# Professions where dominant hand makes a difference
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 6, 2022, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764 "2022-06-06T17:46:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2022, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/41 "2022-06-06T23:28:36Z")
Now I think of it, I actually know a left handed F-16 pilot! I’ll see what they say and report back…
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### Author:  [@Galgrip8r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galgrip8r)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2022, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/42 "2022-06-06T23:47:16Z")
I’m a musician (percussionist). My array of instruments can be played by both right- and left-handed players, and the skill sets for the hands usually aren’t vastly different. Most “lefties” will learn early on to adapt to instruments designed for a right-handed world. Because of this, they could have a theoretical advantage since they’ll always be working on their right-hand “lead”, because of tradition/right-handed “idiomatic writing”/instrument layout, while having a naturally strong left. Right-handed players may more easily fall into the comfort/trap of just accepting that their left is slightly weaker. I’ve never seen the subject come up in hiring though. When you’re at the level where you’re considered for pro gigs, you’ve likely worked out any audible inconsistencies and you’re judged solely on your playing. My educated guess is that right/left handed players are represented quite equally in my line of work as in the rest of the population.
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [June 6, 2022, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/43 "2022-06-06T23:48:52Z")
> [@Lancia](#):
>
> A WAG, but professional race car driver? I imagine it’s easier using your dominant hand to shift a manual transmission.
Don’t think so. Racecars don’t have the standard 4-on-the-floor that ordinary street cars have. I’ve never been in one, but all the video I’ve seen has the shift as a small lever somewhere more convenient, such as on the steering wheel.
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### Author:  [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/44 "2022-06-07T00:07:01Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> Unfortunately, I can’t recall the cite for the left-handed F-16. It may have been Reddit, and we all know how reliable that website is.
>
> But if Lockheed did make every 13th Viper a lefty, it would make statistical sense.
This sounds like one of those shaggy dog jokes, but it’s true - I’ve spoken with my friend, the left-handed F-16 pilot and they had this to say:
- No problem with the sidestick, despite being left handed
- Almost a moot point because the throttle actually has many controls on it (this is a concept called HOTAS - “hands on throttle and stick”, which means the pilot shouldn’t have to take their hands away from the controls very often)
- No, they never made left-handed F-16s. My friend was polite about it, but I detected an amused facial expression over the phone on that one. 🙂
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/45 "2022-06-07T00:11:32Z")
> [@dtilque](#):
>
> Racecars don’t have the standard 4-on-the-floor that ordinary street cars have. I’ve never been in one, but all the video I’ve seen has the shift as a small lever somewhere more convenient, such as on the steering wheel.
My understanding is that NASCAR cars still have a floor-mounted stick shift, though the newest generation of their cars apparently have a sequential transmission, meaning that the stick shift only has an “up” and “down.”
> **[Does the Next Gen NASCAR Car Still Have a Gear Stick?](https://www.motorbiscuit.com/does-the-next-gen-nascar-car-still-have-a-gear-stick/)**
>
> NASCAR tossed a lot of traditions with its old car. Learn more...
Modern Indy cars and Formula 1 cars have shift paddles on the steering wheel; I can’t speak to other levels or types of racing.
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### Author:  [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/46 "2022-06-07T00:14:01Z")
What do you know, they do make [left-handed pianos](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeMnQakNk6ckNDsoQ6DZkyg/videos)! Or they made one, at least - this custom-built acoustic must have cost the earth. (I’d like to see the pianist doing really virtuosic work written for the right hand, but played in his left. But hell, I wish I could still play well myself in either hand.) Seems the great Joe Zawinul sometimes played a left-handed electronic keyboard with Weather Report as well, but I couldn’t find a video showing that. /hijack
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/47 "2022-06-07T01:00:07Z")
Ah snap.
That makes sense though. There would be great potential for things to go wrong on the assembly line if Lockheed were to make lefty F-16s. All it takes is for one worker to accidentally put the wrong component (ie, a righty component in a lefty jet or vice versa) and the whole production line is ground to a halt while people try to fix the problem.
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/48 "2022-06-07T01:09:25Z")
> [@Briny\_Deep](#):
>
> I’d like to see the pianist doing really virtuosic work written for the right hand, but played in his left.
Even the Beethoven he’s playing there is damn impressive. I’m just disappointed that he didn’t print the sheet music so he’s reading it right-to-left.
But why, though? This seems like… a lot of work. He’s apparently is left handed, but obviously learned to play a regular piano first. I don’t see how he could all that left-hand dominant if he was a successful concert pianist before he got his mirror piano.
ETA: I guess I was wrong.
> Being left-handed and with the piano reversed, Chris can now play more of the melodic and elaborate parts with his dominant hand, which he feels not only gives him a physical advantage but also a more instinctive way of playing.
> We had a couple of long conversations with Chris over dinners and it is clear that he started playing “back to front” because he felt he was not achieving his full potential playing in the traditional direction. He was an accomplished pianist and public performer playing right-handed but he was sure he could do even better if he started to read music and play in the way his brain was naturally working. (his music still runs from left to right as normal but he reverses the base and treble lines).
