leftybassman392

Sorry to seem a bit tetchy, but haven't I already shown that the 'no such thing as a left handed wotsit' argument isn't correct? Are folk planning to keep coming up with 'no such thing as...' arguments until one of them actually turns out to be correct? Not aimed at anybody in particular, but is it asking too much that people read back in the thread a bit? Hell, you don't even need to read it 'cos I've posted pictures and videos! Oooohh!!! [/rant] Thanks for listening. As you were.

A short extract from the family scrapbook: The legend of the left handed staircase

Image captured from here Not trying to be awkward, but in this area of human endeavour, where there's a will there's usually a way. Saying 'there's no such thing as a lefthanded...' is IME a dangerous exercise.

The first test isn't much good - more of a lefty checklist really. The second is better but its scope is still a bit limited. I guess the counter argument would be to the effect that it isn't perfect, but that it's a very complex subject and you have to start somewhere. Asking questions of the 'if you had your time again...' variety is something you need to be very careful with I would think.

Think of it as a percentage preference for left over right (or vice versa). Stats isn't really a specialist area for me so I'm happy to be corrected, but I read your result as: On the main index you're 50% more likely to prefer your left over your right. On the extended index you're 36.67% more likely.

Another thought that has occurred to me on the subject of playing bass (or any stringed instrument for that matter) is to do with playing style. From some of the comments in the thread it looks like lefties who play righty can have issues maintaining good speed and dexterity with their right hand when picking. Conversely, the left hand technique of such players can be completely out of proportion to what you might expect - case in point would be lefty-who-plays-righty Gary Moore. Anyone who's tried to play his music will tell you that his left hand technique is at times absolutely insane. Just a thought... I just took (I think) the same handedness test as @Planemo. I came out over 90% lefthanded (it was actually 100% but the system defaults to >90%) . Well there's a surprise! Not too sure how scientific it is, but here's the one I did: lefthandedness test There's another one here. This one does look a bit more scientific. Didn't change the result though. 96.67% lefthanded...

I played myself with some success at club level for many years. IME bowling left arm and batting right handed (the way I did it as well) is unusual - most players who bowl left arm also bat left handed (Gary Sobers, Mitch Johnson, Brad Hogg, Sam Curran...). Much more common is to bowl right arm and bat left handed. In batting, the bottom hand is indeed the one that generates the power, but it's also the one that controls the flow of the bat. Hooks, pulls, sweeps and cuts are more bottom hand strokes in which the blade follows right through the arc, whereas the classic drive is a much more controlled shot in which the blade doesn't follow through nearly as much (unless of course the intention is to deliberately loft the ball over the infield). I'm still not so sure about people who bat lefty and bowl righty. In some cases it's done simply to present the bowler with a different challenge - and because they can of course. I remember hearing Mark Butcher talking about it in an interview.

Different sport but similar dynamics; there are many international cricketers who bat one way and bowl the other (the majority of England’s current front line bowling attack being a good case in point). Always have been. The normal pressures to be right handed don’t seem to apply in sport to anywhere near the same extent as they do in most other walks of life. In fact it’s commonly viewed as advantageous in the sense of presenting an unusual challenge to one’s opponent(s) (although the sheer preponderance of lefties in sports such as cricket and tennis kind of undermines that advantage I think). In that regard, hockey seems to be a bit of an exception to the rule.

Indeed Sylvia. The language around this notion is a fascinating subject in its own right, and goes back well beyond the birth of the Catholic Church: very much one of the subtle pressures I mentioned earlier. Once again not wishing to bore anyone unduly, here are a few prime examples: 1. From Latin, sinister=left and dexter=right. ‘Ambidextrous’ translates as ‘on the right both sides’. Even today, ‘right’ has numerous positive connotations while ‘left’ has numerous negative ones. 2. From Old English, ‘cackhanded’ means quite literally ‘using the hand that cleans the cack’. 3. From French, ‘adroit’ translates as ‘on the right’, and ‘gauche’ translates as ‘left’. There are others, but the point is made I think. There’s an excellent Wikipedia article on this and other relevant subjects here.

