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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
 Posted - 08/31/2007 : 07:10:58 AM
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxDFLjEnHoA Ken Makuakane doing He`eia. Love this song.
Kenneth - eh, I see you are left handed and are playing a 12 string. How do you string your guitar? Bla does not reverse his strings, so he plays bass with his fingers and melody with his thumb. Not only is guitar backwards for him, but strings are upside down. I have noticed what I would say is a larger proportion of left-handed musicians involved in Hawaiian music than one would normally expect in random distribution. Anyone else notice that? Wonder why it could be? Maybe they didn't have a teacher smacking their hands with a ruler in small kid time to try to get them to stop being left handed (my first grade teacher did that, hah-ha, to no avail).
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Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2007 : 6:21:43 PM
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Maybe the teachers were too busy trying to stop the keiki's from speaking Hawaiian to worry about left handedness?
Paul |
"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
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Makuakane
Aloha
USA
21 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 08:00:51 AM
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Yes, I am left-handed and I do play a right-handed guitar "upside down" as right-handers would say. I usually counter by saying that right-handers are actually playing the instrument upside down. And yes, there are a bunch of us left handers in Hawaii. For years on end we would talk about starting a left-handed band. To name just a few, many of whom you will not know, but are incredible artists, there is Jack Ofoia who plays bass or guitar with everyone from Sean Na‘auao, Na Leo to Amy Gilliom, Kevin Daley who plays left-handed drums, Clayton Apilando who plays a mean guitar (acoustic and electric) and Darryl Gonsalves who is another wonderful guitar player.
I could go on and on, however, it is always the individual artist that makes the difference, not the right or left handedness.
To add a little more to this subject, it is more difficult to play a guitar in a fashion that counters it's intended purpose, but there is a beauty in creating alternative fingering positions that most right handers will never experience. The choral and rhythmic textures I play against a right-handed player's chords colors and adds breadth and depth to the song, as opposed to two right-handers playing the same fingering structure or one of them inverting a chord on the higher fret.
Right-handers will never know the difficulties us left-handers must contend with in a right-handed world. For example; using a ladle with the spout on the left, using a scissors, writing with a pen or pencil - righties pull the pen as they write, while lefties push the pen, usually puncturing the paper if they are not careful. There are a ton of other examples, but you get the point.
So back to the guitar playing, we could buy left-handed guitars, but the manufacturers charges us 33% more for that "luxury." It's slowly changing. Till then, I keep strumming away on my "right-handed" guitar that had to be retro-fitted with a pre-amp on the other side of the body for an additional charge. But hey, that's life! |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 08:24:33 AM
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I learned to do new stuff right handed, since I didn't know how to do it in the first place. Back in my "folk singer" days, I learned to play guitar right handed. No difference to me left or right, but since I never played it anyway and had to learn from the beginning, just as easy to learn right handed as left A(plus who was going to teach me left handed). When I played baseball, I bat right handed and threw right handed. I bowl right handed.
But I eat left handed.
And the ladles with the spout on the wrong side make me crazy. I will not buy a pot or pan or utensil that does not have pour spouts on both sides. Butter knives have a little offset bend in them...for the right handed person; desks in college have the writing surface on the wrong side, etc. etc.
Bottom line, Ken. You learned to make beautiful music, as did Bla and all the other lefties out there.
Thanks for working harder to make beautiful music. I am appreciative of it. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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hwnmusiclives
`Olu`olu
USA
580 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 09:55:41 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by jwn
And if you think I'm (we're) paranoid, go look at "Left-Handed" on Wikipedia. I think they left out (oh, ha ha) "propensity to be an axe-murderer"... left-handed axe-murderer, that is.
Aha! And that is why the French word for "left-handed" is "sinistre" - from the Latin for evil.
Tee-hee!
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Join me for the history of Hawaiian music and its musicians at Ho`olohe Hou at www.hoolohehou.org. |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 10:01:01 AM
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The latin word for left is "sinister" -- for right is "dexter" -- like when your eye doctor tells you your vision is 20/20 in OD and 20/30 in OS. Sinister, like the spooky boogie man in the night...or dextrous like one who is a good manipulator???
Also, even though we thing the hemispheres of our body are identical, they are not. There are definite differences to the right and left sides of our bodies. If you put a cardboard over one half of your face and take a picture of it; then put a cardboard over the other half of your face and take a picture of it; then take each of those pictures of the halves of your face and clone and flip the pictures to "book match" the sames halves of your face, you will see a happy side and a scary, sad looking side. Some say that is why we have happy parts of our selves and then sad parts of our selves. We were "drawn" that way.
But they always say that left handed people are the only ones in their right minds, yeah?.
PS: zippers on pants only for a front fly...and only if they are not Marine Corps women's dress pants. Marine Corps women's pants have a fly identical to a man's fly, even to the extent that it has a fly lining and a french fly just like quality tailored men's garments. I should know. I inspect them by the thousands at one of my contractors (haha - but only for another month -- yahoo.) |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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Puna
Lokahi
USA
227 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 10:05:24 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by wcerto
and a french fly ...
