This is just a question that suddenly pops up to my mind. Which Genre Of Music Is The Hardest To Learn On Guitar? I can think of some points that make one genre harder than another. For example, for Rock/Metal, there're more speed and hitting more notes, for Jazz/Funk, there're probably more strumming patterns and knowing more chords, something like that. Correct me if I'm wrong please, I don't know much that's why I'm asking. So which genre of music is the most difficult to manage / requires the most knowledge / requires knowing more scales. People surely don't choose to fit into a genre just because it's easier to learn, it must be because it fits their taste in music, but, putting that aside, and just speaking of the difficulty here, which Genre Of Music Is The Hardest To Learn On Guitar?

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I think one answer is the genre you practice the least. I would venture to say that to master most genres would take you about the same amount of time and effort, you'd just be practicing different things depending on the genre. For intense, I'm at home playing blues and even some jazz but give me a rock song and I have to think about it sometimes. It's just because of where I focus my practice time.

Overall though, playing at a high level for classical and jazz are probably two of the hardest. Maybe some really fast metal, but that's mostly muscle memory whereas for classical and jazz there might be some heavy sight reading or theory involved.

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I think that advanced classical like the music of Segovia,Romero,Diaz,Fisk,Williams,Bream et al is unbelieveably difficult to play well.All one has to do is to sit and listen to any CD of either one of these fretboard giants and you'll soon see what I mean.A prime example would be Eliot Fisk's transcriptions of Paganini's 24 Caprices,playing either one of these well would be an incredible accomplishment for any guitarist but he has transcribed and plays each one of them brilliantly.

I find Steve Vai's playing incredibly complicated as it is also very full of feeling and emotion unlike Satriani and especially Malmsteen who is so void of feeling that his playing sounds robotic and mechanical although incredibly fast.

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Everyone has gaps in their playing - I'd wager that to be true of even the finest classical concert guitarists. It's human nature to 'park' weaknesses in technique, and spend the time developing what you find easier. Sometimes it's talent (as in a player might have reached the limit of their physical capabilities) or inadequate practise of the 'right' sort - self discipline in fact.

I don't now differentiate between classical/acoustic and electric guitar playing. A guitar player is a guitar player, and we all share many of the same trials and tribulations in our playing. I can watch the stunning classical player (and human Goddess!) Ana Vidovic, playing Asturias by Albeniz at superhuman speed, and some of Steve Vai's more technically demanding moments, and think that perhaps they have both reached the absolute limit on what the (trained) human hand can achieve. Both very different genres, but played at the far end of their difficulty curve.

A jazz guitarist might comfortably know several hundred guitar chords/inversions and have the nous to play them in demanding time signatures, but couldn't posiibly have the wrist fluidity, stamina and sheer power to thrash out semiquaver downbeats at 190bpm like the most accomplished speed metal head, who knows only 5th chords.

I guess my point is, within limits of human capability we can all dip our toes into the differing genres of guitar playing, and with some success. But we will all specialise at a certain level. And that individual speciality will require some very specific techniques we've honed through sheer graft and persistence. I personally, can play some classical pieces that are extremely demanding - no surprise there, as I was formally trained to do it and have practised for countless hours to achieve the level required. But I also play electric and have so many gaps it's embarassing. I don't have the rhythmic chops to play funk/dance and I don't have anything like the speed of even the 'old' electric guitar masters of the 60s.

I'm thinking of a player here called (I think) "Euphoria 480". He plays (and posts) examples of a very wide range of styles. And he takes pride in that and rightly so. I respect him enormously, but he will have a core style/genre inside him that is his basic platform.

All of which, is my way of saying that I think your original question is unanswerable..

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I'd have to say "MUSIC"

I can teach anyone to play guitar, but I can't teach anyone how to play music.

L.A.

Original music.

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Rated "M" for meaty.

I have trouble with anything that requires multiple fingers of the right hand; classical, fingerstyle, whatever.

I've lately started practising some of the "economy of motion" techniques used by the metal heads to develop that speed. It's not that hard to get really fast on a memorised pattern but I find it almost unnatural to apply the technique to other genres.

Stanley Jordan style (his technique, not his music) is something that I've never been good at. It not the melodic tapping that I have trouble with. It's doing two parts simultaneously. Even on a piano I can play with both hands but not at the same time.

I'm absolutely terrible with slide (yet it looks so easy).

Cheers,

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In my opinion Leo Fender had essentially perfected the guitar amplifier by 1964.

The hardest genre to learn on any instrument is the genre you hate

For example - I hate country music. Seriously. The very thought of it makes me twitch. I've tried hard to like it, but I just can't. But I do acknowledge that the genre contains some of the most talented guitarists in the world, so I sat down and forced myself to learn various pieces in that style. Damn, did it seem like hard work.

Glad I did though, as it gave me a whole new slant on lots of tired old runs, and still to this day I use a few elements from that style in my playing, even though I'm far more on the rock side of things.

Yup!

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Gary

Great post Adrian !

+1

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.