Left handed players

[ardcarp]

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.

How interesting! There was a similar experiment (in the 1950s?) not to do with music, where a volunteer wore 'inverting goggles' continuously for several months. His brain gradually adjusted to working upside down, and apparently his perception of 'the right way up' changed. If I recall correctly, however, he suffered quite severe mental trauma when the experiment ended and he had to revert to 'normal'.

As far as guitars are concerned, it is surely absolutely standard for string instruments to have the bass strings at the top (or on the left for the viol/in family)? The concept of 'up' isn't the layout of the strings but going up the fingerboard towards the bridge.

[MrGongGong]

As far as guitars are concerned, it is surely absolutely standard for string instruments to have the bass strings at the top (or on the left for the viol/in family)? The concept of 'up' isn't the layout of the strings but going up the fingerboard towards the bridge.

I know, but try telling that to an 8 year old who has picked it up for the first time.
It's a bit like the confusion some folks have between the words we use for pitch and volume

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's a bit like the confusion some folks have between the words we use for pitch and volume

In rap music, that isn't an issue.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How interesting! There was a similar experiment (in the 1950s?) not to do with music, where a volunteer wore 'inverting goggles' continuously for several months. His brain gradually adjusted to working upside down, and apparently his perception of 'the right way up' changed. If I recall correctly, however, he suffered quite severe mental trauma when the experiment ended and he had to revert to 'normal'.

I remember seeing television clips of that (or a similar) experiment - within a couple of weeks he was riding a bicycle. I didn't know about the "severe mental trauma"; the TV clip ended when he had just had the goggles removed and had difficulty catching a balloon that someone released (as it went up, his arms went down).

[Gordon]

It sounds similar to the experiment that altered a bicycle to swap the normal operation of the handlebars and pedals to their opposites - ie turn the pedals forwards and the bike goes backards - once learned, which took only minutes, there was no problem in continuing but, again, the return to normal operation also took only a short while.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I remember seeing television clips of that (or a similar) experiment - within a couple of weeks he was riding a bicycle. I didn't know about the "severe mental trauma"; the TV clip ended when he had just had the goggles removed and had difficulty catching a balloon that someone released (as it went up, his arms went down).

There's a similar effect if you give someone glasses that create rainbow-coloured fringes round everything. If worn all the time sooner or later the fringes disappear, but remove the glasses and they come back.

At an even deeper level there's the weird discovery that, rather like raptors, our brains still only see what's moving. It doesn't seem that way because however still we think we're holding our bodies and eyes when looking at a stationary object, there's always some relative movement. But in the laboratory they can present to the eye an image that is always as it were straight in front of the eyeball as it moves. Result: we can't see the image

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Convention is a strange thing. We think of the north as being at the top, and the south as being at the bottom.

Why?

[ardcarp]

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/maps-cartographycolonialismnortheurocentricglobe.html

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And moving the south to the top, also inverts our perception of the universe, and our perception of time.

[MrGongGong]

And moving the south to the top, also inverts our perception of the universe, and our perception of time.

Have you moved to Hebden Bridge?
You are going all hippy on us
Time to sell the Strauss and buy Terry Riley

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I was speaking scientifically.
But I once went to a John Ogdon recital in Hebden Bridge, and was a supporter of the Rochdale Canal restoration.

Have you moved to Hebden Bridge?
You are going all hippy on us
Time to sell the Strauss and buy Terry Riley

[Daniel]

In an unscientific sort of way, I've always had the impression that left handed/footed practitioners of whatever discipline seem more often to display natural talent. As if leftness can be a kind of weathervane for a sensibility that makes fluency of expression a more natural thing. Certainly in my own limited experience of amateur pianists that's borne out reasonably often.

People like Rachmaninov, Jimi Hendrix, Roger Federer all notably sui generis in their fields one might say, were/are all left handed (they do say Beethoven was as well, but not sure it's been conclusively proved). Maradona, Cruyff, Messi, George Best that I know of in football, all left footed. Anyway yes, so I've always had a mild impression of a connection between leftness and kind of facility for expression.

Coincidentally I was reading the following about Einstein yesterday on the BBC news site:

Perhaps the most striking [feature of his brain] is that Einstein had an extra ridge on his mid-frontal lobe, the part used for making plans and working memory. Most people have three ridges but Einstein had four. She also found Einstein's parietal lobes were dramatically asymmetric, and he had a knob on his right motor strip. This latter feature is called the "sign of omega" and it is thought to be correlated to musicians who use their left hands. Einstein played the violin.

If nothing else, if you ever found yourself seeking to exacerbate an awkward silence, informing people Einstein had a knob on his right motor strip might work.

[Beef Oven!]

In an unscientific sort of way, I've always had the impression that left handed/footed practitioners of whatever discipline seem more often to display natural talent. As if leftness can be a kind of weathervane for a sensibility that makes fluency of expression a more natural thing. Certainly in my own limited experience of amateur pianists that's borne out reasonably often.

People like Rachmaninov, Jimi Hendrix, Roger Federer all notably sui generis in their fields one might say, were/are all left handed (they do say Beethoven was as well, but not sure it's been conclusively proved). Maradona, Cruyff, Messi, George Best that I know of in football, all left footed. Anyway yes, so I've always had a mild impression of a connection between leftness and kind of facility for expression.

Coincidentally I was reading the following about Einstein yesterday on the BBC news site:

Perhaps the most striking [feature of his brain] is that Einstein had an extra ridge on his mid-frontal lobe, the part used for making plans and working memory. Most people have three ridges but Einstein had four. She also found Einstein's parietal lobes were dramatically asymmetric, and he had a knob on his right motor strip. This latter feature is called the "sign of omega" and it is thought to be correlated to musicians who use their left hands. Einstein played the violin.

If nothing else, if you ever found yourself seeking to exacerbate an awkward silence, informing people Einstein had a knob on his right motor strip might work.

And v. Interesting post

[ahinton]

I once went to a John Ogdon recital in Hebden Bridge

Lucky you to have attended one anywhere, frankly!

[ardcarp]

Reverting to maps for a moment, in earlier times the concept of geographical accuracy was less important than getting from A to B. Hence the 'strip maps' would show a route with important landmarks such as wayside inns, bridges and fords shown pictorially for the horse-borne traveller. The scale was not accurate. Interestingly though, these strip maps were usually 'heading up' not North up, so, for instance, Watling Street (from East of London to the Welsh border) was not shown running East to West but in vertical strips. It is ironic that nowadays, Satnavs have reverted to heading up display...very dis-orientating if you are using a road atlas to check up on things!

For mariners, however, it must have seemed obvious from the earliest era of the magnetic compass needle to make charts, however crude, with North up. Most sailors using Chart Plotters (the marine equivalent of Satnav) prefer to keep them on North up so as to tally with paper charts.

Sorry. I'll stop now.