In your instrument, what techniques are the most under/overrated in difficulty?

Question

I just asked a similar question about piano, and now I'm curious about other instruments. In piano, if you play fast scales or arpeggios, everyone is amazed. Playing fast is usually seen as impressive, and glissandos absolutely floor people :) Relatively difficult things like polyrhythms (ex. triplets against sixteenth notes) are often "underrated." And that doesn't even get into the issues of interpretation or playing properly.

What techniques in your instrument are like this- either wrongfully impressive or overlooked? Does it bother you, or not really?

Answer 1

I think the piano already has enough answers...lol. So I don't think I'll add anymore to it. Besides that, I play violin, viola, harp and sing.



Violin/Viola - Glissandos floor people. They just go WOWWWWWW listen to that! But they don't realise that all you have to do, is simply drag your finger across the entire length of the string. Trills too, people get all hyped up when they hear this twittering thing on the violin. It's not even hard to play unless you're trilling with your 4th and 5th fingers. And even then, it's not as hard as trilling with the same fingers on the piano. Tremolos as well - not at all hard to play, but to the untrained ear, sound extremely impressive.



Consecutive 3rds and 6ths (and octaves) that span more than 2 or 3 in a row are probably one of the hardest things you've to do on the instrument, yet it doesn't sound difficult at all, unless the player is completely out of tune. Playing a singing, slow beautiful legato line is also very hard, but people are more impressed by fast virtuosic playing and don't appreciate the beautiful legato lines as much. They don't seem to realise that it takes years of practice to be able to achieve bow changes that are so smooth that they're almost inaudible, nor do they realise that some skill goes into controlling how fast/how much weight you draw the bow across the strings with.



Harp - Again, people go crazy when they hear a glissando on the harp. It's not hard to play at all. Neither are pentatonic glissandos, harmonic minor glissandos or anything of that sort. If you know what to do with the pedals, it's just like a normal glissando. Rapid pedal changes because of highly chromatic writing is much harder to do, but they go unnoticed because everybody is staring at the harpist's hands. Plus, the chromatic notes don't sound hard to play, and people tend to think that all you have to do is pluck the correct string corresponding to each note - e.g. pluck the B string, then the Bb right next to it - like the piano. What's so hard about it right? So how come the harpist can't play it as rapidly as on the piano? They don't know that a pedal change is involved, unless the harpist clunks all over the place when changing pedals.



Singing - Everyone drops their jaws when they hear vibrato. It's not hard to get if you're singing with correct technique and support. It's actually a natural by-product of proper technique. And if the singer has a loud high note, everybody goes "WOW". In actual fact, singing high softly is a lot harder than singing high and loud. Purity of the basic sound is also one of the hardest to get for beginners, and it often takes at least 1 year for the student to be able to sing with a clean, clear basic sound consistently. Yet it goes overlooked because people think you just open your mouth and let the sound come out. Long legato lines are often overlooked in preference of exciting vocal coloratura. Singing a clean, continuous legato with excellent breath control is every bit as hard as jumping all over the place. Also I think diction and awkward consonants are underrated. Until I started lessons, I never knew that singing a high note which starts on a K or T sound is extremely hard. Professionals make it sound easy, and clear diction seems easy to do - until you try it yourself and play back what you sound like on a recording device. Then you realise that the words that seemed so clear inside your head just became a series of mushed up sound, and you can't hear any text at all. Blending the different registers of the voice is also hard to do and takes years of training. But people like the sudden change in registral quality in pop songs more than they appreciate evenness over the entire range. It just sounds 'cooler'.



It doesn't really bother me, unless I'm singing something with long legato lines and a listener comes up to me and asks me to sing something more exciting and more difficult. Or when I'm attempting to sing a high note softly with full voice (instead of cutting off the 'ground' and only using the upper part of my body - in what's called 'half voice') and people are just not interested and they ask "where's the power?" Then I really feel like screaming at them. It also irks me a little when, when I first tell someone of my vocal lessons, the first question he/she asks is "Do you have vibrato already??" or "Oh, so you can sing like Pavarotti? Sing for me now!" Ugh. Vocal lessons does not automatically equal opera singer, it takes years of hard training to sing opera. And I'm not a CD player to be turned on and off at anybody's will.

Answer 2

Schumiszt's answer was pretty comprehensive, but I'd like to add in hand-crossing for the piano. VERY much overlooked and difficult for the untrained ear to pick up on, but for me it is a challenge to make them sound even and light while maintaining speed (a la fifth variation of the Goldbergs and the first movement of the Beethoven Hammerklavier).



Thirds, fourths, and sixths are usually problematic, and the audience often doesn't pick up on the difficulty of those (or if they do, the pianist probably isn't a very good one).



I also think trills are underrated in the sense that there is usually something else going on that makes them troublesome. For instance, many listeners of the Waldstein sonata are not aware of the long passages of trills because of the booming left hand scales and right hand melody, but those passages are really tough for my right hand. Or there could be passages like the last variation of the second movement to the Beethoven sonata #32 where the trill is for the third and fifth or fourth and fifth fingers. UGH.



In terms of pieces, I believe the most overrated piece I've played is the Fantasie-Impromptu, which is probably one of the reasons it's so often performed. The most underrated: Bach. Few casual listeners of any of the Preludes and Fugues would think that they are hell to play right.



To conclude: does it bother me that so many of the techniques for piano are underrated? Not really. It's more of a personal satisfaction knowing that I can play them. And if not, I'll just whip out the Fantasie-Impromptu for the upteenth time. :)



Good question; probably the longest answer I've ever given.

Answer 3

Drat... Why do you have to be knowledgeable about the piano! Grr...



