The first left handed piano

[Lois Gilbert]

CHRISTOPHER SEED is an internationally renowned pianist - with a difference. He has built a piano with the keyboard in reverse (with the treble register beginning at the left hand side and ending with the bass register at the right). The reason - he believes (quite logically) that his left hand, and indeed the whole left side of his body, is much more expressive and agile than his right. Because most piano music is written with the melody in the right hand supported with chords in the left, if you turn this around and swap hands it makes much more sense to a left-hander. The only practical way of doing this is to build the keyboard in reverse. Chris hopes that this will set a precedent for a future generation of left-handed pianists. This new keyboard could uncover a whole new weath of talent in the world of music.

Chris has already received a huge amount of media and public support, with interviews on BBC Television - Put It To The Test and South Today, BBC Radio - including The World Service and The Today Programme, Classic FM, National Public Radio USA, Tokyo Today, and radio stations in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Holland and Germany. There have also been articles in The London Times, New York Times, Die Welt, Dutch Telegraph, the Melbourne Herald, La Presse Montreal, BBC Music Magazine, Classic FM Magazine, various regional publications, and much of this before the instrument had been finished.

The world's first left-handed piano in its early stages of construction

The instrument was built by Poletti and Tuinman Fortepiano Makers of Holland, one of the finest firms in the world. It is a mirror-image piano based on an instrument built by Conrad Graf in Vienna around 1826. The left-handed piano was completed in the summer of 1998 and exhibited at the Bruges International Music Festival from 27 July to 1 August 1998. Because it is a fortepiano and much lighter than its modern counterpart, it is easily transportable and therefore Chris will take it with him wherever he performs.

[kenny weir]

As written by my good buddy Bryan a few years back:

Sunday Herald Sun, Edition 3
SUN 27 APR 1997, Page 017
PIANO MAN LEADS WITH HIS LEFT
By: BRYAN PATTERSON
COMPOSER and performer Dean Lothrington plays golf left-handed. But as a child, he forced himself to learn piano the traditional way - right-handed.

"I remember thinking, with annoyance, that the more difficult passages were written for the right hand.

"I persevered, but I had a few left-handed friends who gave up learning piano because they could not cope with this right-handed emphasis."

Now help may be at hand for Mr Lothrington and his friends.

British concert pianist and fellow left-hander Christopher Seed has developed a left-handed piano.

For years, Mr Seed avoided playing Mozart and Chopin because he felt they concentrated too much on right-hand technique.

"My music teacher kept telling me, `If only your right hand was as good as your left," he said this week.

"It disturbed me to realise that because I was left-handed, and most of the difficult parts for piano are written for the right hand, that I was at somewhat of a social disadvantage."

Everything in Mr Seed's design is reversed. The highest notes are on the left side of the keyboard and the lowest on the right, a mirror image of the traditional piano.

He is yet to build a prototype of the instrument, but regularly sets up electronic keyboards to demonstrate his design.

On a British TV show this month, Mr Seed, 32, taught a left-handed 12-year-old pianist to play Beethoven's Fur Elise on a left-handed electronic keyboard.

"Within 10 minutes, the boy was playing left-handed as if he had been doing it all his life," Mr Seed said.

"Within a day, I was reading Mozart backwards using the reversed keyboard. I assumed I would have to retrain for years, but it was so simple."

Mr Seed is seeking sponsors to raise the $40,000 to build a prototype. The idea has caused mixed reaction in the musical world.

"I don't really see the point, although I sympathise with this young man who is obviously trying to invent something useful," Melbourne-based concert pianist Ronald Farren-Price said. "I would, nevertheless, advise him to solve his problems by practising twice as hard with his right hand."

However, the left-handed design was described as "revolutionary" by Professor Peter Dickinson of the University of London.

Mr Seed sees his design as an extension of the thinking that has produced guitars, french horns, trombones, cellos and double basses for left-handed players.

"I know some people think I am totally crazy, but I'm only fighting for the rights of the musical lefties."

[Jonathan Sutton]

Make of it what you will, but I hear that Glenn Gould was left-handed, and did fine with standard pianos.

[Tom Storer]

But just imagine what he could have done with a left-handed piano!

But yeah, you're right. All these left-handed slackers, whining about their needs and wanting to be pampered. Why don't they just do like Glenn Gould did? Bunch of sissies! ;-)

[hearsay]

It was my understanding that in order to play piano you had to use both hands - in coordination.

[Jonathan Sutton]

Unless you are Wittgenstein's brother, especially if Ravel (among others) is kind enough to write a composition for you.

[graypencil]

I suppose if Mr Seed were a jazz pianist ..we'd all be encourging him ..

to "get up" with it ????











well ..SOMEONE hadda say it !!!