>Re: left-handed violinning: >http://www.captainfiddle.com/playvioleftbook.html
GREAT link! -Thanks for sharing. As a teacher, I have often been hard-pressed enough just trying to find a half-decent, affordable lute for my right handers. Lefties? Forget it! -I instantly realized the difficulties of a mere restringing, as so thoroughly well explained by David O. When I worked at a guitar repair/dealer's shop, it was easy enough to set up moderate price level, assembly line guitars for lefties, given the presence of workbenches, specialty tools, and piles of bridge and nut blanks. This still didn't address the internal barring issues which require a true, custom built commissioned instrument. (Barber & Harris have some really gorgeous lefty lutes on their website, by the way.) I have worked out ways to drill/re-drill lute bridge holes at home; while not doing a R-L conversion I have had to make two very close holes on either side of a single treble string hole to accommodate a double first (an old vihuela since sold), but that's about the least of the problems for proper left hand play given the action & neck angle issues. "I'm not certain why we find plucked string luthiers catering more to the whims of left handedness, perhaps because keyboards tend to be such substantial and often multi-user things, and the vintage violin market is much more serious than the vintage lute/guitar/mandolin market amongst "serious" musicians." With all the difficulties involved with building plucked string instruments, it's even worse for bowed. Carved top- already a far more expensive, labor intensive job, never mind the bass bar. Only the sound post is a quick change. And of course the same neck issues but this time on a rounded, (or at least far more rounded) fingerboard. The one thing Ryan J Thompson didn't address adequately is the problem of backwards bowing in a tight ensemble- quartet players can spread out, but the orchestra? You can poke somebody's eye out with that thing! Dan -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
