Also surprisingly low cost for a pretty good instrument. $250 dollars will get you a pretty good solid top steel string acoustic guitar (Yamaha FS800 or FG800, Fender CC60 or CD60, half a dozen models from Orangewood) or solid top classical guitar (Cordoba C3, Yamaha CG122).

Piano costs a bit more, but $500 or so should do it for a pretty good beginner instrument.

By pretty good I mean an instrument that sounds good and has a good feel so that you don't have to struggle to play it (beyond the struggling inherent in being a beginner even if you were playing on a professional concert level instrument) and it won't make you learn any bad habits you'll have to unlearn if you continue and move up to a better instrument.

> Meanwhile I put in more hours and had far more formal instruction at a woodwind than either of those combined and... yeah, nobody wanted to hear that shit, it sounds awful (cringe-inducing, even) unless you're excellent

Plus woodwinds and other orchestra instruments seem to be way more expensive. I'd guess that stops a lot of people who might have been interested in taking them up.

I checked at my local music store and student oboes for example start at around $3000. Clarinets around $1000. Tubas around $4000. Wow.