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Author Topic: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players  (Read 11613 times)

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squeezy

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #20 on: August 12, 2017, 02:20:20 PM »

I've met several players who play a regular melodeon the other way round over the years - normally they have an adapted box with another air button at the other end, some even play the air button with their little fingers!

Once we had a box commissioned for a guy who wanted a full left-handed melodeon with the notes reversed, stops and air-button on the other side ... so if you ever come accross an old mirror image Oakwood - it's probably the same one!
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jikeym

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #21 on: August 13, 2017, 10:30:04 PM »

I'm left handed but play a conventional melodeon the conventional way....lefty's are generally very ambidextrous : I play pool, lawn tennis and cricket left handed but I play table tennis and darts right handed....
In a previous life I was a piper and had a left handed set of Scottish smallpipes made. All very nice except they are virtually unsellable as about 0.000001% of pipers are left handed!
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Nick Collis Bird

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #22 on: August 14, 2017, 08:30:43 AM »

This is the problem, selling your converted box on.
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Henry Piper

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #23 on: August 14, 2017, 08:28:45 PM »

I'm Right Handed in all other respects, but play melodeons upside down, Ie treble end with the Left Hand, bass end to the right., and I shift my air keys to retain usage with the thumb. I can use the air key with my little finger if necessary, but it is tiring after a while, I tend to do this on Boxes I don't intend to keep permanently. I also play drums, and tend to play my cymbals "Cross handed", and lead most Rolls and other rudiments with the Wrong hand.
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Little Eggy

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #24 on: October 12, 2019, 03:11:36 PM »

At my local club last night one of the players said "I'm left handed and would need to play your box the other way round. Oh, and I'd have to have the scales running the other way because it's not logical to have the higher notes near the top."  I said if you turned my box upside down you'd achieve that - apart from the air button and stops being difficult.

Today I had a quick bash at Speed the Plough played upside down and in about 5 minutes it was recognisable.
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Howard Jones

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #25 on: October 12, 2019, 05:05:08 PM »

All instruments demand a degree of ambidextrousness, in that although their design might be biased towards the dominant hand, which for most of the population is the right, the other hand also has to do quite a lot of fairly precise work.  In normal life we are often lazy about using our non-dominant hand, but part of learning an instrument (and some other skills) is to develop accuracy* in both hands.

I think Chris's "left handed" approach to music is due to the nature of the box rand the way bass chords are laid out, rather than the player's handedness. Once you get beyond a certain basic level of playing you start to think about how to make the basses more interesting, and that inevitably leads you to working out basses first and then fitting the melody around these.  Right handed players do this too.



* I nearly wrote "dexterity" before realising how inappropriate that word is for this topic.

Pete Dunk

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #26 on: October 12, 2019, 06:20:16 PM »

I must have missed this topic when it was first posted. I'm left-handed but play musical instruments as a right handed player would and I've never understood what the problem is. As has already been said, both hands need to work in a skilled and controlled manner and be independent of each other in many cases. I've never heard of, or seen, a left-handed brass instrument (that's not to say there aren't any of course but I think they must be exceedingly rare) and as for a left-handed piano . . .  :o
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playandteach

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #27 on: October 12, 2019, 06:31:18 PM »

Left handed pianos do exist, bizarrely. And I know at least one left handed viola player who has an instrument built the other way round (it is a bigger job than just reshaping the bridge and restringing).
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Matthew B

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #28 on: October 12, 2019, 07:27:32 PM »

Rockin' Doopsie's a lefty, playing upside-down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJw2Cp_wnkk
as is/does Sabine Jaques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUofcKZm6uc
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Peadar

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #29 on: October 12, 2019, 09:11:02 PM »

Hmmm.
I am left hand dominant but like most left handers cope fine with using tools- like scissors and potato peelers right handed. I cannot imagine trying to play the fiddle left handed [though playing right handed the left hand is your keyboard hand]  yet I wasn't allowed to learn fiddle violin at school because I was left handed. Having tried to escape from woodwind I then really drew short straw and had to take the oboe. An instrument I still hate with a passion.

Oddly enough I gave up trying to learn the PA because I found reaching the basses too difficult.....one of the initial attractions of melodeon for me was the limited number of basses. No problem with using my right hand on the melody end though-  butthe relatively poor control of my right hand fingers won't help me to play quickly and precisely any time soon. That said, one of my most recent acquisitions, is a a Vienna model International. It is a 21 treble/6 bass AD with an open key board. the keys are well sprung and have a long stroke. And I am finding I am getting more control of the sound with this than hitherto. Vis a vis a modern Hohner it is like the difference between the action of a manual typewriter and a computer keyboard.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2020, 08:18:58 AM by Peadar »
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Thrupenny Bit

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #30 on: October 12, 2019, 10:00:48 PM »

Essentially, a lot of left handers, like me, are quite proficient with their non dominant hand, the right hand.
It is not exactly known why, but might be because us lefties have to cope in a right hand world so we *have* to cope.
A lot of lefties are pretty useful with their right!
I used to play guitar, use a cricket bat, shoot a rifle all right.... and to the amazement of my wife watching me paint up a ladder, start left, transfer to right and carry on....
Dominant hands are not always fixed
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I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

Chris Ryall

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #31 on: October 13, 2019, 03:29:53 AM »

No, seriously I approach all new tunes ”from the left”, and then fit the right hand in later. Been attacking Nick Drake’s “Fruit Tree” yesterday evening, which is a bit of a bugger. Doing exactly that and feeling more comfortable now. I will  the right hand twiddles and high notes in in the morning.

