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everyone i say this to seems to disagree with me, but i maintain that the guitar is easier to play melodies on than the keyboard, at least for me
it's something about finger and hand co-ordination i think, having my left hand walk around in two dimensions to get the intervals right, and having my right hand play things, that feels right. with keyboard that's all on one hand and i struggle a lot with key changes
the two-dimensional nature of the fretboard makes intervals easier to remember and key changes less disorienting
what i can say for sure is it's more satisfying. this might just be because strings are fun, it might be because the guitar is more expressive, it might be because even the simplest thing engages both hands, i don't know, but i it'll be hard to be motivated to learn keys again
not to mention that, in many cases, once you've learned how to play a particular melody in one position on a guitar, you now can also play it in like four other ones without changing your muscle memory, and so you get instant tonal variety. tone is in your fingers!!
note to self learn guitar chords at some point,
@hikari You've probably already figured out D through experimentation.
It's a great starter chord and if you only focus on the 3 fretted strings, you can move it up & down the neck, try variations by changing the fret position of only one of the 3 strings, etc.
Really powerful stuff imho.
@hikari Yeah, and not only melodies, any patterns in general!! Which is super useful when improvising and playing by ear.
Plus to me on the keys it's harder to intuit how to translate a relative pitch change I'm imagining into the correct movement, since black and white keys exist. I end up having to remember the scale and its keys I'm in, where as on guitar I don't think about the scale and just play and often naturally land outside the scale, but in a way that sounds good.
@hikari Although part of it probably is because I've got more experience on guitar these days. I've been trying to relearn the keys though...
@hikari key changes are 100% easier to do on a guitar than a keyboard
@unspeaker @hikari that said I do understand why people say it's easier to play a melody on a keyboard, because it requires much less technique. It's just pressing keys. You don't have to learn much before you're able to press a bunch of keys and make it sound nice.
Actually doing something interesting with it is another matter, but I do think the barrier to entry for guitar is probably a bit higher because it's a more finicky instrument that requires a bit more practice when starting out.
@unspeaker @hikari and when I say "it's just pressing keys" obviously I don't mean playing a keyboard *well* is easy. Especially not with two hands.
I'm just saying it's easier to sit down at a piano and learn a little tune as a beginner than it is to do the same on guitar.
Not that guitar is the most difficult in this regard either btw, lots of instruments are more difficult still to get something out of, like the trumpet or the violin.
@Tijn @hikari 8x8 pad grids like launchpad mini or non mini make for a surprisingly apt guitar neck with a djent amount of strings and frets and zero epidermal trauma required before the stage of micromotorical development is unlocked
plays whatever tuning you freak into it - all 5ths by default, tune it to 7ths for the imp's violin 🐙