I am a left-handed adult who was recently gifted a right-handed violin. I have an avenue for having the instrument altered, if necessary, but am undecided about whether to do this before beginning lessons. It definitely feels more natural to bow with my left hand, but not impossible with my right.

I would appreciate any hind-sight other lefties might have about whether or not playing right-handed was right for them (outside of the orchastra debate). I am most interested in the difficulty experienced in learning to play, and whether frustration outweighed enjoyment.

The ultimate question being, "Would you choose to learn to play right-handed if you had it to do all over again?"

Thanks in advance, Laura

Hi Laura, I just finished reading an article in the local Windham newspaper about a middle school student who is left handed and wanted to play left handed while taking violin lessons and playing in the school orchestra. He found that holding his bow in his left hand felt awkward. At first the school violin teacher refused to let him play left handed. Fortunately his uncle is also left handed and plays folk fiddle left handed. His uncle contacted me and togther we managed to convince the school that he be "allowed" to play left handed. He is now very happy since he can control the bow better with his left hand. He finds also that he can finger just fine with his right hand. The newspaper published a picture of him playing his violin. There are also many personal accounts and interviews with left handed violin players in my book - "Playing the Violin and Fiddle Left Handed." Just to be fair though, I should mention that many left handed people play right handed and do fine. Of course when they started playing they probably weren`t offered a choice, and so didn`t necessarily experience "frustration," because they didn`t have anything to compare their experience with. If you work hard enough at anything its possible to prevail. My opinion though, is that in the majority of situations its easier and more efficient for a violinist to use their dominant hand (either right or left) to bow a violin. I think this carries over to many other day to day situations as well, such as holding a pencil, swinging a tennis racket, cutting a piece of meat with a knife, etc.

In the previous post I meant that the left handed student found it awkward to bow with his right hand.

I`ve been reading through these postings on playing left handed, well I`ve been recently wanting to learn to play the violin. I`m left handed and naturally facing the dilema as to whether to learn left or right handed. I think I`m swaying towards playing right handed, due to the availability of violins and probably more important finding a tutor.
I should though say that when I was 3 or 4 years old I did have some violin lessons and was being taught left handed! There seemed no problems then, the tutor even had a tiny left handed violin for me to use. I stopped after a few months though, not sure why but still had the violin until recently (my tutor died shortly after I finished, so I guess I thats why we keeped it).
I guess this time its my descision to start now.

Katie

ps I`m an adult and I meant to say `kept`!!

It`s good to see this is still an interesting thread for discussion.

Katie, can I make a suggestion? If you decide to go with the lefty violin, you may want to also coordinate that with practicing another lefty stringed instrument.

I play the bass with both hands (but I`m a natural lefty) and I find that after a few practices with the bass, my rhythm hand that I was using is a lot more constant and adept for playing rhythm on the guitar. I don`t know why, I guess it`s the timing practice with the metronome.

Although I haven`t started playing violin, I could only imagine that playing the mandolin (which is strung the same as a violin (the next higher string is the fifth), not the same as guitar or bass (where the next higher string is the fourth)) would help your progression on the violin and vice versa. In my observasions, this may be why many bluegrass musicians find it easy to play one if they can play the other.

As for cheap way to get a mandolin, I got a new "righty-converted-to-lefty" Weber Sweet Pea traveler flat mandolin at no additional charge for $300. Weber is good and they are made in Montana. Google "Weber mandolins" if you`re interested. The New Mexico reseller, www.folkofthewood.com (I`m not associated) stocks new and used ones. They`re super friendly with good trade-in and conversion rates. FOTW does stock even cheaper mandos, but they may be inferior to the Weber line. I`m positive that they would convert anything to lefty (for a price, of course.) Flat mandos are easy to convert because of the X bracing and usually little if any manufactured thinning on the treble string side of the soundboard. The Sweet Pea is small with a regular sized scale and neck and has no soundboard bracing.

Sorry for the slight focus on mandos, especially since this is a violin thread, but your fingering hand would be doing the same thing on both, if you practiced both. IMO, that would lead to a better understanding of both instruments and that could only be a good thing.

Jason

I wanded to interject on the subject of braindedness (for lack of better words) and propose that all musicians use their creative side once really playing.

My defense of this statement is from my readings in the popular art training guide "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" (can`t remember the author, sorry) which suggests that the more analytical traits of idealizing which are learned at ages 4 to 9 when associating shapes and objects dominate most peoples lives especially in the area of drawing or sketching. As an example, most adults will draw a house (from their imagination or one that they`re looking at) quickly and without accuracy like they did when they were adolescents, i.e. a square-like shape with a triangle on top.

The author suggests that when people (or children) learn to really draw "what they see" and not what they conseptualize, the drawing will more closely resemble the subject drawn. The first exercise in doing this, the author asks the reader to stop and do a drawing of themselves (looking in the mirror) and to take a complete hour doing so.

The author says that taking the extra time actually bores, yes bores, the left brain or analytical/dominant side of the mind and allows the creative side (which she calls the right brain) free reign. I tend to agree with this model of behavior.

Past the sight reading, note learning, timing and other technical aspects of playing and learning to play our instruments, when we learn to lock into the rhythm and play without thinking, we are all using our creative side with our music, without regard to handedness or headedness.

