# Lefties and string instruments **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 18, 2008, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495 "2008-10-18T04:25:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2008, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/21 "2008-10-19T19:59:17Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > As to why the non-dominant hand seems to be doing the more complex work on stringed instruments, here’s my theory: the dominant hand is active; the weak hand is reactive. So with a stringed instrument, the dominant hand is responsible for actually producing the notes while the non-dominant hand shapes and adjusts the notes. I don’t see how this really makes much sense in the context of orchestral string instruments, for instance. However, it doesn’t really matter, because by the time they came to prominence, the die had long since been cast, and everything (including guitars) has followed the established principle that the left hand stops the strings. > [@](#): > > My theory also applies to sports to a degree - baseball in particular. Throwing is active, and is done with the dominant hand. Catching and hitting are reactive, and done with the non-dominant hand (yes, hitting - a right-handed hitter’s power comes primarily from the left arm, and vice-versa for a lefty). Isn’t the power delivered by the non-dominant arm, equally capable of this as the dominant, and the latter has the finer control over the angle of the bat? Catching, meanwhile, is only non-dominant in baseball because of the use of a glove. I don’t see much wrong-handed catching going on in cricket, for instance (except when stretching for a ball). ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/22 "2008-10-20T02:08:17Z")
> [@CC](#): > > Also, notice that the f-holes of the violin, where much sound comes from, face up and toward the audience in most orchestral seating arrangements, i.e. the fiddles sit downstage right. A leftie would be sending the majority of the sound upstage. Not an ideal situation. This might partially explain why the viola section (which usually sits across from the violins) gets no respect. It’s facing the wrong way, and the sound is sent away from the audience. – a former violist ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/23 "2008-10-20T02:45:23Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > This might partially explain why the viola section (which usually sits across from the violins) gets no respect. It’s facing the wrong way, and the sound is sent away from the audience. > > – a former violist Actually, for most music lovers, that’s a major advantage. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/24 "2008-10-20T05:00:13Z")
> [@racer72](#): > > I got the info from the Experience Music Project in Seattle. The 7 Hendrix guitars on display all have the all have the thicker strings on top, not the bottom like all the other guitars on display. I wonder if there is confusion about the descriptions. > [@](#): > > Flip a right handed guitar to lefty, with the strings unchanged. This means that the strings of the right-handed guitar are not restrung. When played in a left-handed position, the strings would be ‘incorrect’ – thickest on bottom, thinnest on top. Albert King played this way. > [@](#): > > Flip a right-handed guitar, but string it left-handed (reversing the high/low string order) This means that the strings are restrung in reverse order, so that when the guitar is played in a left-handed position, the strings would be ‘correct’ – thickest on top, thinnest on bottom. [Here](http://www.atr-lang.com/data/media/1/rock&roll_026_jimi_hendrix.jpg) is a picture of Jimi and a right-handed guitar restrung. There are a number of differences when playing a flipped and restrung guitar. As mentioned, the controls are in a different position, the tension on the neck is distributed differently, and the whammy bar is on top and above the strings – instead of below. At one time, Steve Miller played a left-handed Strat flipped and restrung to mimic Hendix. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/25 "2008-10-20T05:01:46Z")
> [@Gary T](#): > > As a rule, lefties playing a right-handed instrument will never be quite as good as they could have been playing left-handed one. > [@GorillaMan](#): > > This is a very bold assertion, and I’d like to see it backed up somehow, especially as it follows on from an acknowledgement of the roles each hand takes. I have logic to back it up. I like to think it’s compelling, but my mind is open. As a left-handed person, I am reminded every day that virtually all devices are designed for right-handed people. Righties don’t have to think about this, and I daresay are almost unanimously unaware of it, because things just work normally for them. But lefties find that many things do not naturally lend themselves to left-handed operation. It’s when you’d rather use your left hand to do something that you realize it was made for right-handed use. It stands to reason that musical instruments, having been overwhelmingly (perhaps exclusively) designed by right-handed people, follow the same pattern. I’m more familiar with guitars than with bowed instruments. Guitarists, especially beginners, are often advised to play right-handed as it’s an advantage to use their dominant hands for fretting. Well, if it’s such an advantage, why aren’t the shops full of left-handed guitars for the benefit of the huge majority of right-handed people out there? It turns out there’s a reason for the design being the way it is, and as you might guess it favors righties. I have a friend who is a longtime student of classical guitar. From him I have learned that at the highest levels of playing in this style, it is right hand (picking) technique that is the focus. It is there that the greatest players distinguish themselves. My understanding (and here I stand to be corrected) is that the situation is the same with bowed instruments, i.e. at the highest levels it is right-hand (bowing) technique that presents the greatest challenge, and distinguishes the true masters from the rest. What we find is that at the top of the craft, it is the right hand that is responsible for the highest achievement. So while the left hand certainly has its role to play, and perhaps requires the most effort from beginners, it’s the right hand that is ultimately charged with the most difficult task. I follows that lefties playing a right-handed instrument are at an inherent disadvantage. They will never get the opportunity to use their best hand for the most demanding job. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/26 "2008-10-20T08:20:39Z")
> [@CaveMike](#): > > At one time, Steve Miller played a left-handed Strat flipped and restrung to mimic Hendix. And I notice his bassist was a [lefty playing a flipped-over Jazz Bass](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIHP9o6X6D8). ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/27 "2008-10-20T10:41:07Z")
