5 ms·

I'm of the generation that were forced to write with the right even though I was a natural lefty. I also broke my left arm when I was 2, which may have made thi

by leejo 2y ago

I'm of the generation that were forced to write with the right even though I was a natural lefty. I also broke my left arm when I was 2, which may have made things even more messed up. These days I: * Write with my right, my left is not quite as quick/tidy as my right * Swing/grip with my left (cricket / golf / etc) * Use my phone with my left * Mouse with my right * Cut (scissors) with my right (but we don't have any lefty scissors so...) * Drink a pint with my left * Play guitar with my right (but i learnt with a RH acoustic, so...)

pclmulqdq 2y ago
I'm not sure why people have started to make reversed musical instruments. I saw a video with a reversed piano, calling it "left-handed." I am a left-handed person who plays the piano and I had always thought the keyboard was laid out like an ascending scale on paper rather than having something to do with handedness - low notes on the left and high notes on the right. The motions involved in playing music are so weird that I don't think it matters that much. Even if it does, there might be techniques that you find easier to master with one handedness or the other. I will also add that I have been complemented on the facility of my left hand when playing, but when I hear the people who say that play scales, it's very clear that they don't practice technique with both hands equally.
- Miraltar 2y ago
  I don't think it matters too much on a piano but on a guitar it does a lot because your hands do very different things.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    Wouldn't you want the more dextrous hand to be the one choosing which notes to play? My sister plays string instruments, and she has commented many times that I am lucky for being left handed because lefties have a better time with complex fingering. I suppose that it's easier to start out right handed on guitar, though, when the right hand is more active than the left hand.
    - unzadunza 2y ago
      I'm a lefty and I played right handed guitar growing up. I never got very good at strumming and picking. Five years ago I switched to left-handed guitars and I think I'm much better than I ever was as a righty. Picking the strings well, to me, is the most difficult part of playing a guitar.
    - grimjack00 2y ago
      I've never really liked that reasoning. If that's the case, then right-handed people should be playing "left-handed" guitars, with their right hands doing the fretting. Personally, fretting with my left hand just doesn't feel natural. When I first got interested in playing, I asked a salesman at a Guitar Center about left-handed instruments. He handed me a standard guitar, and showed me the fingering for a G chord. It was uncomfortable, but that's obviously expected for the first time I'd ever held a guitar. However, when I flipped it around and fretted with my right hand, it felt much more natural. So ever since, I've played left-handed.
  - altruios 2y ago
    I'm left handed and play the piano. I think if I had a learned on a reversed piano - it would not transfer to a regular piano - I would be able to play better. What which hand is responsible for (melody, accompaniment/rhythm) have very different dexterity requirements. Learning melody on the dominate hand would be preferable to me, in hindsight. With an electronic keyboard, reversing the tones should be easy enough to do. However, I have not noticed that feature.
  - voidUpdate 2y ago
    I play a right handed ukulele left handed (neck in my right hand, strumming with the left hand, but strung normally). Since the body is symmetrical, and I learnt like that from the start, I've not really had an issue. Plus, it means I can pick up and play any old ukulele without having to re-string it first. However this doesn't work for something like an electric guitar which you cant really play "upside down"
- retrac 2y ago
