In general, if an instrument becomes morecapable then, yes, it’s going to make more sense for people to play itrelative to its closest competitors
Price, portability, and ease of learning all matter as well. The guitar does well on all three. Whilst it’s not as versatile as keyboards in terms of combining melody and harmony , it’s not bad, and applicable to almost any genre.
Agree! Also, my response to the sentence you quoted would be: Playing guitar and playing piano are (for many people) almost entirely separate skills, which feel very different, are learned differently, and have different cultural connotations. People are more likely to base their choice of instrument on that (and the things TAG mentioned) than on some kind of optimization for ‘most versatile musical instrument’.
But also I don’t disagree with the original quote :) I mean, it definitely seems true that a lot of people play the piano and guitar, fewer (but still many) play slightly less versatile things like violin and saxophone or other strummed instruments like banjo, not very many play piccolo or tuba, and almost no one plays theremin or very culturally specific instruments like bagpipes or shamisen (outside of the culture they’re specific to).
Price, portability, and ease of learning all matter as well. The guitar does well on all three. Whilst it’s not as versatile as keyboards in terms of combining melody and harmony , it’s not bad, and applicable to almost any genre.
Agree! Also, my response to the sentence you quoted would be: Playing guitar and playing piano are (for many people) almost entirely separate skills, which feel very different, are learned differently, and have different cultural connotations. People are more likely to base their choice of instrument on that (and the things TAG mentioned) than on some kind of optimization for ‘most versatile musical instrument’.
But also I don’t disagree with the original quote :) I mean, it definitely seems true that a lot of people play the piano and guitar, fewer (but still many) play slightly less versatile things like violin and saxophone or other strummed instruments like banjo, not very many play piccolo or tuba, and almost no one plays theremin or very culturally specific instruments like bagpipes or shamisen (outside of the culture they’re specific to).