LH or normal practice/1.5 set?

[Flutulator]

Off to Uilleann Obsession then. . .



(I think this emoji has it correct, if not right.)

[elbowmusic]

Dude, there is no question that you should play lefty on uilleann pipes.

I'll nibble - care to elaborate?

As mentioned, you already play GHB, whistle, and flute right hand on top.

[rorybbellows]

Dude, there is no question that you should play lefty on uilleann pipes.

It also means that you will use the right hemisphere of your brain which is the side that performs tasks that have to do with creativity and the arts, so you will be a better piper.

RORY

[pudinka]

It also means that you will use the right hemisphere of your brain which is the side that performs tasks that have to do with creativity and the arts, so you will be a better piper.

Would that be flipped as well?

[Torrin Riáin]

I don't think any particular handedness has any real effect on playing. I'm a right-handed person who plays pipes left-handed only because my very young (at the time) mind thought that the top hand would be doing the most work, therefore my dominant hand should have been on top. Years later now, I don't think it matters whatsoever. I feel that had I learned with my left hand on the top, I'd still play exactly the same as I do with my right hand on the top. I'm also not really a huge fan of calling myself a "left handed" player. Nothing about what I'm doing feels as if I'm doing anything truly left-handed.

Only time it ever annoys me a bit is when a friend asks "Hey you wanna try my set?" and I have to pull the old "I would love to, but I don't want to put you through the mental anguish of watching me attempt to 'Willie Clancy' it." so an extension of that would be the already mentioned lack of easy access to instruments for us lefty players.

[Peter Duggan]

(I realize I'm really going off on a tangent here, but one Scottish piper I'll mention in this regard was the late Duncan Johnstone, who was right-handed but played with his right hand on top. He was of the opinion that everybody was doing it wrong and that a piper should always play with his dominant hand as the top hand on the chanter for optimized stability and clarity of gracenotes. Needless to say, his view didn't carry the day back then.)

The role of the dominant hand and whether it matters is an interesting debate on any instrument. For instance strings, where it's conventionally the rhythm hand whether bowing, plucking or strumming. I play 'left-handed' guitar and bass naturally enough as a nine-fingered right-hander to think 'right-handed' playing unnatural, but simultaneously admit to being poorer with a plectrum (and struggle to imagine bowing a fiddle with my left) than finger picking. But this could have as much to do with being less practiced at these things than natural aptitude. Since I also play all winds left on top and find the thought of 'left-handed' wind playing as unnatural as 'right-handed' strings, I suspect that (despite personally having the logical reason of different numbers of fingers on each hand) these things are mostly conditioning for most people.

Only time it ever annoys me a bit is when a friend asks "Hey you wanna try my set?" and I have to pull the old "I would love to, but I don't want to put you through the mental anguish of watching me attempt to 'Willie Clancy' it." so an extension of that would be the already mentioned lack of easy access to instruments for us lefty players.

Yep, I get this as someone limited to left-handed strings and customised right-handed flutes, so would generally steer an uncommitted starter in the direction of standard 'right-handed' playing. But you, me and (apparently, despite raising the question) the OP are all long-since committed to our ways, so just have to deal with it.

[Flutulator]

(I realize I'm really going off on a tangent here, but one Scottish piper I'll mention in this regard was the late Duncan Johnstone, who was right-handed but played with his right hand on top. He was of the opinion that everybody was doing it wrong and that a piper should always play with his dominant hand as the top hand on the chanter for optimized stability and clarity of gracenotes. Needless to say, his view didn't carry the day back then.)

The role of the dominant hand and whether it matters is an interesting debate on any instrument. For instance strings, where it's conventionally the rhythm hand whether bowing, plucking or strumming. I play 'left-handed' guitar and bass naturally enough as a nine-fingered right-hander to think 'right-handed' playing unnatural, but simultaneously admit to being poorer with a plectrum (and struggle to imagine bowing a fiddle with my left) than finger picking. But this could have as much to do with being less practiced at these things than natural aptitude. Since I also play all winds left on top and find the thought of 'left-handed' wind playing as unnatural as 'right-handed' strings, I suspect that (despite personally having the logical reason of different numbers of fingers on each hand) these things are mostly conditioning for most people.

Only time it ever annoys me a bit is when a friend asks "Hey you wanna try my set?" and I have to pull the old "I would love to, but I don't want to put you through the mental anguish of watching me attempt to 'Willie Clancy' it." so an extension of that would be the already mentioned lack of easy access to instruments for us lefty players.

Yep, I get this as someone limited to left-handed strings and customised right-handed flutes, so would generally steer an uncommitted starter in the direction of standard 'right-handed' playing. But you, me and (apparently, despite raising the question) the OP are all long-since committed to our ways, so just have to deal with it.

It would sure as heck make it easier to convert to "normal" playing from a logistics standpoint. But the testimony from other sinisterists holds that there really is enough crossover between various instruments that switching now would set me back a bit.

But I and my wallet are open to persuasion in the other direction too.

[Flutulator]

Necroposting. . .

So I have sourced a practice set, lefty, and this is more of an academic question than anything, but anyhooo. . .

Does being truly righthanded (wristed?) have much up an impact when it comes to playing regs?

[An Draighean]

Does being truly righthanded (wristed?) have much up an impact when it comes to playing regs?

My only observation is, playing regs is plenty hard enough with my dominant hand/wrist; can't imagine trying to play them with my "off" hand.

[Torrin Riáin]

I moved from practice set to 3/4ths set as a lefty . When I made that move from practice set to 3/4ths set, it felt only natural that I would play regulators with my left wrist, because that's the only way that makes "sense" at that point. Any thoughts like "Hmmm I really wish I could play chords with my right hand instead...." or "I feel like I'd play the regulators better if I played right-handed.." never entered my mind.

I don't believe that having a more dominant right hand and playing right handed would really make anything all that much different for a beginner, really. You're still learning something extremely weird from a physical standpoint from complete scratch more or less. I believe that any potential advantages that playing right handed would have would only really apply to regulators, and even then, after years of playing lefty it will not matter at all.