Handedness and playing the piano

[AeolianHarp]

It's funny where links lead one...I was watching the Billy Joel song where he uses the Pathetique, then reading about Billy Joel's life and work on wikipedia and it says that Billy Joel is "right handed, though believes left-handed people have an advantage when playing the piano."

It doesn't elaborate on why he thinks that. I wonder why left handed people would have an advantage?

Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Rachmaninov....the greatest pianists ever, were all right handed....

[Chris]

I found the bit you are talking about on Wikipedia. It's sourced, but unfortunately the source is a dead link. I googled around, and it seems like it might come from an interview in which he is talking about his daughter, who is left-handed. It didn't give any reason as to why he might think that, though.

In any case, I would have to say that it's certainly not true. Obviously it's an advantage to have the treble notes, which often have the melody and the most interesting and difficult parts of a piece, being played with the dominant hand, which is the right hand. The design of instruments (like every thing else) generally favor right-handed people. When I was first learning to play the violin, I thought it would be an advantage to be left-handed, because it seemed like the left hand was doing all the hard work, but I quickly learned that that's not true.

[AeolianHarp]

Thanks for the reply Chris- all very interesting! I bet I'd hold a violin left handed as I do with guitar even though I am right handed. I couldn't play guitar right handed at all.