 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: LIZZIE
Date: 2001-05-11 00:14
Is there really such thing as a left-handed clarinet? And if there is how much more does one cost than a regular clarinet? or how much cheaper?
And do any of yall play on a left-handed clarinet? My friend is left-handed and she doesnt use one so i was just wondering...thanks in advance
lizzie
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Pam
Date: 2001-05-11 02:14
No, there is no such thing as a left handed clarinet. (Unless you count that picture that was reverse printed on e-bay a while back!) Just kidding.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Don Berger
Date: 2001-05-11 14:33
Very interesting, Mark - Ave! Could it be a throwback to the VERY early 1,2,3 key horns which had a "winged" lowest key for either little finger touch?? Somewhat similar to playing with reed UP, not down! Different strokes!!! Don
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2001-05-11 18:25
Av Galper's picture is the only left-handed clarinet I've seen, but I think the original Denner clarinet had litle finger holes on both sides for F/C and a right thumb key for E/B. It had no throat Ab key. You made the Ab using just the register key.
Baroque flutes had only one key, and the foot joint could be rotated to play the instrument left-handed. A famous virtuoso named Buffardin played that way.
Irish flutes can be played left-handed. The flutist in the Chieftains plays that way.
Charlie Ponte had a left-handed Boehm flute hanging on the wall in his music store for years. It wasn't in playable condition, though.
For about a year, Yamaha ran a "flopped" 2-page color ad in lots of music magazines, including the middle of The Clarinet magazine, showing a technician working on a new clarinet, with dozens of instruments around him, all looking left-handed. They finally wized up, but caught a lot of nasty comments.
I know a cellist who had a mirror image instrument made, which she played left-handed. She was in one of the top regional orchestras for many years. Gunther Goebel, a prominent baroque violin virtuoso and leader of Musiqua Antiqua Cologne, had severe repetitive stress injuries and had to teach himself to play left-handed, with a mirror-image violin. You can't play a string instrument left-handed simply by reversing the order of the strings. The bass bar (a ridge on the underside of the top) and the sound post have to be moved to the opposite sides of the interior.
I suppose everyone has tried playing clarinet left-handed. It's possible to play a scale and find ways to press some (but not all) of the keys with the palms of your hands. *Very* confusing.
Ken Shaw
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Micaela
Date: 2001-05-11 22:36
I'm left handed and I've never had any hand-related trouble playing. Go lefties!
Actually, I've found it helps my finger speed on the violin, but impedes my bow technique (but that could just be me). There aren't really any left handed violins, either- you just can't destroy the symmetry of an orchestra.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Bob Curtis
Date: 2001-05-14 02:52
Lizzie:
If your friend is already playing the clarinet now I see no need to even consider changing, even if there WERE a "practical" left-handed clarinet available because she would have to learn all the fingerings all over again. Think about it.
Bob Curtis
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Wes
Date: 2001-05-26 16:19
The original choice of the left hand above the right for woodwinds may have been based upon the comfort related to "right brain dominant" physical characteristics that are observable in many dedicated musicians.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Edwerd
Date: 2008-07-18 08:03
There is an organization in England - Howarth Oboes - that claims to have made a left-handed clarinet (google Howarth Oboes of London to get a link to their site). The person would have to order a high quality instrument as they do not make left handed cheap clarinets. It was double the price of a right handed clarinet and with that added to the fact it had to be a high quality instrument, it would be a good $5,000 or more. If money and time to learn are not issues, I would leave it up to your friend if they wish to investigate this (it would almost be akin to learning a new instrument). Maybe they would relish the challenge - maybe it would turn them off.
Eddy
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: rsholmes
Date: 2008-07-18 10:29
There's a (at least one) more recent thread on this topic; search for it...
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Garret
Date: 2008-07-18 22:31
In people that play clarinet, is there a higher percentage of people who are left handed versus the general population? Or is that true in all of music? In the bands I've played in, there have been about 4 or 5 of us out of about 12 in the clarinet section who are left handed. Maybe it's the right brain thing. Kinda makes us a sinister bunch, eh?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2008-07-18 23:01
The technical, physical and musical difficulties encountered in the LH and RH of clarinet playing are so equally balanced that I would have thought there was no extra problem in being left-handed (might even be easier working around the break).
Re comment on violin in earlier post - Yes a few LH violins do exist and I have seen a player in a world-class quartet playing one. The question of symetry is much easier solved in a quartet.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ryder
Date: 2008-07-18 23:07
Does it matter?
Unless you have a disability, which was mentioned in an earlier post, that somehow inhibits you from using a clarinet in the normal fashion, I don't see a need for left handed clarinets. it would seem to only complicate things. I also don't see how being dominate in one hand can affect playing (much) if both hands are used.
Who ever said that the standard clarinet key system(s) is(are) right handed anyway?
____________________
Ryder Naymik
San Antonio, Texas
"We pracice the way we want to perform, that way when we perform it's just like we practiced"
Post Edited (2008-07-18 23:08)
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
