Is harmonica easier than guitar?

If it was harder than guitar, I imagine it would get a lot of people fired. What I’d like to focus on in this debate is, what are the actual benefits of practicing harmonica? In a previous post ( here ) I mentioned that harmonica was probably the hardest instrument to learn in our society, and it’s still difficult today. The real question is: how hard is it? I’d like to propose that a typical teacher should consider three variables when assessing a student’s progress. First, you might ask about the student’s progress, their overall ability to play certain things in the context in which they are practicing. If the student does a good job playing the blues, they probably still need to learn how to play simple parts for the saxophone. Or perhaps they’re doing well but not as well as people in my own class. Second, you could also ask about a student’s progress with the fundamentals. If the player can easily play “dime”, or the basic chords of the major scale, they have probably got some basic shape down, but they are probably still not quite a musician. If someone has only the basics down, but is able to play a lot more than that, you could ask if that person is still moving toward the full potential of harmonica. Third, I’d like to ask in the third category–to which we’ll return a little later–the student’s progress with a specific goal. If I asked you which instrument you play better than piano, you might answer by simply saying “harp”, which is a very specific instrument. Is that too general? Do you have an instrument that you could play like a harmonica? I could probably find a case for every single instrument, but the examples would probably be pretty limited. I’d like to think that a person could get very far on harmonica if they have a strong goal in mind. Let’s assume you’ve got the goal that you want to learn to play the blues well. I know that some people will say, “that’s absurd. What about learning another instrument, like sax/tenor or piano. It’s too different, it will be too hard, there’s no point”. To that I ask, what if I said, “that’s very true. The fact is, I want to move toward the full goal that I have in mind.” In the context of the blues, would that goal be the ability to play the blues well? What if it’s what it’d mean to play the blues well