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Comment by pclmulqdq | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure why people have started to make reversed musical instruments. I saw a video with a reversed piano, calling it "left-handed." I am a left-handed person who plays the piano and I had always thought the keyboard was laid out like an ascending scale on paper rather than having something to do with handedness - low notes on the left and high notes on the right.

The motions involved in playing music are so weird that I don't think it matters that much. Even if it does, there might be techniques that you find easier to master with one handedness or the other.

I will also add that I have been complemented on the facility of my left hand when playing, but when I hear the people who say that play scales, it's very clear that they don't practice technique with both hands equally.

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Piano music is mostly written by right-handers for right-handers. I'm strongly left-hand dominant. For music that's intended to be easy to play, the primary voice is almost always on the right hand. Where the music wants the most dexterity, I have the least.

At the developed level where the composer doesn't give a damn about how easy it is for the musician to play, yes, both left and right-handers have to figure out how to realize the piece and would make use of their strengths to do so.

For instruments like guitar I think the case for reversing the handedness of the instrument is a bit stronger, since the hands serve very different roles there.

I don't think that's the actual reason, even for teaching music. The primary voice is in the right hand because the right hand is higher and so the waves it generates have higher energy at the same volume, making it the easiest voice to hear. I assume that in arrangements and pop music, the arranger naturally puts the melody on top and fills in as much harmony as they care to (which is usually not a lot unless you pay for the arrangement).

This in no way disagrees with the GP comment and in most ways reinforces it.

> Piano music is mostly written by right-handers for right-handers

Even if that does not directly say that people (right-handers, specifically) insert their handedness bias into the things they write, it does certainly imply that that is important for people who write piano music to put the athletic part (the melody) in the more dextrous hand. It is not. The reason for the right hand to carry the melody is the sound projection of high notes, nothing to do with handedness.

Incidentally, many famous composers in the piano canon were lefties. Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Ravel all have strong evidence of being left-handed. CPE Bach may have also been a lefty, as may have Mozart and Beethoven. This is not "right-handed people making right-handed music" by any means.

You ever played Bach?

I taught guitar for three years to groups of undergrads. I noticed that most lefties had no problem playing a right-handed guitar. However, occasionally I would have a student that just struggled mightily and things clicked when they switched to a left-handed guitar.

I went to a Don Ross workshop once and there was a left handed player there doing the upside down RH guitar thing, which was especially impressive due to the style of music and having to play the bass notes with their pinky.

I don't think it matters too much on a piano but on a guitar it does a lot because your hands do very different things.

I'm left handed and play the piano.

I think if I had a learned on a reversed piano - it would not transfer to a regular piano - I would be able to play better.

What which hand is responsible for (melody, accompaniment/rhythm) have very different dexterity requirements. Learning melody on the dominate hand would be preferable to me, in hindsight.

With an electronic keyboard, reversing the tones should be easy enough to do. However, I have not noticed that feature.

Wouldn't you want the more dextrous hand to be the one choosing which notes to play? My sister plays string instruments, and she has commented many times that I am lucky for being left handed because lefties have a better time with complex fingering.

I suppose that it's easier to start out right handed on guitar, though, when the right hand is more active than the left hand.

I'm a lefty and I played right handed guitar growing up. I never got very good at strumming and picking. Five years ago I switched to left-handed guitars and I think I'm much better than I ever was as a righty. Picking the strings well, to me, is the most difficult part of playing a guitar.

I've never really liked that reasoning. If that's the case, then right-handed people should be playing "left-handed" guitars, with their right hands doing the fretting.

Personally, fretting with my left hand just doesn't feel natural. When I first got interested in playing, I asked a salesman at a Guitar Center about left-handed instruments. He handed me a standard guitar, and showed me the fingering for a G chord. It was uncomfortable, but that's obviously expected for the first time I'd ever held a guitar. However, when I flipped it around and fretted with my right hand, it felt much more natural. So ever since, I've played left-handed.

I play a right handed ukulele left handed (neck in my right hand, strumming with the left hand, but strung normally). Since the body is symmetrical, and I learnt like that from the start, I've not really had an issue. Plus, it means I can pick up and play any old ukulele without having to re-string it first. However this doesn't work for something like an electric guitar which you cant really play "upside down"

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