Re: GG: Left & Right Balance

[Huw Davies <H.Davies@latrobe.edu.au>]

At 20:31 13-07-96 GMT, David Daniel wrote:
>At 06:43 PM 7/13/96, K. Berry wrote:
>>    Keyboardists among us: do you find that your dominant
>>    side has an effect on your playing?  Did you have to overcome
>>    dominance of the right or left hand as you learned to play?

I always had to do considerably more work with getting my left hand to play
the notes I wanted :-) It was particularly noticeable in sightreading - I
could read and play at about 4 examination levels higher if only the right
hand was involved.

>I never had any kind of problem like this with my right hand (I'm right-
>handed).  Eventually after a few grueling Czerny exercises, my left hand
>was able to stay flat.  As far as I have seen, left handed pianists have
>never had this problem with their right hand. 

My theory is that left handed people have to use their right hands far more
often than right handed people have to use their left (the world is
dominated by right handed design - we right handers just don't notice this).
In my role as soccer coach it is very clear that the left handed players are
far more capable of using their less dominant leg than the right handers, so
I suspect continual use of their right hand improves more than just hand/arm
coordination.

 Huw Davies                      | e-mail: Huw.Davies@latrobe.edu.au
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