morosophe Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 My oldest son is really enjoying his piano lessons, and is doing very well in them. Clearly, the music gene that skipped me found its way to him. (Well, his dad is far more musical than I am, so he may just be getting it from that side!) The thing is, I kind of "lucked" into his lessons, when I learned through the grapevine that a piano teacher was willing to give lessons at the church next door to us, and the way he's really taken off with his lessons have surprised me and convinced me that music education (or at least a trial) may be worth it for the rest of my sons. My main problem is that my second son is a lefty, which he gets from both his grandfathers. My current plans are to use the child's guitar I picked up at a yard sale long ago and got properly restringed, and have the wife of the pastor of the next door church teach him some lessons for that. He's only three and a half now, so it's not like this an urgent issue; I'd probably be interested in him starting music lessons in another three years or so. So, in general, what would you recommend as a good instrument for a lefty? (The only posts I've easily been able to find on these boards regarding this subject have been about finding left-handed violins, so I'm assuming those are pretty hard to get and therefore definitely not a good choice.) And, since we live about a million miles away from anywhere that would make personal music lessons easy, could anyone recommend a curriculum to help teach it at home? I would be willing to make the drive ("That's quite a commute!" per Hobbes) to the nearest city if he showed an aptitude for whatever instrument he's learning, but I'd like to make sure it will be worth the time, energy, and money first. (After all, he may turn out as unmusical as I.) Or, if it's a fairly common instrument, we may be able to find someone local to teach it. (My husband played sax for years in school band--I think bari sax, actually, though I may be misremembering and it may be tenor--and a little trumpet, for instance, so he may be able to muscle through some lessons in woodwind or brass given a really good curriculum to help him out.) Of course, we may move in the next three years, or have somebody open a Yamaha school two miles away, or something, so who knows how relevant an issue this may end up being. Anybody have any ideas? Recommendations? Practical tips? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeekingSimplicity Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 My oldest brother is a lefty and taught himself to play the guitar as a teen from instructional videos. I'm a lefty and I played the flute in band with no trouble at all. Took it all the way thru college. I'm about to teach my dd to play it now, and plan to use the dallas institute of music that some one posted a while back. here it is http://www.dsminfo.com/musicked/musicked.htm I figure for the price it's worth trying since we don't have access to music lessons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 (edited) My two lefties play piano better than the righty. I chose piano because my understanding is that it engages both sides of the brain and has them working together. I don't know if the same can be said for all instruments. Truly, brain training is the primary reason we ended up with piano. My kids have "issues" (i.e., they tend to be good with math, weak on language/verbal/auditory reasoning) Somewhere along the way, I read that strings were the way to go (piano being a stringed instrument also). Edited June 28, 2011 by wapiti Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morosophe Posted June 28, 2011 Author Share Posted June 28, 2011 My two lefties play piano better than the righty. I chose piano because my understanding is that it engages both sides of the brain and has them working together. I don't know if the same can be said for all instruments. Truly, brain training is the primary reason we ended up with piano. My kids have "issues" of the right-brained variety (i.e., they tend to be good with math, weak on language/verbal/auditory reasoning) I'm just a little worried about how much of the piano, particularly for beginners, is seriously set up for the right hand, with the left hand just playing boring chords. On the other hand (hah!), his left hand may already be worn out by pushing that pencil for handwriting, right? Piano may give him a break. :p (I guess this is why it's a little silly to be asking this question years before the fact. But I've found the responses so far to be very helpful!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orthodox6 Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 My eldest ds is LH, but taught himself to play guitar "regularly". He is a talented player. My observations throughout the years of playing more than one instrument make for personal opinion, of course, but I believe that one should not approach an instrument with "handedness" being any kind of consideration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 I'm just a little worried about how much of the piano, particularly for beginners, is seriously set up for the right hand, with the left hand just playing boring chords. I don't play piano, so maybe someone else can answer this, but I don't believe this is the case. My intuition tells me that piano is an excellent choice for a lefty. My lefties have been learning piano for three years now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little Blue House Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 I'm a lefty and grew up playing piano, violin and a little guitar. Shouldn't be a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 Most musical instruments are ambidextrous and require use of both hands fairly evenly. It's not the case that fingering a violin is more difficult than bowing, for example-both are very, very important and require a different set of skills. On woodwinds, the left hand notes are learned first in most cases. In those early days of playing piano, it's fairly easy (and some piano methods do this) to teach each melody in both hands, with harmonization in the other hand. Not only does this help develop ambidexterity, but it also helps develop reading skills, because reading melodies tends to be a little harder than reading harmonies in those early stages-especially if you DON'T teach right hand melody first as the default. This is one of the features of the Musikgarten music makers at the keyboard that I love most. