Starting left-handed kids on the mando

[g-mac]

Hi all,

Up to now, my kids (6 and 3) have usually just come up to me while I'm practicing and asked to "play", which means madly strumming with the pick while Dad holds the mando and frantically tries to protect all the wood surfaces. (I'm sure some of you have been there.)

Lately, though, the older one has been asking if he can have a mando. I'm at the point where I'd like to get him an instrument to plunk around on, but the fact that he's left-handed presents a dilemma. . .

Do I get him a left-handed model right off the bat, figuring that this will be the most natural/comfortable for him to play? Or, do I get a right-handed model, figuring that a lot of people who are left-handed learn to play right-handed stringed instruments just fine? If it works out (and if he continues to play and be interested), then he won't have to miss out on 95% of the instruments out there because of their r-h orientation.

What do you folks think?

[Bob A]

Neither hand knows what it's doing when learning starts. So why handicap someone from the very beginning? Being cut off from 99.99% of the world's supply of mandolins would be a shame.

[farmerjones]

How does your son hold your mandolin?

ima lefty playing right, but im not going to to stump one way or the other. There's varying degrees of "handedness." Supposedly the younger, the less, ingrained. Anytime you can get a mandolin into a kids hands, it's a good thing.

[Keith Wallen]

Hey g-mac, I am a lefty that plays right handed. I didn't give it much thought when I started out other than I would like to have tried a lefty. For me I always felt like both hands have to do a lot of work either way you flip it. I remember starting out that nothing really felt natural until you get muscle memory going.

You might try searching threads for left handed playing. There has been a lot of good discussions on it over the years here. If I remeber correctly there are a lot of left handed people playing right handed.

It's a tuff call but you can always start out playing right handed and if it just doesn't feel right after learning a few things he could switch.

[violmando]

As a former strings/orchestra teacher, I found that the lefties I taught violin to usually were better at fingering....in traditional orchestral playing, there's no such thing as left handed violin, viiola or cello; I would at least TRY really hard to get him to play right handed. Dottie, the concert mistress of the Dayton Mandolin Orchestra said that she did not get an option when she started mandolin lessons as a younster, even though she is strongly left handed, and she is one HELL of a mandolinist as a righty on a gorgeous vintage Lyon & Healy....I bet it you tell his folks the prices on decent left handed models, they'll agree...Yvonne

[theCOOP]

I too am lefty, learning/playing right handed, by choice.

I swing a bat right handed, a golf club right handed, hocky stick right handed...I felt picking up a mandolin that I wanted that left-handed control for the fingering rather than the plucking, and I believe I'm right, er, correct.

About the only thing I do left handed is throw, eat and write.

Honestly, if you ask me, I'd swear right handed are actually played left handed. I couldn't imagine fingering with my right hand.

When I swing a bat/club/stick for example, as a left handed person, it only makes sense to me to look to my left.

*shrug*

Coop

[PJ Doland]

If he was interested in learning the guitar, I would say buy him a left-handed instrument.

With mandolin, I would say he should learn on a right-handed model, in case he decides he ever wants to try to pickup the fiddle.

[g-mac]

Thanks for your responses, all! This is pretty much the way I've been leaning. . . Get him a righty mando and only think about switching to a lefty instrument if he's really having trouble picking with the RH.

[B. T. Walker]

My daughter is a lefty, and when she showed interest in learning the mandolin, I asked her what she wanted to do. Lefty was her choice, so I had my old mando converted.

Now, after a couple of years of plinking, nothing serious, she has decided she wants it back the way it was so she can better learn violin. The all-around instrument repairman I deal with seriously tried to discourage me saying there was some scientific evidence supporting playing an instrument designed for your dominant hand.

So...sometimes I think, "Well," and sometimes I just don't know. I did change it back against professional advice.

[DerTiefster]

Left-handed vs. right-handed....hmmmm. Which hand does what? From the fretboard fingering side, have you ever heard of a discussion about left- and right-handed typists? Can you think of any human adventure similar to plectrum operation to compare against the "right-hand" issues of pick handling? I can't just now, but I suspect that there are a couple. (Maybe jacks -- picking up the little metal stars and bouncing a ball? As I recall, not being particularly great at it so many years ago, I was equally bad with either hand.)

I'd conclude from the typist issue that no special left- vs. right-hand orientation is necessarily important. But I will eventually be wrong, and this might be the day.

[Dfyngravity]

Im a lefty and play right. Isn't Thile left handed, or am I mistaken??

[Mandolin Mick]

I've known leftys who play right handed. I've also been told that a lefty can play better the right handed way. However, I've heard leftys who play left handed say that they tried to play right handed and couldn't.

Probably a matter of personal preference.

[mandroid]

no left handed pianos or saxophones ..

[Ron Hale]

Hand it to him and show him how to play it. I'll bet that if you tell him that he can't play yours because he's left-handed, he'll probably prove you right.

Ronnie

[JonZ]

If he is small enough, I would hold him upside down while he plays right-handed.