  Piano music is mostly written by right-handers for right-handers. I'm strongly left-hand dominant. For music that's intended to be easy to play, the primary voice is almost always on the right hand. Where the music wants the most dexterity, I have the least. At the developed level where the composer doesn't give a damn about how easy it is for the musician to play, yes, both left and right-handers have to figure out how to realize the piece and would make use of their strengths to do so. For instruments like guitar I think the case for reversing the handedness of the instrument is a bit stronger, since the hands serve very different roles there.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    I don't think that's the actual reason, even for teaching music. The primary voice is in the right hand because the right hand is higher and so the waves it generates have higher energy at the same volume, making it the easiest voice to hear. I assume that in arrangements and pop music, the arranger naturally puts the melody on top and fills in as much harmony as they care to (which is usually not a lot unless you pay for the arrangement).
    - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
      This in no way disagrees with the GP comment and in most ways reinforces it.
      - pclmulqdq 2y ago
        > Piano music is mostly written by right-handers for right-handers Even if that does not directly say that people (right-handers, specifically) insert their handedness bias into the things they write, it does certainly imply that that is important for people who write piano music to put the athletic part (the melody) in the more dextrous hand. It is not. The reason for the right hand to carry the melody is the sound projection of high notes, nothing to do with handedness. Incidentally, many famous composers in the piano canon were lefties. Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Ravel all have strong evidence of being left-handed. CPE Bach may have also been a lefty, as may have Mozart and Beethoven. This is not "right-handed people making right-handed music" by any means.
- wbrd 2y ago
  I taught guitar for three years to groups of undergrads. I noticed that most lefties had no problem playing a right-handed guitar. However, occasionally I would have a student that just struggled mightily and things clicked when they switched to a left-handed guitar.
  - leejo 2y ago
    I went to a Don Ross workshop once and there was a left handed player there doing the upside down RH guitar thing, which was especially impressive due to the style of music and having to play the bass notes with their pinky.
Rastonbury 2y ago
My lefty friends use RH golf clubs
k1kingy 2y ago
Yeah my body is all kinds of confused also: - Write with my left - Cricket/golf right - Tennis/squash left - Bowl/throw left - Mouse right - Drink left - Eat right (fork in left hand, knife in right) - Cut left (but usually don't bother because scissors never work) - I also kick well off both feet (although favor the left foot slightly) I'm definitely more left dominant but can usually do most things well enough with my right. I was also never told/forced to be right-handed.
- leejo 2y ago
  Oh bowling - I do that with both hands, equally bad at each (well, maybe slightly better with the left).
- random42_ 2y ago
  I thought I was the only one like that, except my dominant leg for kicking is the right one, and I eat with fork on right hand, knife on left; and I use scissors with my right hand. I also play the guitar as a right-handed person. When I tell people these things, I can see total confusion on their faces. Quite funny.
osigurdson 2y ago
One interesting data point is the majority of hockey players shoot left but are not left handed. https://www.purehockey.com/c/why-are-so-many-hockey-players-left-handed https://www.purehockey.com/c/why-are-so-many-hockey-players-...
- idunnoman1222 2y ago
  But shooting left in Hockey is what a right hander does. (Dominant hand on the top of the stick) I’m left-handed and shoot right in Hockey
  - osigurdson 2y ago
    I'm right handed and shoot right, so do a lot of people.
Krasnol 2y ago
I'm one of those lefties who have been forced to write using my right hand too. It cost me grades throughout my whole time at school and university. This is why I write with my right hand. It's ugly, but most of the time I can read it. Luckily, we have devices today which make handwriting not so necessary anymore. It was a blessing when I learned spreading butter on bread with my left hand...in my late 20s. Those many times I just ripped through the bread. Also forced upon me on some church vacation where me doing it with my left hand was just uncomfortable for my table neighbor and why I had to stop it according to the adult watching us. Yeah...it is more than "a bit annoying" in this right-handed world sometimes. Get those lefty scissors. They are such a blessing!