On Saturday night I saw [Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bawDFY8G-o4) at the Studio at Sydney Opera House. As you can see from the clip he plays a right handed guitar upside down left handed. He was born blind and taught himself to play as a child with a right handed guitar and no-one thought he would live long enough to bother teaching him how to play normally. He played with the his bass player and producer Michael Hohnen and another guitarist and a violinist. Hohnen, who does all the talking (Gurrumul really only speaks Yolngu), introduced on short piece by explaining that the band constantly practice in the dressing room trying to work out how Gurrumul plays backward and upside down. They played \*Wipeout \* with their instruments reversed. It was absolutely awful but got a lot of laughs. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/28 "2008-10-20T14:17:40Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > And I notice his bassist was a [lefty playing a flipped-over Jazz Bass](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIHP9o6X6D8). Nice catch! And it looks like it is not restrung – so the E string is on the bottom. I like how Miller’s guitar chord is too short. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/29 "2008-10-20T17:05:16Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > My understanding (and here I stand to be corrected) is that the situation is the same with bowed instruments, i.e. at the highest levels it is right-hand (bowing) technique that presents the greatest challenge, and distinguishes the true masters from the rest. What we find is that at the top of the craft, it is the right hand that is responsible for the highest achievement. I wouldn’t say that it’s really possible to assign the bow or the left hand the label of more challenging. Each requires power, dexterity, speed and accuracy, in such differing ways as to make such a meaningful comparison impossible. I’ve also never heard of a suggestion before that bowing is the separator of the ‘true masters’, and thoroughly disagree with it! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/30 "2008-10-20T17:16:50Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > I wouldn’t say that it’s really possible to assign the bow or the left hand the label of more challenging. Each requires power, dexterity, speed and accuracy, in such differing ways as to make such a meaningful comparison impossible. I’ve also never heard of a suggestion before that bowing is the separator of the ‘true masters’, and thoroughly disagree with it! 🙂 I stand corrected then. Perhaps I was extrapolating too far with what I’d heard about guitar. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/31 "2008-10-20T17:27:46Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > I have logic to back it up. I like to think it’s compelling, but my mind is open. > > As a left-handed person, I am reminded every day that virtually all devices are designed for right-handed people. Righties don’t have to think about this, and I daresay are almost unanimously unaware of it, because things just work normally for them. But lefties find that many things do not naturally lend themselves to left-handed operation. It’s when you’d rather use your left hand to do something that you realize it was made for right-handed use. It stands to reason that musical instruments, having been overwhelmingly (perhaps exclusively) designed by right-handed people, follow the same pattern. > > I’m more familiar with guitars than with bowed instruments. Guitarists, especially beginners, are often advised to play right-handed as it’s an advantage to use their dominant hands for fretting. Well, if it’s such an advantage, why aren’t the shops full of left-handed guitars for the benefit of the huge majority of right-handed people out there? It turns out there’s a reason for the design being the way it is, and as you might guess it favors righties. > > I have a friend who is a longtime student of classical guitar. From him I have learned that at the highest levels of playing in this style, it is right hand (picking) technique that is the focus. It is there that the greatest players distinguish themselves. My understanding (and here I stand to be corrected) is that the situation is the same with bowed instruments, i.e. at the highest levels it is right-hand (bowing) technique that presents the greatest challenge, and distinguishes the true masters from the rest. What we find is that at the top of the craft, it is the right hand that is responsible for the highest achievement. > > So while the left hand certainly has its role to play, and perhaps requires the most effort from beginners, it’s the right hand that is ultimately charged with the most difficult task. I follows that lefties playing a right-handed instrument are at an inherent disadvantage. They will never get the opportunity to use their best hand for the most demanding job. I would almost buy this argument, but I don’t really. Firstly, Classical Guitar is an almost entierly different beast than rock guitar, and most of the lefty guitars are rock guitars. Following that theme, Duane Allman was arguably one of the greatest rock guitar players of all time, and much of his sound came directly from his right hand. (See upthread, Duane was a lefty playing standard guitars). Secondly, I am right handed and my left hand is next to useless for anything other than playing guitar, but when I play guitar I don’t feel like I have a dominant hand. Each hand has a seperate job, both require skill and focus, and both hands perform (more or less) equally. The tasks being learned are so different from regular motion than when you start to play any issue of dominance quickly becomes irrelevant. Both hands are clumsy, and both hands learn. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/32 "2008-10-20T17:33:26Z")
Playing an instrument like a violin is very much a holistic event, and efforts to deconstruct or analyze the parts can provide a degree of understanding, but it tends to be reductionist to the point of absurdity after a while. One makes music. What, technically, goes into that? Lots of things, and we can take apart the process to find many of them. But it leads to questions such as, “Which hand is most important in playing the violin?” which are really pretty meaningless, actually, in the bigger scheme of things. For instance, we tend to think about the fine motor coordination required for the left hand to play lots of notes accurately and fast - with the left hand - but there is an entirely different kind of fine motor coordination required to play rapidly, or lightly, or, say, spicatto (bouncing) with the bow. It’s not just an arm motion back and forth. It requires an extremely sensitive touch - similar to that of a spider on a web detecting an insect. It’s a coordinated effort. Not to start an argument, but it would be easier to make the same point about guitars if you consider classical guitar, where both hands must play in such a way that the fingers are playing on all six strings, in a more or less independent fashion. The confusion may come about here because people are thinking about guitar playing - what I think is often called “shredding” - in which the left hand may be grabbing chords and the right hand may be strumming, or, at best, with some version of a melody guitar, picking out a single melody on one or two strings. This is much different from classical guitar in which sometimes all six strings are being plucked, virtually at the same time, by four fingers while the left hand crawls over the strings. In that case, it’s also silly to ask which hand is more important. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2008, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495/33 "2008-10-20T17:40:14Z")
You know, you folks don’t have to fight my ignorance _ **that** _ hard.😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lefties-and-string-instruments/468495.md?page=1)