So I got this new flute (well a new old one that I picked up) and it had excruciatingly sharp metalwork for a left-hander such as me.
So I thought, maybe I could swap hands round, play it right-handed and see how hard it really is. It was a very peculiar experience. I picked a slow tune that I know well - Off to California - and could pick through it at about half-speed pretty much straight off.
Now, physically, this sounds all wrong. Every one of my fingers was doing something completely different from what it normally did in that tune. How is it that you can still make a fair fist of the tune? Is it all filed in your brain in note-intervals, or can you just flip your actions into a mirror-image very easily?
Has anyone else tried to release the inner lefty (or righty) on their instrument? How did you get on?
(I have to admit however that the rolls did come out upside down...)
Re: The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
I never tried it until now. For me there is a special situation, I'm a lefty that always played right-handed instruments.
It didn't work out for me at all. The tune was just too tied to my fingers. It felt wrong and if I got a string of say 6 notes my brain would shift in auto-mode and promptly lift the wrong hand-index finger. And this was on my whistle. The flute was too much of a challenge, my right pinky is accustomed to holding the flute, my left is not. It simply did wobble after one note. But I have to say I'm particularly bad in controlling my hands, I stopped playing the piano because I wasn't able to think of the left and right hand seperated.
Whatever I do, it needs a lot of practise, and once my hands are accustomed to a position they are very reluctant to change that. I have to say though I never felt I missed something playing the flute right-handed.
This left hand business is interesting!
I've seen a few left hand flute players, loads of left hand strummy thing strummers, left handed drummers but I don't think I've ever seen a left handed fiddler.
Have you? Are you? Is it possible?
And what about left handed pipe players.
One assumes left handed box players just play "right handed" or are there left handed boxes out there somewhere, you could always have one made, I suppose...
In extreme moments of boredom, I've often turned a six string devil round, explored the depths of my ambidextrousity and attempted to remind myself how difficult it is to start learning form scratch all over again! John Ottway has a double necked Gibson SG with a right hand neck and a left hand neck pointing the other way!! http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2381/2230495776_7be16019d3.jpg?v=0
Yhallhouse, clearly you've never come across Scott Skinner's 'The Left-Handed Fiddler', so check it out in the tunes section. You should also take a look at Ashley MacIsaac and Aonghas Grant (the latter's known as 'the left-handed fiddler of Lochaber').
As for uilleann pipers, well one of the most influential of all, Patsy Touhey, was a lefty!
The Tejano accordionist Michael Salgado plays left-handed (with a customised model), though the glorious Rockin' Dopsie played a righty's upside-down, but I'm stuck for an Irish equivalent. Our own member ceemonster plays the concertina left-handed.
Re: The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
Are you purely a left hander? I am a bit ambidexterous - but I cannnot play and instrument left handed. I write left handed and use a fork, left handed, but everthing else is right handed (sports, music, scissors).
Even being able to use both hands at times, I cannot make the switch.
Sorry, I really wasn't of any help.
You do know that left handed people are the only people in their right minds.
Re: The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
I am 'extremely' left ~ BUT ~ seeing as it was the same three fingers on each hand, in the same order, top to bottom, I went ahead and put the left hand close to the mouth and the right further away, as a so-called right-handed player would, but I have messed around with it both ways. It is 'equal' with winds, but not with other instruments, like the strings ~ fiddle and guitar for example, the hand do different things. With winds, flute and whistle, simple system, they are really identical, just a matter of asigning notes. Since there are so many old and newly made keyed flutes that are right-handed, it just seems the way to go, but there are plenty who play left-handed, and some with flutes keyed for right-handed players...
Re: The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
Dorita y Pepe ( am I the first person to mention them on this site ? ) told a story of a a performer at a Latin-American music festival who came on stage with one of these little armadillo-skin-backed ukulele/mandolin-type thingies, and played it finger-style, treble and bass, instead of the customary strumming style, all while singing a song. So far very impressive. Then, after the first 32 bars, he flipped it over and played it similarly, but left-handed, for the next 32 bars. Then flipped it back and carried on, flipping every so often for the rest of the song............
Isn't there a difference on flutes, between each side of the mouthpiece ? I ask this in ignorance ?
The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
So I got this new flute (well a new old one that I picked up) and it had excruciatingly sharp metalwork for a left-hander such as me.
So I thought, maybe I could swap hands round, play it right-handed and see how hard it really is. It was a very peculiar experience. I picked a slow tune that I know well - Off to California - and could pick through it at about half-speed pretty much straight off.