So that leaves the organ... Ever seen a pedal glissando? People are amazed but they are even easier than glissandos on the piano. Seriously, they're simply awed and I think this is the easiest pedal part in the entire piece. Hahaha...



Pedal trills amaze people too, but they're really actually very easy. All you have to do is get the coordination, and they are almost easier than trills with your hands.



Nobody ever appreciates just how difficult parallel 6ths are on the organ... They are probably the hardest thing you ever have to do on the manuals.



Can I talk about piano now?



Okay, I think arpeggios are the "showiest" thing you can play, but they aren't even that hard... =] Another thing is tremolos. People always say "You were rockin' with those shaking things!" Of course tremolos are perhaps the most difficult thing for me, but people are amazed at them.



People think trills are just so spiffy, and I think they're the easiest thing in the world.



Now trills in 3rd or sixths. Yikes! Those are insanely difficult! And people don't seem to notice them as much as normal trills... Too bad.



Octaves sure are impressive. I've played the Liszt 1st concerto for some folks, and the octave deals where your hands fly back and forth... They're like "Whoa! You're hands are moving so fast!" I say, this really isn't too difficult...



Now... You know the Liszt transcendental etude 5? Doesn't seem to be very hard and, well, IT IS! It's not a good show piece because it harder than anything else in the world and it doesn't even sound that impressive...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZj-8x5i6Bs



There are a lot of pieces out there that people think are easy but they are really, really, REALLY hard! I'm thinking at the moment of the Schumann piano concerto. I've played a lot of concertos. The Liszt as I said before, Grieg's, Beethoven's 3rd and 4th, Chopin's 1st, Prokofieff's 1st, Rachmaninoff's 1st, Mendelshonn's 1st and some others, and the Schumann is one of the hardest of all of em'! The difficulties are hidden. It is so hard to put the passion in the notes... So hard. While it's not especially technically difficult, I think it is the most musically demanding concerto of all of the above listed.



Interesting question!



--Schumiszt

Answer 4

Hmmm...I'm an amateur, mediocre violist, which no one has talked about yet XD Hope I'm not wrong, but...



Play fast for someone and they will be floored. Now, I really can't say this is inaccurate, because playing fast can still be difficult for me sometimes :P But it's really not one of the HARDEST things. Playing slow is much, much harder.



Under-appreciated things? Vibrato, for sure. People don't realize how much work goes into getting it right! Oh, and shifting. Intonation! Definitely! I don't think people realize that you just have a plain black fingerboard with no clues as to where each note is. I remember playing for the first time up close for a friend who plays guitar. After I was done, he was just like, "How do you know where to put your fingers without frets?"



So, yeah, I'm not very informative :P But these other answers are really interesting!

Answer 5

I play trumpet (and piano but I shant mention that!) and whenever I do fluttered tonguing people seem to think it is hard, but it is really easy at least when playing below E at the top of the stave!



Ah I just woke up and am quite "groggy" perhaps I will expand this answer later...



EDIT:

I have just remembered that I sing!



When I sing people are always like: how do you sing so loud? Singing loud always seems to impress people but it is not hard, I mean sure some people do have small voices, but ANYONE with proper training should be able to sing over a small orchestra. Really I do not have a very big voice, at least compared with a friend of mine (Wagnerian Soprano, you can imagine!).



Something that is really, really underrated is singing high. Everyone is impressed when a soprano sings a high Eb or F, but when a mezzo-soprano sings the C, people dont realise how hard that can be for someone with a lower voice!!

Answer 6

Bassoonist here. Everything about playing this instrument is difficult, right down to sound production itself. Slurs, intonation, airstream, and sound are big ones in this category. There is SO much that goes on "behind the scenes" when you listen to a bassoonist play. You have to adjust your intonation constantly, make sure your air is adequate for the volume, intonation, and register in which you are playing, use the right amount of tongue, play on the optimum part of the reed for what you are currently playing, the list goes on and on. Not to mention we have to play fast passages(e.g. marriage of figaro), high passages(e.g. rite of spring), interpret music, and MAKE REEDS which takes a lifetime to master.



Most overrated would probably be high playing, like in the Rite of Spring. People think it's crazy for a bassoon to be able to crank those notes out. But in reality, getting the notes to speak is easy(relatively speaking.) The hard part is that the things I listed above(all the air stuff and everything that goes on behind the scenes) just gets multiplied in difficulty when you play in that register. Intonation can fly in both directions more wildly, there's less wiggle room for position on the reed and airstream, etc. Anyone can play the Rite of Spring, but not everyone can play it well.



Seriously, nobody appreciates the incredible difficulty of playing the bassoon. I hope I don't come off as arrogant by going I PLAY A HARDER INSTRUMENT THAN YOU but I basically just wanted to communicate that there is a ton going on behind the scenes when you hear a good bassoonist play.



Cheers

Answer 7

Violin...Intonation simply is underrated and overrated at the same time...Bad intonation=very unhappy audience that picks on that a lot...Good intonation=somewhat impressed audience if they're untrained...All in all a very subtle technique...



Left hand pizzicato might be a overrated and underrated at the same time too...Just because a violinist can do that audience would wow at it and at the same time,screw it up it becomes something to pick on.

Answer 8

Again I answer first. :p In respect to guitar - that would be power chords... somebody hears a power chord and all the sudden the "guitarist" is Jimmy Hendrix. I am wondering if that is why so many people say guitar is easy. All they do is power chords and they are a GOD.



this bugs me.



we must be the only souls on right now ;)

Answer 9

i think for violin it would be...getting a good sound out of it ahahah

as for overlooked i think it would be artificial harmonics and double harmonics heh not even a lot of violinists practice this technique