by leejo 2y ago

pclmulqdq 2y ago

I'm not sure why people have started to make reversed musical instruments. I saw a video with a reversed piano, calling it "left-handed." I am a left-handed person who plays the piano and I had always thought the keyboard was laid out like an ascending scale on paper rather than having something to do with handedness - low notes on the left and high notes on the right. The motions involved in playing music are so weird that I don't think it matters that much. Even if it does, there might be techniques that you find easier to master with one handedness or the other. I will also add that I have been complemented on the facility of my left hand when playing, but when I hear the people who say that play scales, it's very clear that they don't practice technique with both hands equally.

Miraltar 2y ago
I don't think it matters too much on a piano but on a guitar it does a lot because your hands do very different things.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  Wouldn't you want the more dextrous hand to be the one choosing which notes to play? My sister plays string instruments, and she has commented many times that I am lucky for being left handed because lefties have a better time with complex fingering. I suppose that it's easier to start out right handed on guitar, though, when the right hand is more active than the left hand.
  - unzadunza 2y ago
    I'm a lefty and I played right handed guitar growing up. I never got very good at strumming and picking. Five years ago I switched to left-handed guitars and I think I'm much better than I ever was as a righty. Picking the strings well, to me, is the most difficult part of playing a guitar.
  - grimjack00 2y ago
    I've never really liked that reasoning. If that's the case, then right-handed people should be playing "left-handed" guitars, with their right hands doing the fretting. Personally, fretting with my left hand just doesn't feel natural. When I first got interested in playing, I asked a salesman at a Guitar Center about left-handed instruments. He handed me a standard guitar, and showed me the fingering for a G chord. It was uncomfortable, but that's obviously expected for the first time I'd ever held a guitar. However, when I flipped it around and fretted with my right hand, it felt much more natural. So ever since, I've played left-handed.
- altruios 2y ago
  I'm left handed and play the piano. I think if I had a learned on a reversed piano - it would not transfer to a regular piano - I would be able to play better. What which hand is responsible for (melody, accompaniment/rhythm) have very different dexterity requirements. Learning melody on the dominate hand would be preferable to me, in hindsight. With an electronic keyboard, reversing the tones should be easy enough to do. However, I have not noticed that feature.
- voidUpdate 2y ago
  I play a right handed ukulele left handed (neck in my right hand, strumming with the left hand, but strung normally). Since the body is symmetrical, and I learnt like that from the start, I've not really had an issue. Plus, it means I can pick up and play any old ukulele without having to re-string it first. However this doesn't work for something like an electric guitar which you cant really play "upside down"
retrac 2y ago
Piano music is mostly written by right-handers for right-handers. I'm strongly left-hand dominant. For music that's intended to be easy to play, the primary voice is almost always on the right hand. Where the music wants the most dexterity, I have the least. At the developed level where the composer doesn't give a damn about how easy it is for the musician to play, yes, both left and right-handers have to figure out how to realize the piece and would make use of their strengths to do so. For instruments like guitar I think the case for reversing the handedness of the instrument is a bit stronger, since the hands serve very different roles there.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  I don't think that's the actual reason, even for teaching music. The primary voice is in the right hand because the right hand is higher and so the waves it generates have higher energy at the same volume, making it the easiest voice to hear. I assume that in arrangements and pop music, the arranger naturally puts the melody on top and fills in as much harmony as they care to (which is usually not a lot unless you pay for the arrangement).
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    This in no way disagrees with the GP comment and in most ways reinforces it.
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      > Piano music is mostly written by right-handers for right-handers Even if that does not directly say that people (right-handers, specifically) insert their handedness bias into the things they write, it does certainly imply that that is important for people who write piano music to put the athletic part (the melody) in the more dextrous hand. It is not. The reason for the right hand to carry the melody is the sound projection of high notes, nothing to do with handedness. Incidentally, many famous composers in the piano canon were lefties. Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Ravel all have strong evidence of being left-handed. CPE Bach may have also been a lefty, as may have Mozart and Beethoven. This is not "right-handed people making right-handed music" by any means.
wbrd 2y ago
I taught guitar for three years to groups of undergrads. I noticed that most lefties had no problem playing a right-handed guitar. However, occasionally I would have a student that just struggled mightily and things clicked when they switched to a left-handed guitar.
- leejo 2y ago
  I went to a Don Ross workshop once and there was a left handed player there doing the upside down RH guitar thing, which was especially impressive due to the style of music and having to play the bass notes with their pinky.

Rastonbury 2y ago

My lefty friends use RH golf clubs

k1kingy 2y ago

Yeah my body is all kinds of confused also: - Write with my left - Cricket/golf right - Tennis/squash left - Bowl/throw left - Mouse right - Drink left - Eat right (fork in left hand, knife in right) - Cut left (but usually don't bother because scissors never work) - I also kick well off both feet (although favor the left foot slightly) I'm definitely more left dominant but can usually do most things well enough with my right. I was also never told/forced to be right-handed.

leejo 2y ago
Oh bowling - I do that with both hands, equally bad at each (well, maybe slightly better with the left).
random42_ 2y ago
I thought I was the only one like that, except my dominant leg for kicking is the right one, and I eat with fork on right hand, knife on left; and I use scissors with my right hand. I also play the guitar as a right-handed person. When I tell people these things, I can see total confusion on their faces. Quite funny.

osigurdson 2y ago

One interesting data point is the majority of hockey players shoot left but are not left handed. https://www.purehockey.com/c/why-are-so-many-hockey-players-left-handed https://www.purehockey.com/c/why-are-so-many-hockey-players-...

idunnoman1222 2y ago
But shooting left in Hockey is what a right hander does. (Dominant hand on the top of the stick) I’m left-handed and shoot right in Hockey
- osigurdson 2y ago
  I'm right handed and shoot right, so do a lot of people.

Krasnol 2y ago

I'm one of those lefties who have been forced to write using my right hand too. It cost me grades throughout my whole time at school and university. This is why I write with my right hand. It's ugly, but most of the time I can read it. Luckily, we have devices today which make handwriting not so necessary anymore. It was a blessing when I learned spreading butter on bread with my left hand...in my late 20s. Those many times I just ripped through the bread. Also forced upon me on some church vacation where me doing it with my left hand was just uncomfortable for my table neighbor and why I had to stop it according to the adult watching us. Yeah...it is more than "a bit annoying" in this right-handed world sometimes. Get those lefty scissors. They are such a blessing!