It has been so long I no longer remember what it was like to pick up an instrument for the very first time. That instrument was almost certainly piano, with recorder following after. I was too poor to consider brass or strings and the guitar cut my fingers (as it does to everybody) but eventually I got a ukulele which is much gentler instrument to learn on. Ten years after that...it starts to steam-roller.
So I can't say what it is like to try to play from the position of a complete novice. But I can say what it is like to transition from certain starter instruments to others of a similar family.
Take note that I spent long enough at it to learn standard strum, pick, and finger-picking, at least a dozen chords, and some basic techniques like hammer-ons and lift-offs, slides and bending.
From Uke to Guitar:
Fairly painless. The top strings have the same interval pattern (keeping in mind the re-entrant tuning of the bottom string on the uke) so uke chords transfer right over.
This is a steel-string 3/4 scale Yamaha JR2 folk guitar; the strings do cut into my fingers a bit and the nut is narrow enough to make finger-picking more difficult. Other than that...it opens up the tonal possibilities, has deeper bass and more sustain, but I can do exactly what I used to do on the uke and it sounds just fine.
From Uke to Electric Guitar:
Not really fair, as this started life as an electric ukulele. I'd long ago stuck a piezo pick-up in my Rogue ukulele and had already messed around a little with distortion pedal. So this is really more of the same; bigger, metal strings, more pick work, more tonal options. Not really much of an adjustment to start playing.
(Like the folk guitar, the hurdle is learning how to take advantage of the new possibilities of the instrument. Also, the ukulele is more forgiving; the guitars pick up more of the fret noise and finger brushes and other stray sounds, and that longer sustain means you have to pay more care to damping or re-fingering.)
Oh, right. That's a Vorson FSUK1BK solid-body electric ukulele, currently pitched to guitar top four with a set of nickel-wound D'Addario EJ22 "Jazz Medium Gauge" guitar strings.
From Uke to Bass:
Again not really fair; this is a Kala U-bass.* Means it has the body and frets of a baritone ukulele even as it is pitched as a standard four-string bass.
The frets are wider spread, meaning changes in how you finger (particularly, that fourth-finger stretch is now hard enough you are better off re-mapping it). More importantly, it is ultra-sensitive to good fretting and the strings pick up every bit of finger noise. Damping is all but mandatory.
*SUB solid-body model with flame maple finish, retro-fit with "California" pre-amp with built-in tuner, still hung with the original Pahoehoe strings from Road Toad.
From (basically) Ukulele to Violin:
Okay, this one is a big transition. It would be shorter to list what I was able to carry over from the ukulele than what I had to learn. Which is strength and accuracy in the fretting hand, mostly. Even though a violin has no frets, there's still muscle memory in going to the right spot in both instruments so that's a skill that translates over.
Other than that, what I had to draw on was a little music theory, the start of ear training, and the ability to think in terms of relative strings; remapping on the fly based on the interval between strings to figure out where the next note would be located.
Everything else is learned from scratch. Holding the bow. Holding the instrument. Bowing. Fingering. Months before I could get through a simple tune without going haywire. Two years now and I still squeak and scratch.
Actually, I'd say the biggest leg up I got from the ukulele is I knew I could learn an instrument because I'd done it once before.
(The instrument pictured is my second violin. I started on a Cecilio solid-body electric violin, then moved up to a Pfetchner student violin. As of a week ago I re-strung it with Alphayue strings, which are synthetic core and I find have a warmer and more responsive tone.) D'addario natural light rosin and the original Pfetchner bow, Bonmusica shoulder rest, and Guaneri chin rest.)
From Violin to Chincello:
Also not really fair, this is my original Cecilio CEVN-2BK electric violin -- what Yamaha calls a "silent violin" -- newly strung with Sensicore octave strings; or rather, a CGDA set custom-assembled by the Electric Violin Shop to bring a violin body down to cello pitches. Still using the Crescent carbon-fibre bow and Everest shoulder rest, but now rosining up with Nyman bass rosin.
The transition here is basically that the strings are thick and heavy as heck. It takes a hard bow and a firm grip in fretting, and you have to learn to play a little slower and let the strings catch up.
In short, the transition to other members of the lute family is nearly painless. Within a day of picking up each I was playing again and could put my attention on the fun stuff, like trying out new techniques -- or trying to play cleaner. The bowed strings are a lot more like learning an instrument from scratch.
Next there's the wind and brass to consider. Here's my starting point; decades of recorder, during which, although I may never have gotten that good, I messed around with a lot of different techniques including flutter tongue, fingered tremolo, diaphragm vibrato, "chanter" fingering, and multiphonics. I also had half a suite of recorders, from sopranino to alto, so I was used to changing the width of my grip.
Not to mention a growing collection of Pier 49 "bamboo flutes" and a couple of Early instruments.
From Recorder to Crumhorn:
Another nothing transition. The fingering is slightly different. And it is a reed-cap instrument so the tonguing is different; instead of stopping your tongue against your teeth you stop by putting your tongue over the hole. Other than that, all that time learning breath control and clean fingering translates right over.
This crumhorn is a Susato alto crumhorn in ABS plastic with two extension keys and a plastic reed.
From Recorder to Tin Whistle:
Actually a tougher transition, but only towards playing the tin whistle idiomatically. The fingering is quite different and the articulation is very different (typically little to no tonguing) and the idiom is to do a lot of cuts and strikes and trills. Oh, yeah, and whether or not the traditionalists frown on diaphragm vibrato, the cool thing to have in your box of tricks is fingered "vibrato." (Fluttering a finger rapidly on or over a tone hole one or two holes below the lowest fingered hole).
Pictured is a Feadog "Generation," probably a Bb like mine. I also own a Clarke in the traditional high D.
From Recorder to Trumpet:
The biggie here. Now, I had tried to buzz into a brass mouthpiece before I got it, so I knew I could at least make a tone. I'd also messed around on a Breton Bombarde (what musicologists call a "folk oboe") a double reed of the shawm family originally fitted with a tough-as nails straw reed. So I could shove air.
Brass, though. This was a steep learning curve for the first couple weeks, both learning the basic embouchure and getting enough lip strength to play for longer than a minute at a time. After that first few weeks, though, it got easier; it takes less pressure, less effort, I can go more easily into the higher registers and concentrate more on tone and clarity and all that other fun stuff.
So now I'm messing with wah-wah mute, multiphonics, slides...but I have yet to care a whit about using the tuning slides (I just lip the worst of the notes and call truce on the rest).
What did recorder do for me? Breath control, and a hint at slotting with that recorder overblow to second and third octaves (on the trumpet, you "overblow" through the harmonic series.)
Medini/Cecilio MTT-BL Bb trumpet with blue finish. I'm using a classic Harmon mute with stem, a LotFancy compact practice mute, and now, a Yamaha Silent Brass practice mute with built-in microphone. Plus I'm on my second can of Spitballs -- I swear by those things to keep the trumpet clean.
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