Left Handed Piano

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 30 Aug 2011 12:08 pm

Finally, left handed people can play the piano: www.lefthandedpiano.com/midi.html

William Lake · Post by **William Lake** » 30 Aug 2011 1:40 pm

Seems like a good idea. If you come across a left-handed harmonica, let me know.

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 30 Aug 2011 2:49 pm

William Lake wrote: If you come across a left-handed harmonica, let me know.

You could stand on your head when you play the right handed harmonica.

William Lake · Post by **William Lake** » 30 Aug 2011 4:02 pm

I tried that, but I had to suck when I should have blown. Very confusing.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 30 Aug 2011 4:24 pm

One does not suck when playing harmonica. One draws. Unless of course, one cannot play very well. Then one sucks.

Ben Lawson · Post by **Ben Lawson** » 30 Aug 2011 6:25 pm

b0b I think you too much time on your hands. Sometimes anyway.

Clete Ritta · Post by **Clete Ritta** » 31 Aug 2011 2:09 am

Joe Zawinul of Weather Report did this many years ago on an ARP 2600 by reversing key voltage to pitch.

Clete

Michael Douchette · Post by **Michael Douchette** » 31 Aug 2011 5:53 am

William Lake wrote:Seems like a good idea. If you come across a left-handed harmonica, let me know.

Like the old joke, "flip 'er over."

(That's how Terry McMillan played it; upside down.)

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 31 Aug 2011 9:10 am

Really? People actually play piano left handed? That seems like a real stretch considering the hand function is the same. I understand the dexterity issue, but that's quite unlike guitar or steel where the action is different for each hand.

As the saying goes though, each to his own.

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 31 Aug 2011 4:05 pm

Left-handed people score higher on IQ tests, and tend to have better language skills. 1 out of 7 lefties represent language on both sides of the brain, as opposed to the 1 out of 20 right-handers who do so. They're way over-represented among composers and musicians, and there are many lefties who played a standard piano, among them James P. Johnson, Errol Garner, Glenn Gould and McCoy Tyner.
Lefty guitarists playing right are well represented: Duane Allman, Ritchie Blackmore, Mike Bloomfield, Glen Campbell, Rik Emmett, Robert Fripp, Noel Gallagher, Danny Gatton, B.B. King, Gary Moore, Steve Morse, Joe Perry, Mark Knopfler... in fact in listening to Morse, Fripp, Campbell and Gatton, you'd think more righties should've tried the opposite way.

However, the strictness of the left brain/right brain division has been largely discredited in the past decade - it turned out to be extremely useful for selling pop psychology books, but a lot of the so-called facts were a result of information derived from specific brain-injured patients, and "expert" authors can (and did) pick and choose among anecdotal evidence to "prove" just about anything. More recent information from live MRI scans show that brain activity is both more varied between individuals, and more bilateral, than the whole cutesie "left brain/right brain" model indicated.

EDIT: I read through some of the cited info, and came across these quotes:

CHRISTOPHER SEED is an international concert pianist – with a difference. He can play the piano both normally and in mirror-image.

Mr Seed,who is left-handed, proved that it could work by programming his electronic keyboard. "I realised how easy it is to adapt. I thought it would take years to retrain, but within a day I was reading Mozart backwards. It improved my playing and seemed so natural."

(italics mine)

That says a lot more about Mr. Seed's brain than it does about mine - or your'n, likely.