Issue 84: Left handed Ukuleles (or recorders, for that matter)

The short answer is NO!

I’ve just started teaching a short course of a wider opportunities year 4 class ukulele programme. Once again, the old “my daughter is left-handed, so can she play her ukulele the other way round?” question has arisen.

Well, I’m left-handed, and no-one ever suggested that I should have a specially adapted piano, with the treble and bass ends reversed! I am absolutely determined that the children should hold their instruments in the conventional manner.

It’s the right-handed children learning recorders who have the most difficulty with this. I did hear of a wider opportunities clarinet class where half the children had managed to get away with holding their clarinets with the wrong hand on top… I’m hoping that this is a blatant untruth and never happened in real life.

The ONLY exception I have ever made was for a child who only had their right arm – clearly they couldn’t play with their left hand on top of they didn’t have a left hand. In fact they couldn’t cope with the clarinet at all, so we swapped it for a cornet, but that’s another story.

If you think about it, the functions for left and right hands for ukulele playing are so different, that there is no point in restringing the instrument for left-handers and teaching them the opposite way. I think there is a definite advantage in being left-handed, as the fiddly, fine-motor skills part has to be done by the left hand fingers anyway.

I blame that Paul McCartney bloke and his left-handed guitar.

 

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