Left handed players

[Hornspieler]

I think the main reason why the horn is considered difficult is that when you play it you are playing further up the harmonic series than on other brass instruments.
The main consequence of this is that the notes get effectively "closer" together so pitching becomes rather tricky in the upper register.... though there are those (Pip, Dennis, Arkady etc) who make the whole high note thing sound effortless.
Whether it's really true or not, it was always a good excuse for doing the classic splurge at the end of the New World Symphony

A very good extension of my message #31, MrGG.

Regarding that New World symphony splurge, let me tell you a little Sunday morning story:

I start with a bit of advice from one of my early mentors, the late Francis Bradley* (son of the revered Borsdoff of the famously known
"God's Own Quartet from the early days of the LSO.)

He said "Nobody can play every note that's written and survive as long as I have, but you've got to know what you can afford to leave out."

Sound advice indeed!

The opportunity to prove that statement came on a freezing January in the Rudolf Steiner Hall in Baker Street.
The New World symphony went fine during the afternoon rehearsal, but when I stepped out into a freezing blast of air coming down from the North, my lower lip split open and I knew at once that I was in trouble. I couldn't ask one of the other horns to attempt that solo at short notice - thatwould have a disaster.
So I said nothing and when the horrendously exposed solo came up, I played it all - except that I left out the highest note.

After the concert, two members of the audience came up to me.
One of them said "I loved the delicate way that you played that last solo"

The other added "Yes. Do you know, you played that high note so quietly that I could barely hear it."

Well, if I'd attempted to play it, he certainly would have heard it and his remarks would have been a lot less complimentary.

HS *(retired in early forties)

* Francis was still playing Principal Horn in the Covent Garden Orchestra when he was in his early seventies.

[Nick Armstrong]

I've never thought that conducting looked easy, except when I was about 6 years old!

Your post has shattered my belief that when I am in the middle of my living room, standing on the pouffe waving a knitting around to the CD of HvK's BPO Bruckner 8, I am doing a convincing and possibly musical job!!!

There are so many comments one could make!

I'll stick with: the mental image of your "air baton" sessions has cheered up this Sunday morning !!

[MrGongGong]

A very good extension of my message #31, MrGG.

Regarding that New World symphony splurge, let me tell you a little Sunday morning story:

I start with a bit of advice from one of my early mentors, the late Francis Bradley* (son of the revered Borsdoff of the famously known
"God's Own Quartet from the early days of the LSO.)

He said "Nobody can play every note that's written and survive as long as I have, but you've got to know what you can afford to leave out."

Sound advice indeed!

The opportunity to prove that statement came on a freezing January in the Rudolf Steiner Hall in Baker Street.
The New World symphony went fine during the afternoon rehearsal, but when I stepped out into a freezing blast of air coming down from the North, my lower lip split open and I knew at once that I was in trouble. I couldn't ask one of the other horns to attempt that solo at short notice - thatwould have a disaster.
So I said nothing and when the horrendously exposed solo came up, I played it all - except that I left out the highest note.

After the concert, two members of the audience came up to me.
One of them said "I loved the delicate way that you played that last solo"

The other added "Yes. Do you know, you played that high note so quietly that I could barely hear it."

Well, if I'd attempted to play it, he certainly would have heard it and his remarks would have been a lot less complimentary.

HS *(retired in early forties)

* Francis was still playing Principal Horn in the Covent Garden Orchestra when he was in his early seventies.

(I think there's probably a book to be written about that bar)

One might think that it was written in that way to make it harder for the player?
It's the tremolo cellos just before that make your heart beat faster (and I think Roger Montgomery was sitting next to me and Mike O was in the audience though I don't remember either of them being harsh)

The other way would be to whip out a flugel from under your seat

[MrGongGong]

I've never thought that conducting looked easy, except when I was about 6 years old!

Standing in front of a top notch orchestra and doing a little dance while they get on with playing beautifully is very easy indeed.
Really conducting them is something else
Conducting a youth orchestra is a perilous journey and should only be undertaken as a last resort

[Anastasius]

I remember having a go at the conducting exhibit a few years back at the Science Museum's (rather excellent, I thought) presentation of The Planets etc. The overwhelming physical sensation I came away with was that it was incredibly tiring holding that right arm up and waving it around pretending I was E-P S ! Yet many make it look so effortless.

[MrGongGong]

I remember having a go at the conducting exhibit a few years back at the Science Museum's (rather excellent, I thought) presentation of The Planets etc. The overwhelming physical sensation I came away with was that it was incredibly tiring holding that right arm up and waving it around pretending I was E-P S ! Yet many make it look so effortless.

(Point of information)
It was a project created by the Philharmonia (and the follow up to their Rite of Spring as sound installation).

[Beef Oven!]

Standing in front of a top notch orchestra and doing a little dance while they get on with playing beautifully is very easy indeed.
Really conducting them is something else
Conducting a youth orchestra is a perilous journey and should only be undertaken as a last resort

Surely conducting a youth orchestra is very much an in the moment experience, rather than a journey?

