Skip to main content

National Left Hand Day

 I guess there is a day for everything. But since I am left handed (mostly) it has more importance. I say 'mostly' because I write with my left hand and eat with my left hand (using a fork or spoon even though I was raised by wolves) but I throw with my right hand. I think this contradiction comes from my brother who is a real lefty, he taught me to write before I started school and I just copied him when we ate our meals. The point being is this has affected me all of my life not only as a daily occurrence but as a bicycle mechanic and a percussionist.

Sinistral, Sinistro, Sinister, these are all words associated with the left hand. They also imply something dark, mean, evil, wrong. As a bike mechanic I had to endure the insult when I installed some pedals on bikes, many European pedals were marked with a 'D' destra meaning right or 'S' sinistro meaning left. Both of these words are Italian with their roots in Latin, Right means good, Left means bad! 'Clockwise', 'Counter clockwise' (counter=wrong?), 'Right' means correct, does that mean 'Wrong' means left?  

*I have on occasion met drummers who say they are 'Left-handed drummers'. If they use 'Traditional grip' they hold the right hand stick in the traditional manner. 

Left-handed drummer?
Right-handed drummer?
                      

The reason for traditional grip is to allow the arms and elbows to remain in a relaxed position when the drum is slung over the right shoulder which causes the drum to tilt to the right. The drummer on the left is not only using a reversed traditional grip but his drum is slung over the right shoulder which means he is defeating the purpose of the traditional grip (this photo may be reversed which was common in some old photographs but even so the relationship of the drum and arms would remain the same). His left fore arm is extended in an awkward position and his right stick would never be able to rebound properly after stricking the drum. So why not just sling the drum over the left shoulder? During the Civil War drums were somewhere between 15 and 28 inches deep, they were even deeper during the American Revolutionary War. If the drums were carried to accommodate the 'handedness' of each drummer the bottoms of the drums would smack into each other as they marched. It would also breakup the visual symmetry of the drum line (Generals don't like that). 
I guess I should talk about Grip in a later post.

*I realize I stated that I don't want to cause controversy in my first post so I apologize for any anger that this may create.😱  





















Labels:

Comments

  1. Far Side of FiftyAugust 14, 2020 at 4:26 PM

    I do some things left handed like swing a baseball bat, golf and shoot...I have a left handed rifle. and a revolver that I shoot left handed. I can throw left handed but only learned that after a bout with a bad shoulder and having a Border Collie that loved to play ball...he forgave my bad throw...which got better with practice. I can eat left handed...but write right handed and most other things...so I must be a mixed up model! I have grands that are leftys I do not sit them next to righties at the dinner table:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. RonaldAugust 15, 2020 at 7:43 PM

    Sabrina's birthday was on the 13th. But she's right-handed. I remember talking to you about this manner of gripping. And you're right; generals wouldn't like asymmetry.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A Percussionist's NotebookAugust 17, 2020 at 11:06 AM

    I also seem to remember that there are no 2nd and/or 3rd Trombone parts since the slides move differently. This may be an urban legend though.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

La Caverna del oro

 One of our first backpacking trips in Colorado was in the Sangre de Christo Mountains. One mountain in particular drew our attention. Marble Mountain was the location of a famous story of a Spanish cave of gold. There are many places on the web that tell this story better than I could, suffice it to say that we wanted to locate it and see the iconic 'Maltese Cross' located at it's entrance.  In 1974 after I got out of the Army we invited some friends to join us on this trip. We parked our car at the trailhead in the Wet Mountain Valley and backpacked up Marble Mountain to 12,000 feet. In one of the culverts we found the entrance to the cave. Maltese Cross at the Caverna del oro It turned out to be a real thing. The large red cross was still visible after 400 yrs. According to legend the Spanish put it there in the 1600's. I did have the courage to crawl into it but only a few feet. After about 10 feet there is a vertical shaft that drops about 750 feet!  The Cross is v...
3 comments
Read more

The Deagan Project: Part II

Escutcheon Pins, Washers and Isolators Most of the pins were bent but easily straightened. Just tapping them on a bench vise did the job. I replaced the one wood screw with a sheet metal screw for the lost pin. For the washers I used silicon caulking compound. Earlier this year I tried making sheets of silicon by applying caulk onto a plastic sheet protector. I placed another sheet on top and rolled it out to the desired thickness. After it cured I took a hole punch for the outside diameter of the size that I needed. The smallest punch was used for the center hole for the pin. In the past I used catheter material for the isolators but when I went to a medical supply store to find the size that I needed I was asked for my doctor's prescription. A prescription?.....Are they afraid that I'm going to insert a piece of plastic into parts of my body just for the...….never mind. OK, so nix the catheter tubes. Since I was working with silicon I tried a di...
1 comment
Read more

The Amadinda

  The Amadinda is an African xylophone originally made from slabs of wood or even large sticks, with or without gourds for resonators. There was no reason for this project other than to see if I could make a simple mallet instrument. The box was made from plywood (which also acted as the resonators) and the bars were made from maple.  Since this was to be a true xylophone, the bars were all of equal width. Tuning was done by cutting the bars to different lengths and removing material from the bottom. Using a router I created a sort of 'stepped pyramid' instead of the traditional arc cut found on marimba or xylophone bars.  Cutting the underside is not only for tuning but it focuses the pitch and creates the characteristic overtones of the instrument. Since I wanted to play this with other 'Western' instruments, I chose to use a pentatonic scale of 2 2/5 octaves (C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#,F#,G#,A#,C#,D#). Two people sit on either side of the instrument and strike the ends of ...
3 comments
Read more