From: ABC Classic FM fan 12/07/00 12:15:13 Subject: Music and Handedness post id: 97562 I wonder, I wonder... why is it that most string instruments I can think of (guitars, banjos, violins, violas, cellos, double basses etc) require the right-handed musician to use their left hand for the actual fingering (getting the notes), and their right one for plucking, bowing etc (which seems the easier task)? I would have thought that the right hand would have been better suited to such acrobatics - after all, that's the hand a right-hander prefers to use for writing, object manipulation, etc. If all this right-hemisphere, left-hemisphere stuff has anything to it, wouldn't getting the notes be the more mathematical task, and the plucking/bowing the more creative task? And do left-handers usually play mirror image instruments? Any left-handed virtuosos that don't? I was just wondering whether it might be an advantage to play particularly classical music the other way around to convention. And I say particularly classical music because for a violinist, for example, the "feel" and the expressiveness component to the music is actually created mainly by how they bow. Transients to notes which give instruments, instrument players and singers their characteristic "voices" aren't created by the fingering either. Thank you. From: Carmel ® 12/07/00 12:30:41 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 97571 require the right-handed musician to use their left hand for the actual fingering (getting the notes), and their right one for plucking, bowing etc (which seems the easier task)? Okay, I never actually played a string instrument, but I spent enough time around them. Bascially because the action the ACTUALLY makes the music is bowing/plucking/strumming, this is the action you need to have greatest control over. The fingering (such as with a violin) only requires small, deft movements of the fingers, which are easy to train (for example, typing is relatively easy to train you left fingers to move deftly very short distances to certain places). Bowing requires a fluid, co-ordinated motion, which is usually much easier to acheive with your dominant side. Brass instruments, like trumpet, trombone and tuba all use the left hand/arm to support the instrument, and the right hand to guide the making of the music, for example with a trombone, the presice movement of the slide to the correct position (which can be tricky as there are no frets or markings and the slide is kept well greased and slippery so that you can move quickly btn notes... it also means you have to have immense control over where you go) I would have thought that the right hand would have been better suited to such acrobatics - after all, that's the hand a right-hander prefers to use for writing, object manipulation, etc. Which is exactly why the dominant hand (usually right) is used for the parts that rewuire greatest control. As we moving the slide of a trombone, bowing with a violin requires movement of a certain pressure, length and, um, flourish I guess, to get the desired effect. The movent of the left hand is far simpler and much more of a regimented pattern (hence easy to train) And do left-handers usually play mirror image instruments? Some do, but most don't. For the most part, it is because the instruments are built to cater for right-handed people. And just like you can teach a left-handed person to right with their right hand, to throw or to catch, to bat or bowl with their right hand, you can teach them to do play music with their right. I hope this helped a bit... From: James Richmond (Avatar) 12/07/00 12:32:36 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 97572 I think you've answered your own question! You say [F]for a violinist, for example, the "feel" and the expressiveness component to the music is actually created mainly by how they bow. Transients to notes which give instruments, instrument players and singers their characteristic "voices" aren't created by the fingering either. Therefore, it may be more important to control the bow with one's "better" hand. However, it has been shown that instrumentalists tend to have better developed brain regions for controlling the parts of their bodies which they need to control precisely in playing their instruments. Even a naturally right handed violinist has excellent control over their left hand, which is probably qualitatively different from that of a left hander who does not play the violin. I would also be interested to know how many virtuoso violinists have their violins strung "in reverse" and use the opposite hands to play. I think the number would be virtually zero. There are two reasons for this. The first lies in the teaching of the proper bowing and fingering, which would be much harder if the student had to mirror the teacher. The second lies in the practicalities of orchestras. Imagine having a string section with some left handers and some right handers - bows would clash! JR From: Kothos ® 12/07/00 12:32:38 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 97573 Maybe the right hand is better at maintaining rythm? Most people who are right handed can tap out a complex beat with their right hand but can only provide a simple accompaniment with their left. So since plucking/strumming the strings provides the rythm and timing, it has to be done with the right, leaving the left with the difficult chore of learning the complex finger positions? Anyway, just a guess. From: Scooter ® 12/07/00 12:41:11 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 97582 And do left-handers usually play mirror image instruments? I am a left hander. When I was 6 my mother took me to my first guitar lesson. I picked up the guitar in the lft handed (Paul McCartney) manner. The teacher said that was cool he could restring the guit for me. But my mother didn't want him to worry about it and told him to teach me right handed, which he did. Now I can't pick up a guitar left handed. I play right handed. From: Carmel ® 12/07/00 12:41:46 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 97583 ooooo! That was the example I was thinking of! Piano. Both hands of a pianist are equally important. Same for flutes, saxes, clarinets and drums. These instruments require small, deft movements that are well controlled. Somewhat like typing. There is no dominant hand, really. It is only when you