Violin Forum/Message Board

dvsutton · Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 2:39 pm Post subject: Stradivari, right or left handed?

While finishing off my first violin, I noticed that I (right handed) had to adopt different techniques for finishing each side of the violin. I was wondering if it is apparent from Stradivari's work whether or not he was right or left handed...Just wondering, as artists tend to be left handed and technicians tend to be right handed.
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FiddleDoug · Member Joined: 08 Sep 2007 Posts: 227 Location: Hilton, NY

Back in those days, I think that it was evil to be left handed. People were discouraged from doing things left handed. Latin=sinester.
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Doug Wall

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Chet Bishop · Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 8:52 am Post subject:

And yet, Leonardo was flamboyantly left-handed, as seen by history, and his own (right-to-left) notes. If he could get away with it, I 'spect Tony could, too.
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Chet Bishop
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dvsutton · Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 12:39 pm Post subject:

doin' a little reading on Leonardo...what genius!
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dvsutton · Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 2:09 pm Post subject:

if anyone does facebook, I got a couple of pics of my first one in progress there...you can add me as a friend or whatever, i think you can see 'em without signing up though.
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John Cadd · Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 7:34 am Post subject:

In the North of England they would say he was "Cuddy-Wifted".

John Cadd · Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 7:13 pm Post subject:

If Stradivarius was an artist I think he would have become restless keeping to the controlled discipline necessary .His changes were gradual and had definite technical reasons that do not seem to me to fit in as Art (as such ).He lived a long life with a focussed mind which we must admire and is in no way inferior to a painter.However he had an artist`s eye for style and proportion second to none.If he was left handed he would find the "other" side more awkward. If he was left handed surely somebody would have noticed. So which are you? Left or right?

John Cadd · Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 7:14 pm Post subject:

Sorry -----you have already told us. As you were.

bacon · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2010 11:02 pm Post subject: left or right

I believe the left handed phobia is something of the Victorian Era. We know for fact thru art and woodwind manufacture that all musical instruments were played both left and right handed thru out the seventeenth century. I doubt their was a care for a woodworker. It's a good question and I have heard speculation on it before, I but don't recall which it was.

L P Reedy · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 6:12 pm Post subject:

My guess would be that Strad was ambidextrous. That's what I was until the accident. It would certainly be an advantage for carving scrolls and a few other things.