By Bob Wilson
Until now I did not know about International Left Handers’ Day, celebrated on 13 August every year since 1976.
This year it landed on a Friday, but clearly the organisers of International Left Handers’ Day do not suffer from Triskaidekaphobia (a fear of Friday the 13th).
Melbourne musician Silas Palmer tells me that three of the four members of his band The Royal High Jinx (he plays drums, keys, accordion and fiddle), are lefties in the literal sense. That is a clear statistical anomaly, as the norm is 10 per cent of the population.
So what does it all mean to the 90 per cent of us who use the right hand for most tasks requiring dexterity?
Well, it could be that you share an abode with a partner or other who is left-handed or have children who turned out that way.
I tried teaching She Who Is Also Left Handed to play guitar but it did my head in. Even now, I just can’t handle watching her chopping up onions or meat with the knife in her left hand.
She’s also a tad ambidextrous, that is, proficient with either hand (one per cent of the population).
There’s been a lot of research into the science and psychology of handedness. Recently, a team at Oxford University found for the first time the role played by DNA. Scientists found the first genetic instructions hard-wired into human DNA seem to be heavily involved in the structure and function of the brain – particularly the parts involved in language. Left-handed people may have better verbal skills as a result.
The research, reported by the BBC, concludes that being left-handed (or port-sided), has often led to a raw deal.
“In many cultures being left-handed is seen as being unlucky or malicious and that is reflected in language,” said Prof Dominic Furniss, a hand surgeon and author on the report.
“What this study shows is that being left-handed is just a consequence of the developmental biology of the brain, it has nothing to do with luck or maliciousness.”
If you grew up in the 1950s, the education system was not at all in favour of left-handed children. As the teaching of writing became widespread, teachers encouraged right-handedness by (mild examples), tying the left arm behind the back and knuckle-raps for writing with the ‘wrong’ hand. Those that persisted with their left hand were left to cope in a world designed for right handers.
Psychologist Chris McManus has suggested that the Industrial Revolution encouraged this, due to the right-handed design of the machinery in mills and factories.
McManus, in his book Right Hand, Left Hand, finds an account from a school near Falkirk, Scotland, in 1880, noting that “eight children had come to school left-handed”. The phrase “had come” implies that they were not allowed to remain so.
With the decline of attempts to convert children, the numbers of left-handers has risen sharply over the course of the 20th century.
The real attraction to this topic was a chance to name-check a few famous guitarists who have mastered the art of playing ‘Molly Dooker’ (1940s Australian slang).
Most of us would know about Paul McCartney, but there’s also a long list of players (living and dead) including Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Noel Gallagher (Oasis), Annie Lennox, David Bowie and Sting. Down under lefties are represented by singer songwriters Eric Bogle and Courtney Barnett, Dick Dale (Bombora), Beeb Birtles (Little River Band) and Kate Miller-Heidke Band guitarist Keir Nuttall.
Keir plays a 21-year-old Guild Jumbo acoustic that has been customised to suit a left hander.
“It sometimes requires the addition of wooden braces inside the body to compensate for the additional stress from reversing the string order (as well as the nut and bridge),” he explained.
“All of my electric guitars are made left-handed. But you often pay more, as the good ones are snapped up by collectors, so the prices are driven up.”
Keir says he started off self-taught, so it was too late to switch by the time he realised that it is expensive and frustrating being a lefty.
In an effort to join in on jams at parties, he learned the basic shapes playing a ‘normal’ guitar upside down. (This is a technique employed by a few notable left-handed players including the late indigenous singer, Gurrumul.)
“When I taught guitar I would encourage my students to learn right-handed to spare themselves the pain,” Keir said.
“Guitar is about the co-ordination between both hands, so I believe it doesn’t matter whether your dominant hand is fretting or picking.”
The website www.leftyfretz.com is devoted to left-handed guitars and how to play them. But the webmaster has also compiled an impressive collection of left-handed trivia.
Here he reveals that five of the last nine US presidents (not Trump) were left-handed. Mensa, the elite organisation of people with high IQs, claims 20 per cent of its members are lefties.
And did you know that 40 per cent of the world’s best tennis players are southpaws (US baseball term)? Rafael Nadal was a right-handed player but taught himself to play leftie to give him an advantage (which it clearly does).
There are specialist stores for left handers. The website www.anythinglefthanded.co.uk operated a shop in London’s west end from the mid-1960s. Management quit the retail space in 1996 and has been operating a home-based internet business ever since. Just in case you were wondering, some of the product lines that do very well include can openers, scissors, spiral notebooks and pens (the latter have curved nibs so the writer can see what’s being written without putting the heel of the hand on still-wet ink).
If you’d like an insight into left-handedness, try writing today’s headline with your opposite hand; that is, righties try with the left and vice versa. A fun game for a Thursday afternoon.
Bob’s weekly column, Friday on My Mind, can be found at www.bobwords.com.au
