at quickly. This isn’t usually a great way of picking an instrument, but if it is one of your considerations, there are some things you need to consider. Some woodwind instruments seem easy from the start, like the clarinet and sax, which are probably the easiest to get a note out of, but all instruments have their own difficulties.
If you end up learning an instrument at the same time as someone else, who is learning a different instrument, it might seem like your progress is unequal. While this could be due to the amount of practice you both do, or even just natural musical ability, it can also be down to the instrument you have chosen. All instruments have a point at which they become really difficult. For some it’s right at the start, trying to get a note in the first place, while for others, that part comes easily, but other difficulties come later.
The idea is that all grade exams of a particular level should require the same amount of skill and work for each instrument. It might be, for example that if you take a flute grade 3 piece and a sax grade 3 piece and play them both on flute, the sax piece is considerably easier. This does not necessarily mean that sax grade 3 is easier than flute grade 3, it just means that there are things that make the sax piece more difficult when it’s played on the sax.
Which instruments are easier for a beginner?
Woodwind instruments in general are some of the easier beginner instruments, which makes them quite popular. Sax especially, being a modern instrument, has been designed to make it pretty easy playing. Flute can be difficult for a couple of months at the start when you’re having to try really hard to get a note out of it at all, but once you’ve got the hang of that, the learning curve is pretty steep at the beginning.
Double reed instruments are quite a lot harder, as the reeds require a lot of pressure. You need a lot of stamina and this takes time. You can play softer reeds as a beginner, but even then it can be really difficult to play long passages. I remember trying to play the oboe and having to really fight to keep up the air flow. Because of this, double reed early grades are likely to look on paper like they’re easier, but they require the same, if not more, effort from the player.
When you start to progress on woodwind instruments, it becomes easy to play all the right notes at the right times, but you’ll notice that if you don’t concentrate on it, your tone really starts to lag behind. Particularly on flute, playing lots of really quick notes in the right rhythm isn’t the hard bit – the hard bit is getting it to sound nice. That’s why woodwind instruments can be impressive at first, but can quickly become quite hard to listen to if you don’t spend the time to get your tone and tuning right.
Is there actually an easiest instrument to get grade 8 in?
It’s supposed to be the case that by the time you reach grade 8, all of the instruments will require an equivalent skill level. It’s hard to know if this is actually the case or not. In my experience, the instrument I found it easiest to get to grade 8 in was the sax. This was my third instrument (after flute and oboe), so I could already read music, making initial progress quicker.
The sax is certainly designed to make note production easy, and the layout of the key allows for technique on fast passages to progress quickly. This makes sense as it’s more modern, so naturally instrument making technique has improved. But it’s still hard to get a really nice sound out of sax, and this is where you’ll find the biggest jump.
So is the sax really easier to get grade 8 on than the other woodwinds? I started learning the flute at age 8, the oboe at age 10, the sax at age 12 and the clarinet at age 17. When I started flute, I could read music, as I’d learnt the recorder previously, so the learning curve wasn’t as steep as it could have been. I got to grade 6 standard in 5 years.
After doing my grade 6, I hit a bit of a wall as my tone wasn’t up to standard (partly because I’d never been taught flute by a first study flautist). I got a new teacher after doing grade 6 and spent three years learning to play the flute well, rather than learning to pass flute exams. I spent just over a year of that time working for grade 8. I found it difficult, but not too difficult for my ability and I got a distinction without too much trouble. I would therefore say there is a big leap between grade 6 and 7/8 on the flute.
I never progressed that well with the oboe from the start. I took it up and expected to get good at it as quickly as I had with the flute, however, the oboe has a much steeper initial learning curve (or at least it did for me). This put me off and I began thinking I was just bad at the oboe. This could be the case, but it could also be that the oboe just wasn’t for me. I did grade 5 after about 4 years and then mostly gave up on it and now just occasionally get it out for a very small part in a pit band.
With clarinet, I’ve never played that seriously. I have one and I’ve got to the standard where I can get by for pit band music. If I put my mind to it, I could do grade 8 pretty quickly, but I’ve never worked towards any grades. I would say I find it harder to play than the other woodwind instruments though, mostly because the break is difficult to navigate, with the different fingering options and the sound quality in this range.
With sax, I found that I started it, and within a few months could easily have done grade 5. This was for a combination of reasons:
- I could already read music
- The fingering is almost the same as the flute
- I was put straight into a band after about a month learning to play
However, it did seem to me that the sax music I was playing was far easier than the flute music that was supposed to be the same standard. I didn’t do any grades on sax until I did grade 8, just 4 years after I started playing. I didn’t take it particularly seriously (I learnt the scales in the week before the exam) but still managed to get one mark higher than I got on flute, even though flute took 8 years where sax took 4.
This difference can be explained to some extent in that I learnt the flute first, so all aspects of music were a steeper learning curve. However, when I actually got to grade 8 standard, I actually got there first on sax. I took the exams in the same year, but the sax one a term before the flute one. So at some point, I either overtook myself in skill level on the sax, or it was easier. I’m not sure which of these was the case.
It’s hard to say whether there is a standard level for all instruments at grade 8, because people have such different experiences on their instruments. There are far too many parameters involved to draw any definitive conclusions. It is intended that grade 8 is equivalent on all instruments, so this is how we should treat it.
Are different people suited to different instruments?
There are definitely some people that just find particular instruments easier than others. Plenty of people start trying to learn multiple instruments and only really get anywhere with one of them. This could be that they enjoy it more, and are therefore more willing to put the effort in, but it could also be that people are just suited to different instruments.
I do think now that I’m a much better flute player than a sax player, possibly because I took the time to get my tone right with a very good flute teacher. Even when I took the grade 8 exams, I think I was a better flautist than saxophonist. This does not necessarily mean that the sax grade exam was easier, but it was certainly easier for me. Some people might find the opposite of this to be true – it just depends on the person.