Now, physically, this sounds all wrong. Every one of my fingers was doing something completely different from what it normally did in that tune. How is it that you can still make a fair fist of the tune? Is it all filed in your brain in note-intervals, or can you just flip your actions into a mirror-image very easily?
Has anyone else tried to release the inner lefty (or righty) on their instrument? How did you get on?
(I have to admit however that the rolls did come out upside down...)
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by oxcart
Re: The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
~ & playing two instruments with another, four hands, alternating placement, our hands crossed over ~ and lots and lots of laughter in between...
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
I never tried it until now. For me there is a special situation, I'm a lefty that always played right-handed instruments.
It didn't work out for me at all. The tune was just too tied to my fingers. It felt wrong and if I got a string of say 6 notes my brain would shift in auto-mode and promptly lift the wrong hand-index finger. And this was on my whistle. The flute was too much of a challenge, my right pinky is accustomed to holding the flute, my left is not. It simply did wobble after one note. But I have to say I'm particularly bad in controlling my hands, I stopped playing the piano because I wasn't able to think of the left and right hand seperated.
Whatever I do, it needs a lot of practise, and once my hands are accustomed to a position they are very reluctant to change that. I have to say though I never felt I missed something playing the flute right-handed.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by TMB
Re: The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
Presumably with this approach, you would at least come in right on cue.
# Posted on July 9th 2008 by ethical blend
Cackhandedness and instruments...
This left hand business is interesting!
I've seen a few left hand flute players, loads of left hand strummy thing strummers, left handed drummers but I don't think I've ever seen a left handed fiddler.
Have you? Are you? Is it possible?
And what about left handed pipe players.
One assumes left handed box players just play "right handed" or are there left handed boxes out there somewhere, you could always have one made, I suppose...
In extreme moments of boredom, I've often turned a six string devil round, explored the depths of my ambidextrousity and attempted to remind myself how difficult it is to start learning form scratch all over again! John Ottway has a double necked Gibson SG with a right hand neck and a left hand neck pointing the other way!!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2381/2230495776_7be16019d3.jpg?v=0
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by yhaalhouse
Re: The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
This was discussed many moons ago - http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/12572.
Yhallhouse, clearly you've never come across Scott Skinner's 'The Left-Handed Fiddler', so check it out in the tunes section. You should also take a look at Ashley MacIsaac and Aonghas Grant (the latter's known as 'the left-handed fiddler of Lochaber').
As for uilleann pipers, well one of the most influential of all, Patsy Touhey, was a lefty!
The Tejano accordionist Michael Salgado plays left-handed (with a customised model), though the glorious Rockin' Dopsie played a righty's upside-down, but I'm stuck for an Irish equivalent. Our own member ceemonster plays the concertina left-handed.
I hope that's not all too curmudgeonly for you.
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by MacCruiskeen
Re: The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
Are you purely a left hander? I am a bit ambidexterous - but I cannnot play and instrument left handed. I write left handed and use a fork, left handed, but everthing else is right handed (sports, music, scissors).
Even being able to use both hands at times, I cannot make the switch.
Sorry, I really wasn't of any help.
You do know that left handed people are the only people in their right minds.
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by grumblingoldwoman
Re: The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
I am 'extremely' left ~ BUT ~ seeing as it was the same three fingers on each hand, in the same order, top to bottom, I went ahead and put the left hand close to the mouth and the right further away, as a so-called right-handed player would, but I have messed around with it both ways. It is 'equal' with winds, but not with other instruments, like the strings ~ fiddle and guitar for example, the hand do different things. With winds, flute and whistle, simple system, they are really identical, just a matter of asigning notes. Since there are so many old and newly made keyed flutes that are right-handed, it just seems the way to go, but there are plenty who play left-handed, and some with flutes keyed for right-handed players...
# Posted on July 10th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: The Ronnie O'Sullivan approach to flute playing
Dorita y Pepe ( am I the first person to mention them on this site ? ) told a story of a a performer at a Latin-American music festival who came on stage with one of these little armadillo-skin-backed ukulele/mandolin-type thingies, and played it finger-style, treble and bass, instead of the customary strumming style, all while singing a song. So far very impressive. Then, after the first 32 bars, he flipped it over and played it similarly, but left-handed, for the next 32 bars. Then flipped it back and carried on, flipping every so often for the rest of the song............
Isn't there a difference on flutes, between each side of the mouthpiece ? I ask this in ignorance ?
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by Guernsey Pete