The best musical instrument is the piano.

Although I could argue that the human voice isn't technically a "musical instrument", for the purposes of this debate I believe it fits the requirements to be one, although for the most part, only in theory. First I'll respond to the gist of what you said through quotes and then reinforce my other points. "Even your own statement about 'the best job of conveying general emotions' uses words." Of course the statement uses words, not only are we communicating through means of the internet, but the majority of communication in the first place involves...words. The phrase 'the best job of conveying general emotions', however, conveys no real emotion or feeling (and even if it did it would be minuscule and unimportant), along with the majority of language. There are very little ways to create actual meaning with words and with language, and even then they fall short of true emotion. The piano transcends the realm of mere words for an outlet for communication and translates it down into the simplest and most elegant form: The pure form of the emotion in the embellished form of PURE music (no words). "Words are nothing more than letters," I completely agree. Words are made up of letters, and how can mere letters fully express the complexity and intermingling of a giant tangle of emotions that often is the human mind? They can't. The only way to truly do this is through the purest form of the emotion or feeling: music. And, since the piano is the best instrument to do such a thing for the reasons I've already stated, the piano would obviously be the best instrument overall, since I don't believe you stated anything against my other arguments. "Here is an example: love -vs- olev. Same letters, different grouping yet most every one would say that the first has much more meaning to them than the second." Although the word "love" has more meaning than the jumbled letters "olev", don't you think that's more of a technical thing rather than an...important thing? I get your point, (that letters arranged in a specific order evoke more emotion than letters arranged in a NOT specific order, although I hardly understand what that has to do with the debate at hand), but therein lies a humongous problem with language and words/letters. Building off of what you said, (that "love" means significantly more than "olev") what happens when someone makes...a typo? According to your logic, the meaning of the word would be completely nulled, and would not get across to whoever was listening/reading/etc. With music (referring to PIANO, not vocal), however, it doesn't require absolute perfection to get the oh-so-amazing and important thought or emotion across to the listener. That fact backs up the fact that the piano is the best musical instrument even further when you realize that the player who is learning piece of music x learns it better in the fact that he doesn't require absolute perfection. He can establish a never-ending connection to the emotion and thought process of piece of music x WITH mistakes, and through the connection he can learn the piece faster, easier, more efficiently, and turn out with an overall better result. "Our whole life is a series of emotions, pain, happiness, love, fear, anger, sorrow. Music is a tool that can and does bring these emotions to our recollection." I agree utterly and completely. And what better instrument to do this than the piano (as it is the best musical instrument)? "Now some great ones have turned to music, I would say the greater ones have use rhythm, harmony, cadence, timbre, tone and words to convey these feelings and emotions. Piano can also do this but with words it becomes much more meaningful and effective." Words in no way make it more meaningful. Music is music. If anything piano makes it more meaningful, as it does not use words in the music, as it would drag the music down. Effective, however, depends on what you're referring to, which I'd love for you to explain what exactly it does more effective. Are you talking about effective to convey the emotion to the viewers (although in most cases there probably wouldn't be any) or the player? As to your practice and mastery point, excuse me, but..I don't exactly see how that applies to the debate. If you're saying that both piano and the human voice require the same thing (whether that be equal or not), then how does that single out one from each other (Although this hardly matters since piano by far takes the most effort and talent to play, I'd still like to be clear on all of your points.)? (Ahaha, on a side note, I'd just like to add how I hardly ever practice the piano yet I'm one of the best people at it that I know out of sheer talent..) You attacked my smallest point and my biggest point in your first "speech". Now, I'll reinforce the things in my first bit that you either forgot to respond to or (most likely) couldn't respond to: The first was that the piano is much more "full" than any other instrument. I didn't go into more depth on this point as I didn't technically know what instrument I would be put up against. I will do that now: With the voice, you're only able to sing one line of music, whether it be the melody, the counter-melody, etc. In some cases you're able to mimic more than one line, but in reality you're really only able to sing...one line. With the piano, however, you're able to play many different lines, all with different balance in between each one another, as well as chords, which is simply impossible with the voice. Also, building off of this point in a much more musical/technical way, with piano music very often it's easier for the listener to even attempt to engage in whatever emotion the piece is attempting to convey. For example, say a singer sang for 8 beats straight, and had no other accompanists along with them. The listener would have absolutely no idea as to what chord or key it was in, and would be baffled for those first two (presumably) measures. With the piano, however, this is an EXTREMELY unlikely occurrence. Take, for example, Beethoven's Pathetique. The first few long beats are held out for a relatively long amount of time, but the listener obviously knows that it's in a minor key, and can focus their attention more on what emotion the piece is trying to convey rather than...whether it's major or minor. The other point you didn't counter was the fact that piano simply is the bread and butter of the musical world. Like I said before, people who get Masters or PhDs in a performance in music of ANY instrument are required to take piano lessons for at least a short amount of time. If the masters at music recognize that the piano (NOT the voice) is the best and most fundamental yet embellished instrument, then it must be true. For who better to know and understand music then...the experts? I'd also like to include the fact that generically vocalists require an accompanist whenever they sing or perform. I'd also like to include that that accompanist is usually a piano player, who plays the piano. If an instrument isn't able to successfully stand out on its own, then how could it possible be the best instrument? So, in conclusion, the piano is the best musical instrument because: it by far does the best job at conveying emotion, it's much more full and "less wimpy" by very very far than any other instrument, it's easier for the listener to discern the emotion that it conveys the best (partially because the listener gets a large head-start and partially because the emotion is simply defined better on the piano than any other instrument), the piano is THE fundamental musical instrument, and that it can sound just as good and convey the emotion just as good whether its accompanied or not, unlike the voice and the majority of other instruments.