left handed whistle players

[Gerry]

I'm right handed, but I play left handed. But only because, the first time I picked one up, that's how I held it. I'd already leaned a few songs before I realized it might have been better, for the purposes of switching to other instruments, playing the other way round.

[Guinness]

If a random sampling of people shows one in ten people are classified as left-handed (ie left handed by "nature" as you say), then we'd expect the "neutral" whistle to show the same general proportion of lefties (around 1 in 10).

Why? More likely the number of LH-on-top to RH-on-top whistle players will be equal, assuming that there are no social pressures to conform to a LH-on-top playing style.

BTW: 4/9 ≈ 50%

Challenge another assumption: Where is it carved in stone that RH-on-top is really "left handed playing"?

Are we any closer to proving that the different whistle handednesses (including BQ's forked fingerings) results in different brain function?

(I also tried googling stats for baseball bat handedness with no luck).

[charlie_butterworth]

Really, it's a nice flight of fancy and feel free to run with it but the only explanation (and I already provided that) is that their teacher is left handed and they are just following her example.

You may be correct, but how sure are you of that? If you know the kids in question personally, then you may know whether they are naturally left or right handed? How many of the players in the photo would be classified as right handed for writing, catching, etc. but play whistle left-handed as Eric who posted earlier? AND I am not saying that there's anything wrong with playing as Eric does - I have never said anything like that.

That is why I wanted to poll the forum to see if forum members would show a similar bias. It is a pity that I messed up the layout of the poll.

Charlie

[Cayden]

If you know the kids in question personally, then you may know whether they are naturally left or right handed?

As I indicated earlier, there's a mix: some of the left handed players are right handed and some of the right handed players are actually left handed, some are 'genuinely' left or right handed and play that way too.

[charlie_butterworth]

Peter,

Sorry, I forgot that you had mentioned that earlier.

Aside from Brid's class, what proportion of natural left handed players might we expect to have in the whistle forum? If I had to guess, I would say around 1 in 10 because that is about the proportion that we see in a random sample of the World's population.

Please would you help me re-design the poll? Maybe:

Q1. Are you naturally left or right handed? ie. for writing, catching, etc.
possible answers would be Right, Left, Ambidextrous.

Q2. If your answer to Q1 was "Right" do you play your whistle right-handed? Possible answers Yes, No, Both?.

Q3 If your answer to Q1 was "Left" do you play your whistle left-handed? Possible answers would be Yes, No, Both.

Q4. If your answer to Q1 was "Ambidextrous" which had do you use for playing? Answers could be Right, Left, Both

Charlie

[BoneQuint]

BoneQuint - amazing, do you sign your name with both hands?

I form the letters with my right hand, and my left follows behind, dotting i's and crossing t's and the like. Very efficient.

[charlie_butterworth]

I form the letters with my right hand, and my left follows behind, dotting i's and crossing t's and the like. Very efficient.

That's Funny. OK, I wonder how long it'll take a store clerk to ask, if I do that when I sign for purchases at stores? Even better though is that I'll have to ask them for two pens when I sign!

Charlie

[Tia]

charlie, I found your going scientfic amusing, it reminded me of me with my sciency friends, doesnt matter waht it is, but we always make it science relater
and its true, if we really wanted to know, figure out all the factors, then poll everyone, and find out how they play and why, could be a rather large project, basing it on everyones comments here

[charlie_butterworth]

Tia,

Science is my day-job, though it is non-musical and involves understanding diversity among species of cactus using DNA data. I'll not go into any more detail - I always joke that it can be a good cure for insomnia for non-cactus or non-science folk!

Anyway, what do you think of the way I've worded the questions?

Charlie

[Key_of_D]

Well speaking for myself, I never had a teacher for whistle, so when I started whistle playing, that was all on my own behalf, I had no influence from another person to play that way. And I could really care less.

Drawbacks are of course, if you intend to play uilleann pipes or possibly flute (I haven't confirmed flute as I don't play) down the road, most pipers play right-handed sets, and if you learned whistle lefty, switching over to righty for the pipes is just a waste of time because it will confused the hell out of your brain, trust me I've been there done that, unless you're just truely ambidextrous/gifted then by all means whatever tickles your fancy. And so, by learning whistle lefty and then going to the pipes lefty, you'll miss out on trying out a lot other sets as most of them will be made like I said, for righty's. You can try their chanter at least, but even that can have limitations as I've discovered.. ie, keys. However this is just a drawback, it doesn't mean you can't of course play lefthanded on the pipes, obviously...

The thing about flute is which I'm not 100% sure since I don't play, is that you may have to get a head that has the embouchure hole cut properly to be blown from the other side, ie, lefthanded side. But I don't know, so I'll leave that up to the fluters.

My take on playing lefty is, it's obviously possible, but if I were to go back and do all over again, (hindsight 20/20) I'd play righty if I had the choice. At the time I got into whistle, I never heard of uilleann pipes, so it clearly didn't matter to me how I learned whistle.

For what it's worth, I know another local piper who is lefthand dominate, but plays pipes right-handed. Go figure eh?

