For some people it's easy to change between one instrument and another. Others may find it difficult.

I had been playing banjo about 10 years when there was a need for a slow jam teacher. Nearly everyone in the class was a guitar picker, so I had to learn how to play guitar. I just learned chords at first. After teaching that class for a w hile I found it very easy to go from banjo to guitar (again, just rhythm guitar).

I used to take my guitar and banjo to jams. Sometimes where would be a new song that I wanted to show everyone, I picked up the guitar and played rhythm so everyone could see chords and understand the song.

Now? I've learned how to flatpick. Not really good at it, but I can pick out a tune on the guitar.

I found it really easy to go from Guitar to mandolin and bass guitar was not a problem at all.

Seems like once you learn one instrument, the others are much easier to learn.

Primarily I play fiddle. (not gonna lie) I've gotten paid to play fiddle, guitar, mandolin, and even piano. Yes, banjer is in there too. I can operate a bass enough. The 'next' instrument is easier. The hardest thing was to break open the melodic mind, and integrate the harmony/chord mind. Fiddle is mostly melody. Guitar I play is mostly chords. Learning chords/double stops on the fiddle was enlightening. Chord theory, to me, is a big deal. Bigger than the instrument. The melody is in there.

I played basic fingerpicking and pick/strum guitar in my teens,, when I took up banjo it was somewhat similar but different enough to take lots of practice. My mind does flick a switch when I go from one to another,, with guitar there’s a lot of attention paid to the bass strings, with banjo it’s the various rolls that have to become second nature.

I've been told that learning a 3rd language is easier than learning a second language. I'm still struggling with the first one.

Hey, most of the time, I drop my fine guitar string down to a D, for the open G. Key of D, I may drop the fat string down too, but I may not. It drives the other guitar players nuts cuz they can't watch my hand.
So roughly speaking, the banjo and guitar can have, for the most part, the same tuning. Of course the banjo has the 5th string, and the guitar has two bass strings. Play them or don't.

The language is Music. Taming the dumb thing in your mits is the task.

I can bounce back and forth between different fretted instruments without much trouble. But I have found that to really play my best, I have to concentrate on one instrument at a time. When I run out of inspiration on that instrument, I move on to another one. I don't have the time or the energy to stay current on more than one.

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Originally posted by donc

I've been told that learning a 3rd language is easier than learning a second language. I'm still struggling with the first one.

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I'm working on my second million,,, the first one was too difficult to acquire

I’m a professional violin/viola player and teacher but I play many other instruments, on stringed and fretted instruments I don’t have many problems (of course I’m not a virtuoso but I can handle them) I have more problems playing wind instruments, I can play some flute and some Trumpet but I must practice a lot on such instruments and sometime it is hard to find the time…
Here I’m playing all the instruments

As retirement approached, I had my beginners banjo with me on one of the remote reserves. One day another staff member was over and picked it up and started noodling (?). [She said she could play a few (?) other instruments but had never tried banjo.] Within a few minutes she was producing stuff 'w-a-y beyond what I thought reasonable/possible/??.  I asked her how long she thought it would take her to be able to actually "play" it. Her answer: "Oh, about 1/2 an hour, though I wouldn't be "good" at it."

At a banjo camp I attended a decade or so back a 12ish year old was there* ... his dad had offered a banjo as a bribe to get the son to attend. During the first class the kid was "picking" a recognizable tune ... not strumming or rolling ... actually "playing" the banjo.

I suppose "easy" is relative, but for those that have "the spark" it's infinitely easy-er than it is for those that don't have it... IMNSHumbleO, of course.

* both of us in the "Beginners class," though on day 1 he was 'way beyond where I was with my 3ish years of "experience."  

I started guitar,banjo and mandolin between the ages of 8 and 10.
They each have they're own 3 chord patterns and I just got used to those differences.
A flat pick works different than fingerpicks.
Like a car or truck they can have differences like 3 on the tree,4,5 or 6 speed on the floor,automatic or no-shifting electric,but all of these choices are easily driven by the same person.

Depends on the skill level. I can play rhythm guitar, but no leads. Clawhammer banjo I pretty much mastered; finger styles not so much. My sister played piano and flute. I think that multi-instrument mastery depends on the musical ability of the player. I’ve never known a mediocre multi-instrumentalist.

I started on guitar in '65, picked up banjo aound '72, beginning with the Seeger style. I took a couple of clawhammer lessons in '77 and took off from there, but I lost the Seeger stuff. I felt that learning one instrument helped with the other, though.

My only difficulty is, when playing backup at an open mic, or in some jams, switching tunings and getting them confused.

Jimmy Cox once told me that he learned to play clawhammer banjo from his father.
Later he went to playing with picks exclusively and when he tried to play clawhammer again he couldn't do it,anymore.

I play guitar and banjo in a few jams and have no problem switching between the two a couple of times a night.

I like the differences between the instruments.Keeps things from getting too boring.

I switch back and forth. I find that I don't like singing with the banjo, so I switch to guitar when I sing. We did a senior center gig just yesterday and I sang two songs at a time with guitar and then switched back to banjo, several times throughout. I have no trouble switching back and forth.

In my opinion it is in fact very much like languages. I speak two languages and in my mind they are separate languages. One can't think in one and talk in the other. I treat banjo and guitar in the same way. If I'm playing banjo, I'm thinking in banjo. If I'm playing guitar, I'm thinking in guitar.

I found it useful to have mainly only played guitar for 30 years before picking up a banjo. I also found it useful that I had played guitar for so long before picking up a banjo. Now I mainly pick up the banjo. However it is true that the five string banjo and the guitar, in standard tuning, are tuned in a very similar way and the notes are in the same or very similar places (no one is allowed to say 5th string or 5th and 6th strings - no siree).

I played guitar and drums in the earlier portion of my life, and banjo and a small bit of lap steel the past few years.

I still enjoy jamming on all of them — I’ll play drums along with my guitarist son… guitar along with my drummer son… and banjo (which is now my favorite instrument to play) when left to my own devices!

I’m a master of none, and no doubt my guitar and drumming chops have dwindled the last 10 years…. But variety is the spice of life, as they say!

I started mandolin same time as banjo and guitar on a Stradolin that the previous owner had drilled a 3/8 hole in the peghead so it could be hung on a nail.
When I was 14 I stripped the brushed on brown paint and shot a couple of coats of lacquer in a can on it and that's how it remains,today.Very uninteresting tone and playability.
I suppose that's why I don't play mandolin today.

If I find a good playing one for small money I'll probably get it.If I played it regularly I'm pretty sure I'd find some good chops and a few hornpipes.

Dad played by ear very well on pedal steel,banjo,6 string guitar and mandolin.He also enjoyed bits and pieces of piano,clarinet and saxophone.

Nothing wrong with straying off into other pastures.