What is the easiest/best wind/brass instrument to start out with?

Question

What is the easiest/best wind/brass instrument to start out with? And cheapest? And if it's trumpet... is it better to start with a Bb or C? Thanks!

Answer 1

Out of all the wind and brass instruments, the flute is undoubtedly the easiest to learn and the least expensive to buy. All brass and wind instruments are expensive, but a decent flute costs less than most any other brass or wind instrument.

There are several advantages to the flute as compared to other winds and brass. First of all it is a C instrument, which means that a flutist can play with a pianist or a guitarist without having to worry about transposition.

In the case of saxophones, trumpets, etc. the instrument is tuned to Bb, an orchestral conceit which means that any notated "c" on a piece of music for an instrument in Bb is actually a Bb and not a C. Therefore if a saxophonist, a trumpeter, or any other Bb instrument player wants to play with another instrument, they either have to play by ear, or someone has to transpose the music into a different key. The flute, being a C instrument, bypasses all this nonsense.

In my opinion, the flute is probably the most expressive and most dynamic of all the wind instruments. It's hard to do anything with a trumpet except blare, and learning to play a sax or clarinet involves hours and hours of producing noises that sound like a duck being strangled before you can get a decent note out of them.

The flute sounds good pretty quickly. If you don't get the embochure right when you're learning to play flute, you just hear no sound at all, but when you do get it right, your first note is often a good one. This makes learning a lot easier on your ears and everyone else's; a missed note on a flute is just a "whoosh" whereas on a trumpet it sounds like a fart. It's also possible to play a flute quietly, where with a sax or a trumpet it's much more difficult.

Finally, there are a lot of good flute players out there to inspire you, everybody from rockers like Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson to jazz players like Roland Kirk and classical players like Jean Pierre Rampal or James Galway.

This is all my opinion of course; my personal favorite instrument is always the guitar but of all the wind instruments the flute would have to be my favorite.

Answer 2

Trumpets are not cheap and not really that easy. If you can find a cheap used saxophone, that is really the easiest wind instrument. The reed on it is much easier to use than the clarinet's. A flute is easy after you figure out how to place your mouth. It does require a ton of wind.(even more than for a tuba). Once you learn how to play one wind instrument, you can figure out how to play most of them(exception being the bassoon). The fingerings are basically the same. Same goes with brass instruments, if they have valves, then they are the same.

Answer 3

Flute is least expensive wind instrument.
Clarinet is easier though.
Trumpet is best for brass and Bb is your choice.

Answer 4

I did trumpet and clarinet in band, and I picked up clarinet easier actually. Some ppl told me that it tickled their mouth too much to play it, but I didnt' have a problem with that. As for trumpet I dont' remember which key is easier....srry :) have fun though!

Answer 5

using experience woodwinds are easier than brass because it is easier to get pitch because there are so many keys i play french horn and there are 3 keys so many notes have the same fingering so it is really easy to lose your pitch i find that the sax is easier than french horn that all i can really tell you because i have never player other instruments but flute or piccolo are the cheapest

Answer 6

trombone is really easy, especially bc in a band lineup the solos are not abundant in the trombone section so it is easier to ease into the instrument

Answer 7

I think the flute is pretty easy to play but I don't know how much it costs.

Answer 8

clarinet