[P. G. Tipps]

I know the purists might well mock, but I like an energetic conductor on the podium like Rattle, who conveys an aura of understanding, enthusiasm, excitement and even passion for the music before him. Which hand any baton is on is quite irrelevant to me, but then I'm a non-musician so why should it?

Whilst I would draw the line at standing on a pouffe waving my knitting around like Beefy I did watch a Kent Nagano/Deutches Symphonie Orchester video of Bruckner 8 recently and it struck me just how much some of the conductor's facial expressions looked very familiar. Though in my own living room with a decent supply of comfy chairs I stood throughout the whole performance utterly transfixed only occasionally retreating to the kitchen for a whisky re-fill.

Nagano had quite obviously been studying the styles of both Abbado and Rattle very closely during his time in Europe. I found it fascinating, and it did remind me that a professional conductor can be as much showman as musician.

More importantly, the actual performance and accompanying German video and audio recording/production was quite superb as well.

Sorry, I digress slightly ...

[Gordon]

the second violin [by the look of it] of the Allegri in 1962 is a LH and the players are well spaced out!

How do LH string players arrange the strings? The picture in #14 shows [I think] that the lowest notes of the cello are nearest the bowing hand, opposite to what a RH player would do?

See here http://www.allegriquartet.org.uk/ALLEGRI%20HISTORY.pdf

for details of Allegri whose original personnel didn't change until 1963: quote from that text:

"James Barton brought a certain individuality to the appearance of the group as he was an example of that rare phenomenon, the left-‐handed violinist. The left-‐handed violinist is an extremely rare sighting – especially in symphony orchestras where in the old days at
least, he (or she) was considered uncomfortably conspicuous. Because the instrument itself requires radical modification – new bass bar and peg box, and the sound post shifted – tonal problems can also arise. And how do you sit? Old photographs [edit: see above] show early Allegri experiments. The eventual pattern adopted had Patrick Ireland seated on Eli Goren’s left and James Barton seated on William Pleeth’s right. With the instrument thus facing slightly more forward than normal, keener ears would notice a marginally improved projection of the second violin line as a result." Pleeth was Jaqueline du Pre's teacher.

[Beef Oven!]

the second violin [by the look of it] of the Allegri in 1962 is a LH and the players are well spaced out!

I'm against drugs, but ok with left handlers.

[Richard Barrett]

the baton in one's hand is as important to a conductor as a writer and his pen/pencil

Except of course to those conductors who don't use one (Boulez, Stokowski, Mitropoulos, most choir conductors)!

[ardcarp]

Left-handed string players in an orchestra poke people's eyes out.

There was a very long-standing member of the CBSO years ago, a left-handed violist. She had some sort of deformity in her left hand which didn't hinder her use of the bow (obviously).

Some eccentric had a left handed grand piano made, but as far as I know it's the only one in existence.

http://www.lefthandedpiano.com/

One must have to re-define what 'up' and 'down' mean when reading music. I don't actually believe being left handed should be any barrier to learning a keyboard instrument. After all, each hand has to be equally dextrous (!) in the long run.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

As for conducting, an earlier poster stated that it was ridiculous for anyone to hold the baton in the left hand, well having conducted a great deal, I would like to say that the poster does not know what he is talking about. Try telling Runnicles to use the stick in his right hand! Paavo Berglund, one of the greatest Sibelians of all, also conducted with the left hand, I never had any problems following him, neither did any of my colleagues. As for me conducting, I never once had a complaint from any orchestral musician to say the he/she could not follow because I was using the baton in a different hand.

I too can see nothing wrong with conducting with the left, provided that the left-right direction of the beat is not reversed. That can be disconcerting, encouraging players to avoid looking at the conductor (which I know it a can of worms in itself (winkeye).

I do know a professional French horn player, born without a left hand, who has a reversed instrument.

[Beef Oven!]

I too can see nothing wrong with conducting with the left, provided that the left-right direction of the beat is not reversed. That can be disconcerting, encouraging players to avoid looking at the conductor (which I know it a can of worms in itself (winkeye).

I do know a professional French horn player, born without a left hand, who has a reversed instrument.

And the great thing about music is that whether one is left handed or right handed, one can change one's tune! Deference is ingrained!

[MrGongGong]

One must have to re-define what 'up' and 'down' mean when reading music. I don't actually believe being left handed should be any barrier to learning a keyboard instrument. After all, each hand has to be equally dextrous (!) in the long run.

There are many instruments where the opportunities for confusion over "up" and "down" are many.
For example the higher pitched strings on the guitar are at the bottom (unless you are Hendrix et al)

I was once working with a group where the person playing the piano had only just started to learn, they were playing huge chords at the bottom end making the music really "muddy" so I asked them to play "higher up". So they played on the black notes......

The left handed piano was partly made for music psychology studies, I met someone involved with it a few years ago and they were telling me how they were using it to study how the brain learns and responds to change.