have an instrument that requires an great deal of fluidity and control that you get the concept of handedness to the extent you are talking about. From: Carmel ® 12/07/00 12:45:42 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 97587 same with my brother. He's left-handed eating and writing, but plays both trumpet and guitar right-handed. Simply because it was easier to teach him that way. Me? I can play trombone left or right handed. I just put it together differently. Usually takes about 10 or15 minutes for me to cope with the left-handed change, but after that, I'm fine. I taught myself how to do it when I was little, I thought it would be cool. From: Cybernaut ® 12/07/00 12:46:33 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 97588 I play the 5-string banjo (with right handed aspect). The left hand dexterity seems to me to be more important than the right. As much as pickin' seems complicated, once the appropriate motor skills have been honed, the left hand is the weak link in the chain. I also touch type; again, once the appropriate motor skills have been trained, their are no problems. From: James Richmond (Avatar) 12/07/00 12:47:32 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 97589 I'm right handed and I play piano. I find it much easier to play complex music with my right hand than my left, and have to concentrate a lot to make my left hand do what it is supposed to when something difficult is happening on that side. Fortunately, most of the hot action on piano is in the upper register anyway, which is the right hand. I'm just glad things aren't the other way round. Mind you, there are many excellent pianists who are otherwise left handed. JR From: Scooter ® 12/07/00 12:57:40 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 97594 Simply because it was easier to teach him that way. I am not sure I agree Carmel. I think it would be easier to teach a left hander (if you are right handed), because the student would be sitting opposite the instructor and would just copy his movements straight over (mirror image) instead of try to transpose them over to the right hand (does that make sense?) From: ABC Classic FM fan 12/07/00 13:12:39 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 97599 Well, thanks for all those fast and detailed replies. I personally think the fingering on the violin requires a great deal more dexterity of the fingers than the bowing. However, the bowing requires enormous control of the arm, and sometimes you think your arm is going to fall off any moment - particularly when you have to play complex rhythms and you're going from one string to the next and back again having to avoid clashing into other strings and having to alter the lightness and the speed of contact. But that's just bowed instruments... Friends of mine play guitars, and what they do with their right hands doesn't seem nearly as complicated (their own comments! - but then I watched a virtuoso classical guitarist on a documentary some weeks ago, and his right hand did rather amazing stuff too...). As one of you commented, it is true that if you're a right-hander playing a stringed instrument, you seem to become far more ambidextrous. I can do a lot more with my left hand than I ever could before taking up violin. A friend who teaches guitar said he taught a left-handed beginner on a right-handed guitar, and then his uncle gave him a left-handed guitar some months later, and he just couldn't convert to it try as he might. So his opinion is that whatever you get used to, you get used to in that respect. As a related idea, does anyone know if any of the famous visual artists were left-handed? From: Alan™ ® 12/07/00 18:37:38 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 97736 Although I don't play any musical instrument, not even the triangle :-( From my experience of teaching sailing, caving and climbing, particularly knots with respect to those activities. Left handers have very good ability to learn things which ever way you present it to them. They will naturally reverse mirror to suit their own requirements, alternatively they will learn a skill right handed, ie. because I didn't have access to left hand golf clubs, I learnt how to play golf right handed, but put either way depending upon the slope. Right handers seem not to be able to do this, it must be presented to them the right handed way. As a left hander, teaching people how to tie knots. I had to learn how to tie knots right handed. A funny thing happened one day when teaching somebody, without thinking I started teaching somebody a particular knot left handedly and the person mirrored my knot(right handedly), at this stage I realised I was teaching a left hander. Teaching the person after that, was much simpler. BTW: the above contains several generalisations. From: Paul H. 13/07/00 14:25:44 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 98254 I think you've got some good answers here already, but here's my 200 cents. In the West, didn't string music begin with harp-like instruments? Which *only* use the right hand? Once this became orthodoxy, isn't is possible that as your tow-handed instruments came in from the East that they were adopted in a right-handed way? And as Western culture became dominant, that the right-handed way fed back to the East? . As a related idea, does anyone know if any of the famous visual artists were left-handed? Left-handedness and art are practically the same thing. Re; the bowline (as an ex-rock-climber). I was on a boat in Fiji, and idly trying to remember how to tie a bowline and bugger me if I couldn't. A Fijian watching me, after a bit, said, "are you left left-handed", "Well, yeah..." He took the rope out of my hands reversed it, and gave it back to me, and yes, bingo, a two-second bowline. From: steve(primus) ® 13/07/00 14:37:18 Subject: re: Music and Handedness post id: 98260 Left-handedness and art are practically the same thing Are you saying that all left-handers are artists? They are not. Are you saying that all artists are left handed? They are not. The vast majority of artists, writers, musicians, sculptors, poets etc are right handed - just as the vast majority of people are right handed. This forum is un-moderated. The views and opinions expressed are those of the individual poster and not the ABC. The ABC reserves the right to remove offensive or inappropriate messages.