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redsquirrel Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 My son is a lefty. he has played piano since he was 4 (he is now 11) and now he plays the flute. We have never had an issue or difficulty etc due to his left handedness. His piano teacher is also a lefty and considers it a non-issue. It has never come up or required special adaption with the flute teacher either. He can learn the guitar left or right. it is a new skill and can be learned either way. DH is in three bands and we know plenty of lefties who play all kinds of instruments "right handed." We also know at least one who plays guitar "backwards and upside down" :001_huh: My FIL is a vet and is left handed. he was told to learn certain procedures with his right hand (those that involve being up a cows a** to the shoulder) so that he could have his left hand free for writing medical notes etc. My son learned to use a computer mouse with his right hand. I offered to set up a left hand mouse for him but it was more practical for him to do it right handed. I am trying to find a left handed can opener. That is something he just cannot do right handed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 I'd go with what instrument interests him the most and then let him try a few lessons with a rental to see which way he prefers to play. The dirty little secret that a lot of us lefties have is that quite a few of us are perfectly fine with using our right hand for tasks other then writing. When I throw a ball, I'm a righty. When I played violin, I did it the same as right-handers. Let your child guide you on this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WishboneDawn Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 My son is a lefty. he has played piano since he was 4 (he is now 11) and now he plays the flute. We have never had an issue or difficulty etc due to his left handedness. His piano teacher is also a lefty and considers it a non-issue. It has never come up or required special adaption with the flute teacher either. He can learn the guitar left or right. it is a new skill and can be learned either way. DH is in three bands and we know plenty of lefties who play all kinds of instruments "right handed." We also know at least one who plays guitar "backwards and upside down" :001_huh: My FIL is a vet and is left handed. he was told to learn certain procedures with his right hand (those that involve being up a cows a** to the shoulder) so that he could have his left hand free for writing medical notes etc. My son learned to use a computer mouse with his right hand. I offered to set up a left hand mouse for him but it was more practical for him to do it right handed. I am trying to find a left handed can opener. That is something he just cannot do right handed. I'm a lefty but find most left-handed tools unusable. I think my left hand is for stuff that requires fine motor control while my right handles everything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morosophe Posted June 28, 2011 Author Share Posted June 28, 2011 The dirty little secret that a lot of us lefties have is that quite a few of us are perfectly fine with using our right hand for tasks other then writing. When I throw a ball, I'm a righty. When I played violin, I did it the same as right-handers. What's funny is that my right-handed oldest son throws left--because his paternal grandfather taught him how! The secret "right-handedness" my father exhibits is left-brained thinking, oddly enough. He is an attorney who deals with property law, (he never did criminal law and got out of family law a long time ago,) and hates the part of his job that involves dealing with people. He is very, very logical in his thinking. The only art as such I've ever seen him do is extraordinary pictures on an Etch-a-Sketch, although he's taken to dabbling in carpentry lately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirstenhill Posted June 28, 2011 Share Posted June 28, 2011 The dirty little secret that a lot of us lefties have is that quite a few of us are perfectly fine with using our right hand for tasks other then writing. When I throw a ball, I'm a righty. When I played violin, I did it the same as right-handers. As another lefty I would totally agree with this. I absolutely must write with my left hand, but because "back in the day" when computer mice had short cords, it wasn't very practical to always be switching them to a different side, I learned to mouse with my right hand -- even for tasks like games and drawing that require some fine motor control. I tried to mouse with my left hand the other day, just for fun, and it felt about as awkward as if I tried to write with my right hand! I've only played woodwind instruments, but at least as far as those go, handedness wouldn't matter at all because both hands work in coordination. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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