I am on 3 rows which helps, But in my 2 row 8 bass days I did the same. Recall Steve Harrison musing that my bellows were almost always going opposite direction to his after one French waltz, Session in Bacup.

There IS a melodeonic reason too, Playing right end against a bass “in the rows” you tend to get the same trichord structures present in the LH chords. Sus effects are also there of course. Which is why the instrument is so attractive

Playing that bass other way, commonly on the pull, your right hand stuff is in the chord extensions. That’s to go off topic a bit, but feels very natural to my dominant left hand
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Jesse Smith

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #32 on: October 13, 2019, 03:50:01 AM »

I'm right-handed, although I play billiards left-handed. That's because I learned at a young age from literally mirroring my grandfather across the table. But I've tried it the "proper" way and it just doesn't feel natural to me.

Before I took up the melodeon, my primary instrument was the guitar, and I've always felt that the left hand does most of the tricky stuff there anyway. Probably learning to play any musical instrument increases one's ambidexterity, by necessity really.

Although I am right-handed, I am left eye dominant, which made archery somewhat awkward for me. I think I just closed my left eye while shooting, but I think if I ever take it up again, I would just try to learn to shoot left-handed instead.
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Patrick Spencer

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #33 on: January 20, 2020, 05:01:50 AM »

I've played guitar, mandolin, and banjo left-handed for over 50 years. I just bought my first one-row melodeon and will begin learning it "right-handed". I thought about playing upside down or commissioning lefty one-row, but after struggling to find quality lefty instruments, the choice was easy, learn to play the melodeon the way it was made. It will only be tough going if I allow myself to think otherwise...
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Peadar

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #34 on: January 20, 2020, 08:31:51 AM »

Looking for the positives - playing guitar left hand means finding fret positions with your right....playing melodeon right handed means finding tthe melody buttons wih your right. Sounds like you are on a winner.
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brianread

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #35 on: January 20, 2020, 10:07:13 AM »

As a left handed melodeon player (I am left handed, the box is normal except an extra air button). I think your decision is the right one. I play Concertina and Guitar and Recorder right handedly, but inadvertently played the melodeon upside down. With this year's (2020) special hindsight I should have switched round once I discovered (in 1975) that I was playing upside down.  The main problem for me is the accidentals and also to a certain extent the "rake" between the inner and outer row, and also the need to get another air button installed.
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Brian Read
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all played "lefty" with mostly an extra air button, except the Concertinas which I play the conventional way round.

Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #36 on: January 20, 2020, 11:31:46 AM »

As a left handed melodeon player (I am left handed, the box is normal except an extra air button). I think your decision is the right one. I play Concertina and Guitar and Recorder right handedly, but inadvertently played the melodeon upside down. With this year's (2020) special hindsight I should have switched round once I discovered (in 1975) that I was playing upside down.  The main problem for me is the accidentals and also to a certain extent the "rake" between the inner and outer row, and also the need to get another air button installed.

This must affect the finger ergonomics. Do you use the little finger as your base finger in the same way that playing right-handed leads you to using the index finger as the start point? Given the  relative lack of natural dexterity in an untrained little finger, I wonder if this makes it more difficult to play this way.
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brianread

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #37 on: January 20, 2020, 01:28:48 PM »

This must affect the finger ergonomics. Do you use the little finger as your base finger in the same way that playing right-handed leads you to using the index finger as the start point? Given the  relative lack of natural dexterity in an untrained little finger, I wonder if this makes it more difficult to play this way.

Yes I do use my little finger as a base, for many years I had an extra pull "E" on the G row, but have recently realised I now have enough dexterity to use the little finger to pick up the E from the D row. My latest box (the Oakwood, some of my lilliputs) and the key patterns on the Streb reflect that now (and give me an extra note on the G row).  Incidentally being upside down does mean that on the Bass end I can use my index finger for the G chords, which I think is advantageous as G is possibly slighlty more common than D. I seem to recall coming across at least one (right handed) person who's had the chords switched anyway.
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Brian Read
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and Wolverton Advanced G/D Anglo Concertina and C/G  1937 Wheatstone.
all played "lefty" with mostly an extra air button, except the Concertinas which I play the conventional way round.

Rob2Hook

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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #38 on: January 27, 2020, 08:33:47 PM »

I often play with two left handers.  One (rather well known) you wouldn't know, but he has a very rhythmic style and plays a very complex bass playig in otherwise conventional RH manner.  The other, more of a developing player, uses a regular box inverted.  I'm sure the difficulties of working out an inverted melody doesn't help him at all.

Rob.
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Re: Idle Curiosity - Left-handed players
« Reply #39 on: January 27, 2020, 08:59:40 PM »

" I'm sure the difficulties of working out an inverted melody doesn't help him at all."
If the person has always been left handed, then surely he wouldn't know any different and it would therefore not be a problem?
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