Driving me nuts - music but no mando content

[Ellen T]

I made a somewhat lighthearted suggestion to our injured friend that he try to play harmonica while his arm is out of commission. I've been trying to think of other one-handed possibilities, just for the heck of it, and I am stumped. Half a piano could work, I suppose. Psaltery? I admit I do not have a wide range of experience with different instruments, so that limits my imagination.

Is anyone willing to put me out of my misery? It's starting to keep me awake.

[CelticDude]

There is an instrument called a tabor pipe, similar to a penny whistle, but with 3 holes. It's made for simple Morris tunes, and you can also hold a small drum from your playing hand and thump out a rhythm. With an octave range, diatonic, it's not an incredibly versatile instrument, but it fits your criterion of one-handed playing (sans drum, which as I think of it, is what's alled a tabor; the wind instrument is the pipe.)

[David Lewis]

Rachmaninov composed one armed pieces for the piano

[bobby bill]

Rachmaninov composed one armed pieces for the piano

As did Scriabin and, probably, many others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI25JGfiHxI

[JeffD]

A friend of mine has lost the use of one hand, and now plays an electric stand up base "chapman stick" type instrument. He is so good on that thing he made a comment at a jam recently wondering what all his other hand had contributed.

[Ellen T]

All very interesting! I had forgotten about Tabor pipes, or at least the idea of using it separately from the drum.

And of course, a banjo can be improved by using it as a percussion instrument, but not for very long...

[Steve Ostrander]

Kazoo

[foldedpath]

I hesitate to suggest adding to the ranks of Bodhran players (although that's more an issue of quality than quantity), but that's an instrument that could be played one-handed with a strap and braced against the legs when sitting down.

You'd lose the ability to damp with the other hand, but some padding in the back would suffice for a beginner learning tipper technique. Might be a fun way to learn the various Irish traditional dance rhythms and get 'em into your head, if you're not already familiar with the genre. Good bodhrans can be somewhat costly, but you could get by on a Guinness Harp-painted tourist model for learning, or just fooling around while waiting for an injury to heal. Get a collection of Chieftains albums and start banging along!

Other options... kazoo? Maybe a slide whistle if it can be held in the lips with one hand working the slide. I think you need two hands to get the most out of a theremin, but you could at least play the pitched melody antenna. Maybe use a foot for volume, if you're dexterous enough?

The thread started me thinking about what I'd do myself, if I temporarily lost the use of one arm or hand. I don't think harmonica would appeal... I used to play Blues guitar, but that's feeling like ancient history for me now. I'd probably pick up a cheap, compact keyboard synth to fool around on. Casio and Yamaha both have "portable arranger" keyboards selling for just $100 that include tons of sounds, built-in lessons and tunes to play along with.

[Beanzy]

We had this conundrum in my mandolin trio last weekend as one of the players had broken her right arm the weekend before. She did the mandoloncello line on her electronic harpsichord which worked really well and meant we could still get loads out of the practice.

[catmandu2]

Among instruments that can be evocative - played simply and sparsely - is wire harp: a simple melody - largely unadorned harmonically, contrapuntally, etc - can sound quite lovely all in a single hand. A piece such as this, for example, can easily be arranged for and executed with a single hand - as many tunes as such. Most if not all of the ornaments and effects in a given trad/style (in this case, gaelic/celtic, etc) are in fact executed in a single hand; and in addition to its very old history and repertory - lots to fuel inspiration and enjoyment...



A very compact wee harp can sound nearly as beautiful and pure - I naturally play mine without looking at my hands/fingers - and as the traditions were that many harpers generations past were non-sighted/visually impaired .. it's a very intimate instrument ..

[David Lewis]

And of course singing. Everyone can learn to sing.

[k0k0peli]

Jessee "Lone Cat" Fuller, author of SAN FRANCISCO BAY BLUES and others, was a one-man band, playing a 12-string guitar, harmonica and kazoo on a neck rack, and foot-pedal cymbal cymbal and 'fotdella', which was an upright harp of piano bass strings played with pedals. Replace the guitar with a psaltery and your friend would be good to go.

[Ellen T]

Thanks for the interesting replies. I hadn't really thought much about having to use just one hand until the thread about an arm injury appeared. I had wondered about small harps but don't have any experience or exposure to them; now I am intrigued. There is something very personal about the way it is held. Oh dear, temptation is flicking its hot tongue into my ear. Music porn is addicting.

[catmandu2]

I had wondered about small harps..

Here's an interesting video - Mr kettlewell is demonstrating the musical potential of an array of inexpensiv import instruments (commonly available online, etc)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iLq9U7HO1U - skip to 10:00" for a most salient example wrt your op

Note that compromises exist relative to the general accessibility, "quality" and size of instrument (no surprise of course). The video demonstrates: 1) how music can be achieved by simple means, and 2) the humble character of Mr kettlewell .. Long ago, simple music on harps and lyres was prolific .. some ancient traditions held that a harp should not have more than 22 strings, for example.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mdowL7dVds

Fyi, a wire harp is rather different from a nylon/gut-strung harp - ms josephine's clarsach in the above video for example is a luthier's masterwork, etc

[Bertram Henze]

You really only need one hand per guitar...

https://youtu.be/Rz3JhKXJDTM?t=92

[Bertram Henze]

Now that's just really like me. Everybody play harps here, so we're in heaven, but I bring an electric guitar...

[Polecat]

Hammered dulcimer, vibraphone, didgeridoo spring to mind.
There was, famously, the one-handed concert pianist Paul Wittgenstein, for whom many twentieth century composers wrote pieces.
It also appears to be possible to play the fiddle one-handed

[StuartE]

After suffering a stroke, the great saxophonist Roland Kirk taught himself to play his various, modified, sax instruments one-handed.

There seems to be a woodwind designed for one-armed players.

There is a One-hand Musical Instrument Trust in the UK.

Jazz trumpeter Wingy Manone had lost his left arm and used a prothesis. Normally, trumpet players need to use their left hand to manipulate the first and third slides so as to play in tune.

[Polecat]

A piece of useless jazz lore: the jazz violinist Joe Venuti used to regularly send Wingy Manone one cuff-link as a birthday present.

[allenhopkins]

My friend Julia has only her right hand, but plays guitar (restrung for right-hand fretting), using a knitted "sock" that fits around her left elbow joint, with a pick attached. Nothin' fancy, just strums chords.

I knew another woman who had a prosthetic attachment for her damaged left arm, with a steel bar attached, and played "Dobro-style" guitar.

Of course, neither of these would work if one were totally unable to use one arm. Even the Jew's harp/jaw harp/whatever needs some way to hold it in the mouth. However, there's always the kazoo...

[Randi Gormley]

I know a guy with a birth defect in one arm who plays a lovely fiddle. He has a contraption to fit over what would have been his right hand/arm to hold the bow.

Science fiction writer Lloyd Biggle used the one-handed musician premise for one of his books called, IIRC, "A Still Small Voice of Trumpets." The ruler of the place would order someone's arm cut off at the shoulder when they displeased him. Because nobody wanted to deal with the hundreds of people who lost their arms, the victims were shunted over to villages where everybody had only one hand/arm. The story had to do with a brilliant musician (I think he was a string player) who displeased the ruler and lost his arm and his livelihood. He invented (with a little help from the hero of the story, an intergalactic agent of some kind), a trumpet-like instrument that only took one hand to play. When an entire orchestra of one-armed trumpet players marched on the capital city, it was enough to start a revolution.

[Ellen T]

Randi, I think I need to find that book, it sounds intriguing.