It’s an interesting idea, and you’d think somebody would have thought of it by now but a quick firkle around t’interweb didn’t bring up much apart from lefty computer keyboards. I do have a nagging suspicion that it may not be quite as simple as that though. Hopefully a keyboarder will turn up soon to explain it all... On a side note (sorry about that ), it can make a difference which way round instruments are designed. This article walks you through some of the potential issues. That said, to quote @BassTractor, it’s complicated. Trying very hard not to appear patronising, I rather suspect it’s one of those issues you have to be at least partially left handed to understand, and even then it isn’t a given. Some will just get on with it the way we lefties often have to (), some will make the extra effort because they want to, but occasionally you’ll find somebody who just can’t adjust and can’t afford to have one specially made like our pianist friend. No reason anybody needs to lose sleep over any of this of course, but just so the information is out there.

Ahem...

There's a few examples around. Jimmy Haslip, Jimi Goodwin, Albert King, Elizabeth Cotten...

Might also be worth mentioning the social conditioning element in handedness (sounds like brainwashing but it's pretty benign). Although nobody bothers about it these days, Lefties of a certain age will no doubt be able to tell stories of attempts to force them to do things (handwriting being a good example, and so is learning to play guitar or bass) right handed - I know I can. I won't bore people with any whinging about how hard we have things (in truth it's not that bad and I'm really not complaining), but subtle pressures to conform are still around.

Well put.

In an earlier discussion on the topic, I recall somebody once saying that all Left-handed players should really be playing Righty. Using the same logic, I felt constrained to point out that all Right-handed players should really be playing Lefty. As our esteemed Silvia has most eloquently pointed out, it doesn't work that way. The idea of the fretting hand doing so much of the work is a pretty recent phenomenon. Historically, the only function of the fretting fingers on any stringed instrument was to be in the right place (sic) at the right time. The more important job of actually producing the notes, with all the subtleties and nuances that entails, was (and for the most part still is) done by the picking hand. While I'm here, (and as I mentioned in a thread on the subject of handedness quite recently) handedness isn't an either/or thing. Better to think in terms of a sliding scale with most people somewhere vaguely right of centre and very few at the extremes. In other words, most people can do something useful with either hand at need. Like Silvia my handedness is quite pronounced, and trying to (for example) play a guitar or bass the other way round feels decidedly uncomfortable. In practical terms it's mostly a bit of a PITA to be honest, but I can console myself with the knowledge that being a Lefty means I'm right-brain dominant. The right hemisphere of the human brain is where all the artistic and creative stuff is. I get to share this advantage with the likes of da Vinci, Rembrandt, Hendrix, Bowie and, er, McCartney. So there is that. 😎 ETA. Nearly forgot; at gigs you never, ever get drunken punters tottering up to the stage asking if they can have a go on your instrument.

I can't remember the details now (it was some years ago), but it all got a bit tribal as I recall. I'll see if I can dig something up but no promises. Update: I can't find anything of the vintage I have in mind, but as recently as November last year a thread on Wilkenfeld got closed within 3 pages. Some were talking about her playing skill as a guide to her achievements; others were talking about her looks...

Hmmm... Pleasant enough (and certainly no worse as a singing voice than many who claim it as their primary skill) - I mean, if it was playing in a cafe I was frequenting I wouldn't feel the need to leave - but not really my cuppa I'm afraid. My fault no doubt. I've always enjoyed her bass playing (even in the midst of the minor civil war that broke out on Talkbass a while back as i recall), but I found this a bit underwhelming. Sorry.

Not so much calluses as hardened skin on all the fingers of my fretting hand. Had that for as long as I can remember. You'll probably find that most seasoned players have much the same. I did occasionally get them on my picking hand after an energetic fingerstyle acoustic guitar gig though...

Just watched an interesting piece on BBC's Click tech programme. Best if you can watch the programme yourself if possible, but here's a bit of background: https://memories.dustyoldthing.com/dna-music-storage/ https://www.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2018/04/entire-music-album-to-be-stored-on-DNA.html https://idmmag.com/tech/tech_news/dna-stored-music-future-music-storage/ The BBC piece is based on the ETH piece in the second link. What do we think?

Somebody will buy one. Mark my words.

👍 To be continued...

Crikey! We could have been neighbours. BML

Welcome. Whereabouts in Solihull are you? We live within a stone's throw of Shirley station.