Techniques for left handed players

[Shirley Godoi]

Hello everyone
I am a newbie, it’s been 5 months since I started to play. I played saxophone for 10 years, and practice religiously every day for 30-45+ minutes or until my fingers start to feel numb.
My harp teacher, who is a wonderful instructor, says I am coming along wonderfully, which makes me very happy. My one issue I play treble with my left and bass with my right. I have been trying to find articles that can give me better techniques for playing left-handed. In researching, I found the Gaelic harp players played left-handed but nothing more on the matter.
As a left-handed person living in a right-handed world, I have come up with different ways to compensate. But certain hand movements are difficult to do when my teacher demonstrates then I attempt to replicate it goes all wrong, which is frustrating because I want to advance my lessons but cannot because the fingering is not correct, and we all know if the fingering is not right it can do more harm. I would appreciate anything suggestion or guidance on where I can obtain additional information for left-handed players.
Thank You

[Gregg Bailey]

Hi, Shirley,

May I ask what model of harp you play and on which shoulder you rest the harp? Unless it’s a double-strung harp or Paraguayan harp in which it wouldn’t matter to which side of the harp you sit due to symmetrical construction, or some sort of special-made harp with the strings on the opposite side of the neck, I assume it’s a conventionally-made harp with a single course of strings. If that’s the case, have you considered simply learning the harp in the conventional manner, sitting with the harp on your right shoulder and playing the treble with the right hand and the bass with the left hand?

Personally, I’ve never understood the concept of right- or left-handed musical instruments, because both hands are always very active. And, in the case of keyboard instruments and harps, both hands essentially do the very same thing. The concept of a left-handed guitar really puzzles me, because, if anything, the left hand is even MORE active in a so-called “right-handed” guitar, as the left hand goes up and down the fretboard while the right hand stays in one place just doing the picking.

On the harp, each hand is equal in importance and needs to have equal strength. This idea of one hand being more important than the other because it has the melody notes seems maybe a bit silly to me. If both hands are properly developed in technique, each hand should be able to play the melody in whatever range of the harp.

As far as fingering, the harp is unique in that the fingering is exactly the same in each hand for a given one-hand pattern.

I’m curious–whose idea was it that you should learn “backwards” to the conventional manner just because of being left-handed?

I’m not sure if my reply has been helpful, other than that I would strongly encourage you to try learning the conventional manner of harp playing for a little while before completely giving up on the idea, as I think it would take you much farther to be able to do that, since the vast majority of harps are designed for the harp to rest on the right shoulder and for the right hand to be above the left hand. I can’t imagine trying to reverse that while the harp is still on the right shoulder, and I also can’t imagine trying to play a conventional harp resting on the left shoulder since you need to be on the same side of the harp as the strings.

[Gregg Bailey]

Also, was your saxophone a “left-handed” saxophone? If so, I’ve never seen such a saxophone! Again, both hands do the same sorts of movements on a “woodwind” (I play sax, flute, and clarinet myself), so the idea of reversing the hands on a woodwind doesn’t make sense to me, either.

I just realized, is your saxophone experience the reason that you want to play the harp with the left hand above the right, since that’s the usual hand arrangement on sax?

-Gregg

[billooms]

My thoughts echo those of Gregg. When I play piano/organ/synth, both hands are equally busy. I’ve never seen a left-handed keyboard player try to reverse their position to play upper notes with their left hand. I also play classical guitar and I agree with Gregg that the left hand is more active than the right hand (I’m right handed). Most musicians probably find themselves nearly ambidextrous. I too would encourage you to switch back to using left hand lower and right hand upper before you get too far along in your harp experience.

[Shirley Godoi]

Yes, I am learning to play the Paraguayan harp, I have tried to switch over to the right side, but it feels unnatural. I guess it is just getting my fingers to get accustomed to playing the strings.
Thank you for your recommendation.

[balfour-knight]

I also agree with Gregg and Bill. A harpist needs to be ambidextrous just like a keyboard player. When you position the harp on your right shoulder, you can view the strings from the lowest notes (bass) to the highest notes (treble), just like you can see the keys on a piano, organ, or electric keyboard. The bass is toward your left and the treble toward your right. I think you would severely handicap yourself if you tried to learn any other way. Good luck with all of this.

Balfour

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by balfour-knight. Reason: clarity!

[Molly]

I am also left handed, and learned the traditional way with my right hand playing the melodies and left hand playing the bass. The harp sits on my right shoulder so I have a clear line of sight to my bass notes.

I am curious how you started playing this way? Did you just pick up the harp and start playing it that way on your own because it felt most natural? What does your teacher say about it? I feel like most harp teachers would consider this a bad habit. Frankly I’m a bit surprised that they would let you continue on this way because it is so unusual. I suppose if you rest the harp on your left shoulder, in theory you’d have the same line of sight and could play opposite, but I’m not too sure what the implications of this are in the long term.

[balfour-knight]

With my keyboard background, I am used to seeing the bass at my left and the treble at my right. When you sit down to a harp, you must be positioned so that you can see the strings in exactly this same way! This means that you place the harp on your right shoulder, and then everything will look normal. To do it otherwise would be like looking in a mirror–everything would be backward.

Thanks, Molly! Left-handed people drive a car the same way right-handed folks do, and also, when it comes to using tools like sewing machines, they all do it the same way. In this world, everyone has to have the ability to just adapt to “the way it is.” I, for one, do not like the order of the harp pedals, and have felt since I was a young boy that they should be placed in the order of CDE–FGAB. But since the order of DCB–EFGA is standard, pedal harpists have to have the ability to adapt to it, or they simply cannot play a pedal harp, that is all there is to it, period!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Balfour (and Carol Lynn)

[carl-swanson]

All of us who play musical instruments know that usually, one hand is the dominant hand and the other is much less coordinated, less comfortable at technical things, etc. And so most of us have worked very hard to get the non-dominant hand to work as well as the dominant one. I am very right handed. But I worked very very hard to learn to use my left hand on the instrument, and the result is that I have an excellent left hand. For certain activities I’m really ambidextrous. I’m very comfortable using my left hand on the harp and also in my shop handling woodworking tools. I can’t write anything with my left hand, but I don’t need to. The point of this is that you need to work very hard to make your right hand as comfortable and dextrous as your left, and it can be done. You need to play lots of scales and etudes with both hands separately. On the piano, there was a whole industry in the 19th century of writing etudes and pieces for left hand alone for exactly this reason. Schumann even joked that writing a piano piece for one hand was as ridiculous as creating a ballet for one foot.

If you work systematically on strengthening your right hand, it will get better. Much better. The harp is a very right handed instrument, with most of the difficult technical work in the right hand. Emily Mitchell is left handed, and she won the Israel Competition in 1979. My good friend Catherine Michel is also left handed, and had a brilliant career with the harp. It can be done!

[balfour-knight]

Nice post, Carl–thanks!

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