Learning to play percussion well is as hard if not harder than learing to play another instrument.

First of all, I do play percussion as well. This is why I brought up the example of the snare drum as I did later in the debate, for this is what I am most familiar with. Besides percussion, I mainly play piano, and I have learned a little bit of other various instruments such as string bass, guitar, etc. (This is why I used piano as my example - I am just more familiar with it.) I'm sorry I'm not the type of person you were looking for - I feel I am qualified enough in music to argue this topic. Perhaps you were looking for someone who agreed with you? "I can see how the piano might be harder to be good at." Well then, this debate is rather simple to decide. We have found an instrument that is harder to be good at than percussion. Thank you. Extend all my previous arguments about the skills involved with becoming an excellent piano player and how it is harder to be good at it, as you have agreed. (I do not wish to bore anyone any longer about this, as you have agreed.) Your topic claims percussion is either as hard or harder than another instrument. This means, if we find another instrument to be harder to be good at, a "Con" vote is automatic. And, because you have agreed with me on at least the piano example, (see above), then this is true and the vote must go "Con". ------ Now, with all that technical stuff out of the way, even though I do not necessarily have to debate any further, I will anyways because I find this topic interesting. You say xylophone and timpani also use music tones (notes) to even the field. However, with these two instruments, piano is clearly still more difficult. The most simple reason being that when playing xylophone or timpani, usually only one or two notes are being played at a time. At most, there are cases for the xylophone that would use 4 at a time, if one was holding two mallets in each hand, however, this is rare, and still falls in comparison to my piano example, which uses 10 notes at a time (sometimes more!). This increased difficulty requires more technical mastery that we discussed before, and the complexity of musicianship also in turn becomes greater due to the increased amount of complexity in the music. Also, no percussion instrument can fully capture the difficulty and execution of chord progression, etc., that exists in piano playing - it just doesn't exist on the same level. You discuss tuning timpani. Tuning piano is harder because there are 88 keys on the keyboard. This means 88 separate tones. This is more than exists for timpani. You discuss difficulty of the xlophone in some cases. I addressed this a little bit above - there are still more notes on a piano and more have to be played at the same time - even if you are carrying 3 in each hand, piano is still more notes. Just think about it at base level for a second: you have to use all ten of your fingers independently! Next, the snare drum arguments... I am comparing both at the advanced level. If one is good at the snare, he/she can copy rhythms by ear, because it is only one tone (the beat of the drum). The listener only has to focus on rhythm. This is impossible for other instruments because, (using piano as my example again, because that is where I am most educated), the listener of a piece also would have to focus on every tone, as well as rhythm and musicality. Even an excellent pianist would have a difficult time playing a Chopin polonaise by ear, because it is simply more difficult. You say you can play tunes off the radio on your piano - fine, anyone can memorize a melody, but we are talking about advanced play here, as you isolated in the first argument: "playing WELL." Even if you copy something from the radio - you would have to add more than just the "tune" from the radio in order to make it sound as if you are actually a good pianist. In general, the aspects involved in order to become an excellent player of another instrument are more difficult (in this debate the example happened to be piano). If there is ANY RISK that any instrument is more difficult to become great at, the vote must go Con. ------ (Haha, you're right, the drum set is a separate debate, maybe we can talk about that topic some other time?)