HANDEDNESS IN MUSICIANS

Abstract

An inquiry by means of a questionnaire which included a ‘handedness inventory’ was made into the prevalence of left‐handedness among musicians, and the difficulties, if any, which lefthanders experienced in acquiring executant skills. It was found that left‐handedness is neither less nor more common in the group of musicians studied than in a population of psychology undergraduates, and that left‐handedness did not in general occasion any special difficulty. The left‐handers adapted successfully to the ‘right‐handedness’ of their instruments, the only substantial connexion in which left‐handed practices were retained being in conducting. It is suggested on the basis of these findings that ‘right‐handedness’ is less a matter of superior inherent ‘dexterity’ or the capacity for agility, precision and speed in the right hand than of closer, more immediate, availability of the right hand as the instrument of the individual's conceptions and intentions. It is further suggested that the especial function of the dominant cerebral hemisphere is to mediate between the executive intentions of the individual and his physical means of expressing them, whether through manual or vocal channels.