I don`t think there is a left-handed piano. I play piano and have never seen one. Though you are quite welcome to prove me wrong. Cody, what`s going on, at your front?

This whole forum has been all about lefties?????!!!!!

There`s one.

I had heard of this guy somewhere who was an accomplished classical pianist, but who was left handed that considered having the piano made lefty just for novelty`s sake. I googled him to see if it was true and found his website here: http://www.lefthandedpiano.co.uk/

His name is Christopher Seed and he`s from across the pond in the U.K. He actually said that the keyboard doesn`t change, just the box and pedals. He had it made as a forte style so that it would be light enough to haul to concerts.

Like you alluded to, Joey, they`re pretty much unheard of. I don`t think you`ll see one at your local pick-pusher anytime soon. His MIDI module is a great idea for curious lefties and ambies and it is available for sell from his site.

In a recent (August 2004) scientific study using MRI to observe areas of the brain activated during hand motion, published in the Journal of Neurosurgery by the Center for Integrated Brain Science, the authors concluded that:

“The results provide strong evidence that cortical organization of spontaneously developed right- and left-handedness involves homologous cortex primarily located contralateral to the hand motion, and this organization is likely to be prenatally determined.”

Translation - The authors found convincing scientific evidence to show that left handers are born with one type of brain patterns, and right handed people are born with another. They also found that left handed people who spend time learning how to do some things right handed, thus becoming ambidexterous, show another pattern which develops after such long term practice. The complete abstract of the paper is on a data base called PubMed. Also in this scientifuc data base is a study(using electric right and left handed keyboards) where the researchers concluded that beginning left handed individuals with no prior piano playing experience, do better on a left handed keyboard. Not surprisingly, the right handed individuals do better on a standard right handed keyboard.

some food for thought,

Ryan Thomson

PS. A man called me last week. He had read one of my articles about left handed violin playing. He had wanted to play violin as a child, but the teachers made him attempt to learn righty, and he had had so much trouble with bowing that he had given up. So as an adult, he started off with an inexpensive converted lefty fiddle, found that it was natural to bow with his left hand, and is now having a high quality right handed violin converted to lefty. He’s eagerly looking forward to learning and playing fiddle music in his retirement!

I found this thread very interesting and decided to toss
in my two cents on the matter.

I`m left handed. I played the bass guitar right handed for
seven years, and then switched to left-handed a year ago.

After seven years playing right handed my plucking hand
was still not very good, but in only one year my fingering
hand is nearly as good as when I was playing right-handed...
if that makes any sense. };->
(And of course my plucking hand is much better now that it`s my good one.)
At this rate, I should have fingering as good on my right
hand as it was on my left.

Linking (German pun intended) onto this conversation,
I started the violin a few months ago.
My instrument is right-handed, but I play it with the
bow in my left hand; I can play right-handed a bit,
but this way is much more natural. I`d like a left-handed
chin rest, but the order of the strings doesn`t bother
me much.

On bass and guitar I play right handed instruments upside
down and backwards; same with mandolin and violin.
I`ve heard that Paul McCartney (sometimes) does also;
how true that is I don`t know since it was just by word of mouth,
so don`t quote me on that one. };->

I`d love to try a left-handed violin sometime.

My personal experience on the matter of lefties on
which handed instrument is that on electric cello it
didn`t seem to matter to me much either way, but
that on violin it`s a lot easier to bow with my good hand.

When I`m at school I usually eat from plates with my left
hand, but from bowls with my right; at home I usually
just use my left... it`s really weird.

Cool. I used to major in horn performance at college, so
in that case being left-handed was a really nice advantage;
but my lips always get cold sores, so it`s too frustrating
and I`m switching my major to bass guitar. If my teacher
won`t let me play upside down then I`ll just play right-handed
till I get enough money to buy another bass... a left-handed one.

much love,
Jonny.

Sounds like you have a similar story as myself. I`m looking to purchase a German laminated bass for < $1000 and have it converted for about another thousand dollars. Not cheap, but my luthier is honest and good.

Once you get your bass, take it to as many local luthiers as you can and get to know them. If you don`t have a particular job for them to do, ask them for an appraisal. It`ll give you an idea of the luthier`s knowledge and honesty. Some will be too opinionated to do a conversion job for you, but others won`t. A company in California makes laminated basses called Road Kings. They`ll make them lefty for you if you ask. Bob G can get you a lefty too. He`s at http://www.gollihur.com/kkbass/

Good luck.

I`ve posted here several times before - being a left-handed musician (http://benwillmott.com)

I think I promised a while back to submit a link to my dad`s luthier website for those of you who are in the UK and looking for left-handed string instruments or conversions.

http://luthier.rodwillmott.com

It`s now up! Obviously he has always been good news for right-handed musicians looking for set ups, rehairs, refrets... but as a left-handed musician himself he has a good knowledge of the choices facing someone starting out... and also for any parent bringing up a left-handed musical child! (i.e. once upon a time, me!)

Nice to meet ya`ll!

I`m so happy; I found a left-handed chinrest to buy,
can`t wait till it gets hear. };->

Much love,
-Jonny