Today, I'd like to discuss the differences and similarities between the guitar and the piano. I just started playing the piano seriously over the weekend and I've made a momentous leap in my playing. I've learned songs and tons and tons of chords, jazz chords, inversions, and some major scales. It's been a blast! Playing the piano and practicing it is as much fun as playing guitar. It's definitely more relaxing. You get to sit down. Maybe it's even better. First the similarities.
Chords
The piano and the guitar are both primarily chordal instruments of the chordophones family. Meaning that the piano and the guitar both can play multiple notes [or chords] on it at the same time. Unlike a saxophone which can only produce one tone at a time [or if they use free jazz over-blowing technique, they can get overtones, giving them a chord-like sound, but this is rare in most jazz, classical, and pop].
Accompaniment
As well as both instruments being able to produce and play chords, both instruments are used primarily for accompaniment, or as we say in the jazz world, for comping [comping is short for accompaniment]. Think about great rock songs that feature piano like With a Little Help From My Friends by the Beatles. The piano is holding the song together by comping chords throughout the song. In addition, think of how the piano in a jazz song becomes a focal point of introductions for songs into comping for the horn lines of the tune.
Easily Accessible to Everyone
The piano and guitar are both great standard starter instruments for virtually anyone and everyone. Most parents get their young kids to play the piano or guitar at a very young age and let them develop an interest in the instrument. Once they get serious they become good musicians and may later form bands and possibly have a career in music. I would say the piano is more accessible to everyone than guitar because actually playing the piano chords doesn't involve as much finger dexterity, strength finger bending, and finger arching, although the piano's touch and feeling really has to do with what type of piano or keyboard that you are playing. A weighted grand piano will be much harder to play physically than a cheap plastic keyboard.
Differences
Chord and Scale Fingerings
The main difference I've found between the piano and guitar is a hardcore difference of philosophy in terms of chord and scale fingerings. On the guitar, once you learn a chord voicing fingering or scale pattern, you actually know the chord voicing or scale in every key. Why? Because the guitar is built on patterns. You play a G major barre chord and then you move it up a 5th and you're now playing a D major chord. You can use the exact same kind of chord voicing and all of a sudden you know that chord in literally every key. The guitar is based on a concept, in a sense. You don't have to know that there are 2 sharps in the key of D.
Piano, however, is less based on concepts like the guitar, and more based on the literal notes in front of you that you need to play. Most chords all have different fingerings. Most chord inversions have different fingers. Most scales all have different fingerings. This is where you can see that the piano is a much more serious instrument that requires and demands more attention to what are the actual notes in the chord [the names of the notes], the notes in the scales, the sharps or flats in the key signatures, and you have to know all of this. That's the biggest difference in my humble opinion.
Of course there are more differences but to keep this short I'll keep things simple with this. I'll stay in the loop and keep you all updated on my piano progress. I can already play simple jazz standards like Autumn Leaves and All The Things You Are. In terms of rock I've tackled Lennon's Imagine and Pilot's It's Magic. I recommend everyone reading this to try out the piano. You might like it. You might even learn to love it.
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