Sure it wasn't a 'Freedom Fly'? |
Puna |
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Momi
Lokahi
402 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 10:16:13 AM
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To add to Kenneth's count of left-handed musicians: the members of Hema Pa`a ("strong left") Chris Kamaka (also of Ho`okena) and William "Baba" Alimoot (also a terrific producer).
In the Puget Sound area, Ben Baker (bassist for "Na Leo o Hawai`i") is left handed - when he borrowed Retro's bass, he just flipped it over and played it without retuning. Uncle Tiko Kaeo plays `ukulele left-handedly, which makes it harder for me to steal licks from him 'cause I can't tell what he's doing. |
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Retro
Ahonui
USA
2368 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 10:56:59 AM
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| And the sweet folks at Kanile`a `Ukulele recently built a left-handed instrument for Kenneth - we were fortunate to see it when it was brand new, as they were all up here in Seattle at the end of May. |
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wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 11:38:07 AM
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Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they have plenty of food and water. ~Dave Barry, Why Humor Is Funny
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Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
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Momi
Lokahi
402 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 1:28:27 PM
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| jwn, if you ever visit from Pitcairn Island, we must make sure to keep you and Retro separate. The pun-ishment you would both receive otherwise is to have a pun-off to see which would be left standing to maintain your standing. |
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thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2165 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2007 : 03:28:26 AM
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Slipry1 is a lefty and plays steel, guitar, ukulele, and 5 string banjo right handed. The bandleader of the polka band I'm in is a lefty, plays buttonbox right handed as does LynnMarie.
Im' a right hander, but can wash windows left handed, I don't have to move the ladder as much that way. Like my Dad said, "Play it clean and don't hurt yourself."
BTW Ben Baker also plays slack key "upsidedown". |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2007 : 06:05:12 AM
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I guess I don't understand why a Lefty would opt to play a guitar upside down rather than just have the nut and saddle (and maybe the pickguard - not really necessary)reversed. Then the strings just get swapped. A luthier I know, a 30 minute drive from me, could do the job in 15 minutes and charge under $50. A friend of mine could do it in 15 minutes for free - and that includes any intonation sanding of the saddle. All it takes are 2 cheap bone blanks, sand paper and files. Why?
...Reid |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2007 : 07:41:50 AM
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Okay, John. I get it - you have been through the mill and trained your reflexes to adapt, and accomplished what you wanted to despite the difficulties. And now you are acclimated and happy and make lovely music.
But, still, it is just sooooo easy for somebody starting out *now* to get what they want in a guitar without the pain. There really is no such thing as a left-handed guitar - or a right-handed guitar, and never has been. There are just 2 simple fixtures to hold the strings and position them any way you want to. You gotta change strings anyway, regularly, and filing and sanding nut and saddle are such trivial operations that even I have done it to drop nut slots or lower the saddle to lower the action. And people routinely open the slots to accommodate heavier strings.
OK, I forgot that lots of guitars have saddle slots in the bridge that slant. But many don't, and those that do can be changed out with little cost or problem, too.
I just hope that, today, nobody thinks they have to be forced to contort themselves and their brains when they don't have to.
Yours for diversity,
...Reid |
Edited by - Reid on 09/05/2007 07:42:34 AM |
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noeau
Ha`aha`a
USA
1105 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2007 : 08:48:13 AM
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| Of the luthiers I have known. I have been told that sound board bracing needs to be done right or left handed too. The fat strings pull more than the skinny strings so the guitar is built so it doesn't corkscrew towards the fat strings. |
No'eau, eia au he mea pa'ani wale nō. |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2007 : 09:15:46 AM
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Yeah Al, that is sometimes true, but rarely. It depends on the luthier's bracing design, but it really doesn't have to do with string tension. All bridge plates are symmetrical, for instance, and that is where all the pull is. Below is D`Addario's tension chart for PB lights in standard tuning. The difference is not all that much and the strongest pull is in the middle.
Diameter Tension
Item# Note inches mm lbs kg
PL012 E 0.012 0.3 23.3 10.57
PL016 B 0.016 0.41 23.3 10.57
PB024 G 0.024 0.61 30.2 13.70
PB032 D 0.032 0.81 30.5 13.83
PB042 A 0.042 1.07 29.9 13.56
PB053 E 0.053 1.35 26.0 13.15
I don't think many, if any, luthiers would bother changing their bracing
and especially not those factory guitars that are built like tanks. X braced guitars are remarkably symmetrical - the real asymmetry is where they put the so-called tone bars. Recall that classical guitars are most all symmetrical - especially ladder braced ones they have hardly any tension at all, of course. I don't think it is a biggie. (I don't even play a luthier on TV, BTW, so I can stand, even sit, corrected.)
...Reid |
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