And, going a bit further afield, one can get traditional Chinese xiao flutes, now "handed" after the relatively recent addition of a hole for the pinky of the lower hand, made with the lowest hole on either side. The rough equality of what's required of each hand on a wind instrument makes it difficult to decide which "handedness" would be indicated by which side. The dealers simply refer to preferred hand position.
Back to strings, though, I have a friend who is "right handed" in all except his guitar playing. He is self-taught, and when he began, it made more sense to him to use his right hand on the fretboard, as it seemed more dexterity was required there than the relatively simpler task of plucking the strings. He used a restrung standard guitar for years, then finally acquired a left-built instrument. He reports the difference to be "night and day." Also, apparently there's somewhat of a tradition of lefty players among folk guitarists (who tend to allow greater latitude in interpretive matters), among them Elizabeth "Freight Train" Cotton. I saw an interesting article on them somewhere. It claimed that you could hear the difference in style once you knew. Fascinating thread. Best to all, Chris. PS: Sinde there's some identity politics going on here: I'm a confirmend righty, but I'm the son and father of lefties. I guess I'm in the unlucky skipped generation. >>> howard posner <[email protected]> 1/9/2009 6:50 PM >>> On Jan 9, 2009, at 3:17 PM, Leonard Williams wrote: > Or a left-handed wind instrument? Yes. The left-hand-closest-to-body position on woodwinds was not always standard. With a lot of simple woodwinds the design of the instrument allows it to be played with the hands in either position. The left-hand-closest-to-body position on woodwinds was not always standard. The addition of keys changed things, because you have to put the keys somewhere, and that somewhere is likely to be accessible from only one side. Some baroque one-keyed oboes have a doubled C# key that can be reached from either side, so it works with either hand in the lower position. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
