Question(s) for other lefties who play righty...

[bjewell]

Read an intriguing book years ago about lefties who do things right handed. Unlike pure lefties who are very rare, folks like us had brain damage during the first trimester in the womb. The brain rewired itself to accommodate this, moving certain functions to the other side. Isn’t that dandy? -L- It all worked out I guess because the last three presidents were lefties, if that is worth anything which it probably isn’t…

My question: how is your tremolo? I have a slow right hand, have since I was a kid on the guitar and always covered for it by playing clean and with feeling. I studied guys like Steve Cropper and others who played with taste, i.e., slow. Well that doesn’t cut it with the mandolin.

I just cannot grasp the swivel-in-the-forearm I see whenever a fast guitar or mandolin player is burning, which leads me to another question: I can pick Black Mountain Rag or Texas Gales at @ 270BPM on the guitar. I have never gotten faster than that despite practicing for years. Maybe I practice wrong or maybe we all have a defined speed to our electrical systems. What do you think? :- )

If you have any suggestion such as it’s all in my head, I am all ears, as opposed to all thumbs, which is what I am when I try to tremolo.

Thanks!

Tq

[lloving]

I too am a lefty playing righty. Or wrongly depending on your point of view. I share your right hand speed issue on both guitar and mandolin. I accommodate my lack of speed on guitar by playing finger style or using a hybrid flat pick finger pick combination. Sadly this is not an option for mandolin. I therefore resigned myself to playing, as you said, slow with feeling.

Interestingly enough shortly after I came to accept my right hand speed limitations my speed began to improve. I'm no speed deamond but I am improving. I guess the message is as stated here by others "play slow to get fast"

[Gerard Dick]

You hit the nail on the finger. I'm a lefty. I can remember as a kid playing air guitar lefty and being told it doesn't go that way. I got a guitar given to me in exchange for some mechanical work and yep it was right handed. I didn't know there was any other kind. Strumming was simple enough and having an agile left hand was a real advantage. A friend introduced me to mandolin and I loved the symmetry of tuning in 5ths. Fiddle tunes are a hoot because I play the agile left hand card. Tremolo on the other hand is a trial because of my klutzy right hand. I guess i could switch over but I loathe the thought of having to start again from the beginning.

[bjewell]

Great to know I'm not alone... -L-

[Barry Wilson]

I jammed with a left guitar player. he could play a left handed guitar or a right handed guitar and both right side up or upside down. it amazes me every time I see him play

[Bob DeVellis]

Unlike pure lefties who are very rare, folks like us had brain damage during the first trimester in the womb. The brain rewired itself to accommodate this, moving certain functions to the other side.

Tq

Do you have a citation for this? It doesn't fit at all with my understanding of hand dominance or neuroplasticity. I'd be happy to revise my understanding of these issues if there's credible research on the subject.

[Verne Andru]

Only reason I play right-handed is because there weren't any left-handed instruments around when I was a kid. That, and being the only lefty in a family of 6 kids meant I couldn't be picky about hand-me-downs. Basically if it required expensive gear, I had to adapt. Have not noticed any issues with playing that aren't faced by other players, regardless of hand-orientation.

[bjewell]

Bob, my doctor brother sent me the book 30 years ago. We are both lefties. The book was scientific and not for general reading. I gave it away years ago. Sorry I cannot add more to it than that.

different article but similar findings:

http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Fullt...ns_and.22.aspx

[michaelcj]

Same issues over the last 50 years of playing... I've gotten past most of them on the guitar other than being able to match John Doyle in 6/8 time. Something about 6/8 just turns my right hand into something from the exorcist...and not in a good way.

Fairly new to the mandolin but I can see trem as a challenge.

When I am really feeling sorry for my self I watch Russ Barrenburg play a bit on either guitar or mando and then notice which hand he uses to write..... and end up with...well, if you would practice a bit more,stupid, and do it regularly..maybe you'd get somewhere. But then there's that whole "Talent" thingy to deal with.

Ever onward........

Mike J

[mandocrucian]

I accommodate my lack of speed on guitar by playing finger style or using a hybrid flat pick finger pick combination. Sadly this is not an option for mandolin.

OH, REALLY? Somebody should inform Ry Cooder and Richard Thompson of this "factoid".

[Bob DeVellis]

Bob, my doctor brother sent me the book 30 years ago. We are both lefties. The book was scientific and not for general reading. I gave it away years ago. Sorry I cannot add more to it than that.

different article but similar findings:

http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Fullt...ns_and.22.aspx

Interesting finding. My conclusion, based on this report, is that ultrasound can increase the rate of left-handedness. But that's a long way from the conclusion that left handedness is preponderantly the result of some brain insult. Although some functions have a primary locus in one or the other hemisphere, many more complicated behaviors are pretty widely distributed, with sensory, motor, cognitive, and affective brain regions all orchestrating their activities to produce the complex behavior and our reactions to it. Those regions are scattered in various parts of the brain and are connected by a fairly complex network. The notion of strong hemispheric localization for more rational versus more emotional/artistic neural activity was popular in the 1970s (there was a book called Left Brain - Right Brain that is an example that comes to mind) but seems to have been largely overstated. More recent research using advanced brain imaging techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paints a more complex picture and reveals more integrated brain activity. There is still some degree of localization of brain functions, to be sure, but the "map" of what happens where, turns out not to be quite as tidy as was believed in the past.

Also, if a brain region were damaged, neuroplasticity would involve other available regions being recruited to take up the slack. But regions from the opposite hemisphere seem like somewhat unlikely and topographically inefficient candidates.

I realize you were just making an observation and I'm not trying to jump down your throat or anything. The article you provided was something I hadn't seen and it does support the idea that there is some relationship between exposure to ultrasound and handedness. I'm just not sure what the mechanism is or whether a more detailed examination of the data would yield a different interpretation.

Thank you for sharing that article. I learned something new from it and I appreciate your tracking it down.

[bjewell]

OH, REALLY? Somebody should inform Ry Cooder and Richard Thompson of this "factoid".

Easy man. I believe he is talking about himself...

[Verne Andru]

Yeah, I believe science has pretty much concluded they can remove large sections of the brain-material and the functions will re-map to other areas, debunking the whole "right-brain/left-brain" thing to a large extent. It went away along with the idea that the larger the brain, the smarter the individual.

That said, the book "The Wonder of Boys" argues In Utero the brain of a male gets wired quite a bit differently than that of a female.

[bjewell]

Yer right Verne, haven't found a woman yet who likes cold pizza for breakfast... ;- )

[Verne Andru]

When it comes to playing a stringed instrument, I've often pondered the "dominant" hand thing. I find fretting to be the more complex activity, which would mean it should make sense that we use our dominant hand for that, instead of picking and strumming. I play a lot of finger-style on guitar, which requires an equal amount of dexterity in both hands, rendering the "dominant" argument moot, IMHO.

As noted above, I've found it's not which hand you use but how and how much you practice. Our brains are extremely powerful instruments - the most powerful we have - and if we think we have to do things a certain way, that's how it comes out.

On my previous post, the author [a doctor], states that the difference comes at the point during the development phase when the clump of nerves connecting the brain together forms its connections. In women, the connections are made symmetrically between the hemispheres. In men, a majority of the nerves reverses itself and hot-wires one side of the brain over the other. He argues this is why men tend to be very good at doing singular tasks, whereas women can do multiple things simultaneously with equal dexterity. I'm paraphrasing here, but that's the gist.