Cheers,

[charlie_butterworth]

Eric,

You're bang-on! This is what I was trying to get at, but I simply made a real pig's ear of it. Other instruments tend to be biased for "righties" while the whistle isn't. All the posted examples of lefties playing righty and righties playing lefty show that. So, if I were to guess the percentage of people who are lefties and who play whistle, I would guess a higher number than in the general population.

I hope that the following example illustrates what I am trying to get at:

The average height of males (over 20 years old) in the US is 5'9.3" (see Wikipedia) - this makes me below average, not by much but I don't care.

Imagine I measured a subset of the US male population and got an average height of 6'7". Then I'd have to say "Hmmmm....interesting, I wonder why there's a difference." I could then speculate on why or go and see what it is about these tall folk that unites them. When I investigate, I find that they all play basketball in the NBA and BY GOSH there's my answer - the game of professional basketball causes a bias in height that deviates from the US average for everyone else.

According to Wikipedia between 7 and 10% of the population are left-handed. The article in Wikipedia goes on to discuss social stigma of left handedness, personally I cannot see why there should be any stigma. However, I do know that both my mother and father have experienced some negative issues as they're both left-handed. The same Wiki also has a good section of left-handed musicians.

What percentage of whistle players who read this forum would ordinarily be classified as left-handed when not playing the whistle? If we found that the proportion differed from that found regularly throughout the population, then as in the case with NBA players' heights, there may be a reason. Guinness suggested this when he used the term "social bias."

We can speculate on why the proportions may be different. I would guess that because the whistle can be played equally well by lefties / righties and folk who are ambidextrous without having to modify anything on the whistle or buy a left-handed whistle, the whistling community may actually be a haven for left-handed people who have given up trying to play instruments that are right-handed. That is my guess and before I can even begin to say that my guess may be false, I have to get data on the proportion of lefties who play whistle.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter a bean what I find out by doing a poll as we play whistle because we enjoy it and a whole bunch of numbers aren't going to change that one bit (at least not for me) - but I am a nerd at heart.

As for BoneQuint, imagine what consternation you'd cause by playing a jig in your own special way, epsecially at a session where more than a few pints of beer have been consumed. I can imagine more than a few intoxicated attendees looking at you cross-eyed!

This brings me back to the left-handed whistle. They cost more to purchase and include a little sticker in plain view that says "left-handed compatible" For those who may not remember there used to be mousepads which clearly had "Windows compatible" on them. Funny though, I use mine on my Mac, which is very Windows incompatible.

Charlie

[Cayden]

You're bang-on! This is what I was trying to get at, but I simply made a real pig's ear of it. Other instruments tend to be biased for "righties" while the whistle isn't.

Actually, and sorry for doing this again, I had sort of hinted at the fact that all of the left handed players in the original picture have seamlessly moved on to left handed flutes and pipes. It's just a matter of indicating when you buy an instrument you want a left handed one, no bother or prejudice at all.

I mean you seem desperately trying to prove a point by looking at evidence, rather than looking at what's there and drawing a conclusion.
Below, from the same concert four of my own student, do we draw the conclusion there a majority of Uilleann pipers are female and half of them left handed?

[charlie_butterworth]

You're bang-on! This is what I was trying to get at, but I simply made a real pig's ear of it. Other instruments tend to be biased for "righties" while the whistle isn't.

Actually, and sorry for doing this again, I had sort of hinted at the fact that all of the left handed players in the original picture have seamlessly moved on to left handed flutes and pipes. It's just a matter of indicating when you buy an instrument you want a left handed one, no bother or prejudice at all.

Peter, you maybe right, but I do know that some instruments are not as easy to transition to. Not necessarily because of difficulty, but because of price. My wife majored in music performance at univ. She plays bassoon. She also has small hands, but luckily she managed to get hold of a specially keyed instrument at a good price. However, she said that she was very lucky because a regular bassoon, according to her is something like $20K for a basic pro-grade instrument. To have it re-keyed for small hands would have added substantially to this cost. To have a custom built left-handed bassoon may be even more. This may be the bias for some instruments!

Peter, I am agreeing with you regarding the whistle players in the photo and I am not trying to pick an argument with you, please don't view it that way.

[Cayden]

(I was amending my former post when you replied)

I was responding to your 'you're bang on. Eric'. Which he obviously isn't.

[charlie_butterworth]

Peter,

I mean you seem desperately trying to prove a point by looking at evidence, rather than looking at what's there and drawing a conclusion. Below, from the same concert four of my own student, do we draw the conclusion there a majority of Uilleann pipers are female and half of them left handed?

Yes! We could draw that conclusion from the evidence of the photo. Does that make it correct? Not necessarily.

Science involves the following steps: 1. observation (maybe your photo); 2. hypothesis (from your photo: more left handers, female players); 3. Testing - what do we find in the larger whistler community; 4. Conclusion. Then maybe new hypothesis.

Does this make sense? While I agree with your knowledge of the players in the photo (how else can I question this, I don't know them), I cannot say whether we'd see similar proportions of lefty (or female) whistlers in this forum. However, given the large number of male whistle players, I think we can easily dismiss the female side of the observation (maybe in the photo they players are from a girl only school?). But left or right handed?

Charlie