[rgray]

My right-handed son started baseball batting right-handed. Gradually he began switch-hitting but by age 9 he was strictly a left-handed batter. As a left-hander, I write and eat left-handed, but I throw and bat right-handed. I throw a softball with my right, but a bowling ball with my left. I began playing mando right-handed because it just seemed natural that way. Many left-handed players today probably learned to play right-handed to fit in, because they couldn't find a left-handed instrument, or were forced to by their parents because it was more normal. My take is that many times it comes down to personal preference. Give your kids a cheap mando to hold and play with for awhile, see which way they gravitate towards, and take it from there.

[Patrick Gunning]

Chris Thile is left handed.

Wonder how that whole right handed mando thing worked out for him...

[Jim Rowland]

Let's not forget about that picking hand,which,at some levels,is more important than the fretting hand. There is amazing flash and movement in CTs fretting,but a great deal of the magic comes from the picking. If a lefty plays lefty,his dominant hand gets the important picking chore,and vice versa.
Jim

[mandocrucian]

If it was so much more advantageous for lefties to play right-handed, then why are all these right-handers still disadvantaging themselves by continuing to play righty, and not fretting the neck with their dominant hand? Well? There must be a reason that all these right-handers prefer whacking the strings with their right-hands. (Perhaps as result of adolescent "one-handed reading"?.........)

I agree completely with Bob Gray's post:

"Give your kids a cheap mando to hold and play with for awhile, see which way they gravitate towards, and take it from there."

Niles H
(RH-ed player who plays RH-ed, but also plays, albeit at a much lower level, left-handed as well)

Isn't Thile left handed, or am I mistaken??

I'd counter with this: There was a left-handed guitar player who played left-handed extremely well. Revolutionary, in fact.....Remember Jimi Hendrix?

[Wolfboy]

My experience teaching fretted instruments suggests that there are degrees of left-handedness, as farmerjones said - some lefties learn to play right-handed quite comfortably (including Thile, as mentioned, as well as Tim O'Brien, Ben Eldridge of the Seldom Scene, my sometimes playing partners Ken Kolodner, Chris Norman and Laura Risk, and probably loads of others). After all, when you're first starting out, both hands are used anyway and for many it doesn't make that much difference. Steve Cunningham, the former owner of Baltimore Bluegrass, is another lefty who plays righty and he's of the opinion that it's easier that way since the dominant hand is doing the fretting.

On the other hand (as it were), other lefties simply can't do it that way, or at least find it far more comfortable and intuitive to play left-handed. So my recommendation to lefty beginners has always been: if you're starting from zero, at least try it right-handed, just because it'll make your life a lot easier if you can do it that way - no special instruments, you can play other people's instruments, etc. Then, if your instinct is telling you you'd be better off playing lefty, go ahead and do it - but at least you'll know.

BTW, I know of at least two righties who play lefty, which would seem to indicate that it goes both ways and in many cases truly doesn't matter that much one way or the other. Aron Olwell plays Irish flute right-handed but fiddle left-handed because he's missing the first joint of his left index finger, and Jez Lowe plays guitar and bouzouki left-handed because he taught himself to play in a very isolated part of rural England and only had a wall poster of Paul McCartney to go by!

[Keith Wallen]

I too am lefty, learning/playing right handed, by choice.

I swing a bat right handed, a golf club right handed, hocky stick right handed...I felt picking up a mandolin that I wanted that left-handed control for the fingering rather than the plucking, and I believe I'm right, er, correct.

About the only thing I do left handed is throw, eat and write.

Honestly, if you ask me, I'd swear right handed are actually played left handed. I couldn't imagine fingering with my right hand.

When I swing a bat/club/stick for example, as a left handed person, it only makes sense to me to look to my left.

*shrug*

Coop

That is a trip Coop I am exactly the same way. When swinging a bat I felt like they always had it backwards because my left arm is doing all the lining up and swing through anyway.

[TEE]

Another thing that is interesting is eye dominance. Left or Right.

Look at your mandolin bridge with both eyes then close the left eye. You should be able to see the bridge and the fretboard if you are right dominant.

Then look with your right eye and you will only see the bridge and not much else if you are very right dominant as I am.

Of course you don't play with one eye closed but you are naturally inclined to favor the side you are dominant on.

A fair percentage of people are cross dominant from their hand dominance.

[Matt Prouty]

I am a lefty who plays lefty. Do everything you can possibly do to get him to play right handed. I only recommend someone play left handed if they start late in life or if they just can't make right handed work.

I tried desperately to play right handed and I finished practice everyday with a splitting headache. I switched to lefty and had no problems.

While the sports mentions are interesting I think they have a lot more to do with eye dominance, which can be trained at an early ages as well. I trained mine to be right eye dominant so I could compete shooting. It worked, but I was very young.

m.

[Lefty Luthier]

For those who are left-handed and can't decide which type of mandolin to buy; may I suggest an A-style which can be easily converted by replacing the bridge saddle and nut should one decide to go with the other hand. I regularly build this type of instrument for the undecided and have revised several to the other hand.

[Mandoviol]

I'm left-handed and I play righty...this probably comes from learning violin, but frankly I think that it makes sense for left handers to chord with the left hand and pick with the right; heck, flatpicking makes perfect sense to me in this regard. With the natural dexterity of my left hand, it's easier for me to shift notes. Your son may find this to his advantage.