[http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/christopher-seed.html](http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/christopher-seed.html)
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/49 "2022-06-07T01:16:31Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu is a prime example of this. [Most of the piece consists of the right hand doing incredibly tiring, arm-aching stuff while the left hand just chills.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L6jkNPDqTg)
And then there’s the Revolutionary Etude, which is almost the opposite:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1uLrHq9TDg)
But, yes, right hand typically gets the flash. But when you work through stuff like Bach, it’s all pretty equal. I’m a right-hander, and the first few years of my piano pedagogy, my left hand was actually more dextrous and controlled than my right hand. No idea why, as I am very much right hand dominant. Now, it’s clearly right hand-focused because of how piano literature tends to work, and how the notes are laid out on the piano, and where the important notes are.
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/50 "2022-06-07T01:29:39Z")
Being fourth generation left-handed, it’s been my experience the only people who complain on handiness are right-handers.
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/51 "2022-06-07T02:15:20Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#):
>
> Mechanic? I’m guessing that the orientation of use of nuts and bolts favors a right handed spanner wielder? Of course, that implies that either tightening or loosening presents a bigger challenge.
I asked my boyfriend who is ambidextrous and uses tools in his left hand and he said it’s no problem (he was a diesel mechanic). The guy who trained him is left handed too, which he said was nice because he could mimic the trainer instead of mirroring him.
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/52 "2022-06-07T02:16:04Z")
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> But when you work through stuff like Bach, it’s all pretty equal.
Then there’s this, where I’m fairly sure Yuja uses all 3 of her hands.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoMEaX75FkY)
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/53 "2022-06-07T02:40:01Z")
> [@Lancia](#):
>
> A WAG, but professional race car driver? I imagine it’s easier using your dominant hand to shift a manual transmission.
Bear in mind that in some parts of the world we drive on the left and the driver sits on the right. So we use our left hand to change gears. It’s not an issue.
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### Author:  [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/54 "2022-06-07T02:48:48Z")
> [@Author\_Balk](#):
>
> I’m thinking that shopping lanes are made for right-handed cashiers? The belt is to the right of where the cashier is standing. The cashier reaches with the right hand to pick up the items and scan them
The store I work in has 16 checkstands - eight of them are as you describe, but the other eight are facing the opposite way, with the feeder belt to the cashier’s left, and those eight are the ones that get the most use since they’re closer to the doors. As a lefty, I definitely find it a lot easier to work on those ones than on the other ones - working the right-handed ones for a long time wears me out and I can’t check as fast. Whether the same is true of righties using the left-handed checkstands, I can’t say.
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/55 "2022-06-07T03:07:28Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> I wonder why Airbus put the control stick on the left side in the left seat of their jets, as opposed to on the center panel (which would be the right hand of the pilot sitting in the left seat.)
The Airbus is just like any other multi crew aircraft. In a B737 the FO flies right hand on the column and left hand on the thrust levers and the captain flies left hand on column and right hand on thrust levers. No different with an Airbus. I’ve flown left seat and right seat in multi crew planes, including Airbus, and any handed difference between the two is so completely swamped by other differences that it’s trivial if not nonexistent.
I’ve also flown aerobatics in aircraft requiring different hands on throttle vs stick/column. Again the other differences make handedness trivial.
> [@Riemann](#):
>
> The control force is small, so flying with non-dominant hand is okay
I think if anything small movements requiring finesse are more influenced by handedness than larger whole hand/arm movements so a FBW side stick would be more likely to be affected. But I’ve not noticed any difference with any type.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/56 "2022-06-07T03:09:16Z")
> [@Briny\_Deep](#):
>
> The piano is completely egalitarian in terms of favoring the left or the right hand. The problem lies in the literature; most of it assumes somewhat more dexterity (heh) in the right hand. Still, pianists are expected to develop both hands equally; there are monster passages for the left hand everywhere in standard piano literature, and several concert pianists have been lefties, notably Glenn Gould.
I am starting to understand this. The left hand and right hand tend to do different things in piano music, is that correct? Since I have no idea how to play a piano this is not clear to me right off the bat. I would have not expected this to matter based on handedness but I can see that it might affect how the music is composed based on mostly right handed pianists.
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/57 "2022-06-07T03:25:06Z")
This isn’t well known, but software engineering too. Besides getting their lvalues and rvalues mixed up, lefty computer programmers have been known to use left-handed bytes. And it’s real bitch to debug the errors caused by those.
So what’s a left-handed byte? Obviously one made up of left-handed bits, duh. And lefty bits? Well, you know how right-handed bits have values of 0 and 1? Left-handed bits have values of 0 and -1. Totally backwards.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/58 "2022-06-07T04:00:32Z")
Bit buckets are handed also. It’s not surprising to see the right hand bit bucket overflowing while the left hand bucket is almost empty. Left handed bits and bytes were mostly used in parity checking, something rarely done in software anymore. Now they’re mainly used to implement Undo functionality.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/59 "2022-06-07T05:33:23Z")
> [@Princhester](#):
>
> Not really. Because the action is around, the spanner can be at any angle. Whatever your handedness it can be accommodated by simply by fitting the tool within the 360 degrees.
>
> Of course there is commonly not room to do so but this could equally affect either handedness.
Right, which is why I find it really helpful to be able to switch hands depending on the location of the screw / nut / bolt. It’s usually the location which determines which hand I use.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2022, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/professions-where-dominant-hand-makes-a-difference/965764/60 "2022-06-07T05:38:03Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#):
>
> I wonder if left-handed typists were actually benefited by the odd placement of keys - with some of the most-used letters at the left side.
The modern computer keyboard is designed for right-handers. The enter key and the number pad are both on the right side.
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