Klarinet Archive - Posting 000792.txt from 2003/06

From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: Re: [kl] Left, Right, Mixed or Ambidextrous?
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 15:32:13 -0400

Christy=A0Erickson wrote:

Are the right-handers just not responding as much or do we really have
this many lefties/mixed handers here?

Excellent question, Christy! You have asked it yourself.

What population _are_ you sampling? Do the results answer the question
that aroused your curiosity?

Klarinet has ~750 lurkers in addition to the 50 or so who actually post.
Are you sampling the very specialized population of Klarinet subscribers
in a random (unbiased) fashion, much less clarinet players in general?

Are you sampling all skill and experience levels --- or do people here
who've played professionally for 30-40 years simply not care to respond?
Example: Tony Pay, David Neithamer, Martin Powell, Clark Fobes, Sean
Osborne, Karl Krelove - to name a few - haven't responded?

What is the Standard Deviation of the population that you are sampling?
That is, how much of a difference between left/right/mixed is required
to be meaningful?

At a minimum, you should poll all the members of a large orchestra or
music school, and also names selected at random (by page and line #)
from a telephone book.

.....I guess I've posted enough, I don't think it can be said any more
clearly.

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