Mike's Oud Forums

Flipping the oud (question for lefties)

Danielo - 5-27-2010 at 12:40 AM

Hi,

I'm lefty (I mean, 100% lefty) but, following the advice of my first teacher, I learnt the oud as a right-handed.. Since then I always played like this.

This morning out of curiosity I flipped my oud and tried to play left-handed... of course with absolutely no training I was unable to play anything but still, plucking the open strings, I had the feeling that I could achieve a faster risha technique this way, especially for tremolos..

But to be sure it's really better I would have to train for months with the oud upside down...

had anyone any similar experience?

Dan

Aymara - 5-28-2010 at 12:42 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Danielo  
had anyone any similar experience?


Not myself, but I know an oud player, who is a lefty and plays a normal righty oud ... he just flipps it without restringing for a lefty, so the trebble strings are above the bass strings like in your test.

He got used to this technique and doesn't want a real lefty oud as he told me.

I thought I'd mention this, because so far nobody responded.

littleseb - 5-28-2010 at 04:04 AM

a friend of mine is a left-handed guitarist and just flips a right-handed guitar over.....so the treble strings are on top and the bass string on the bottom. He says he's never played any other way. It's very weird to look at, but his skills are fantastic.
But re-programming your brain once you've learned something a certain way is difficult....

Danielo - 5-28-2010 at 04:26 AM

Thanks for your input Chris and Seb :)

Indeed as I don't have a lefty oud I tried to played as you said, with the oud upside down.. I got the idea looking at a clip of Sameer Makhoul

I agree I would take a lot of time to re-learn everything from scratch but I was wondering if the result was worth the pain ? (If it needs 1-2 years to pay it is ok!). The question is whether
there will be an improvement at the end or not.


As an aside I'm aware of one violonist who had to learn to play both lefty and righty, Reinhard Goebel:
He plays the violin left-handed (that is, reversed from the usual set-up) since some problems with his left hand meant he had to switch sides after he had already learnt the violin right-handed




abusin - 5-28-2010 at 04:35 AM


Hi Dan,

I personaly came across quite a few friends who played the oud upside down with no probs at all, amaizingly they all have a beautiful risha techniques. And never asked for an oud to be specially constructed for left handed, they just use a normal oud. In many ocassions they used my right handed oud and just turned up side down.
My son is a lefty and playes guitar upside down, I am considering buying him a left handed guitar, just because they are available but he is happy struming away in this upside down fashon now.

alfaraby - 5-29-2010 at 01:11 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Danielo  
I got the idea looking at a clip of Sameer Makhoul


Sameer Makhoul is capable of playing the oud either way, as he was quoted on a TV interview . He may play regularly or flip the oud upside down without restringing !
Though I'm not left handed, I still think it's a matter of training, like driving a car in GB, India or Japan. I cannot imagine myself playing my right fingers on the strings .
Well I don't really know

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

Danielo - 5-30-2010 at 02:56 AM

Thanks Awad and Alfaraby!

If Sameer Makhoul knows how to play both ways, he probably learnt first as a righty before discovering that he plays more easily as a lefty? (even playing with the feet his playing would be light years beyond mine in any case !).

Well the only way to solve this dilemna is just to try :airguitar:


Dan

alfaraby - 5-30-2010 at 10:54 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Danielo  
If Sameer Makhoul knows how to play both ways, he probably learnt first as a righty, before discovering that he plays more easily as a lefty?

Yes Dan ! This is exactly what he said. He has learnt as a student to play right-handed, then after he had graduated he discovered he can express himself better by flipping the oud, so he started practicing.
As you've stated, the whole thing is a matter of practice.

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

myeyes2020 - 5-31-2010 at 10:45 PM

what an interesting thread!
I often wondered why a lefty would have to "flip" the oud in the first place. I always considered it strange that as a "righty," I'm using my left hand for the most dexterity demanding task. I recall the awkwardness in first learning to use the fingerboard and with lots of time and practice each hand became talented at it's task.
So why is it that a righty must use their left hand for the fingerboard and viceversa? Is it that awkward for a lefty to use their left hand for the fingerboard and not flip the oud?

Sazi - 5-31-2010 at 11:16 PM

Quote: Originally posted by myeyes2020  
... I always considered it strange that as a "righty," I'm using my left hand for the most dexterity demanding task. ...
So why is it that a righty must use their left hand for the fingerboard and viceversa? Is it that awkward for a lefty to use their left hand for the fingerboard and not flip the oud?


Very interesting questions and observations... I wonder... you know the "Drawing on the right side of the brain" thing? I think the right side is meant to be the creative side, but the right side also controls the left side of the body... so the left hand (for us righty's) is the creative one, doing all the fiddly bits, while our right hand is good for hammering in nails... maybe.:shrug:

Aymara - 6-1-2010 at 01:26 AM

Quote: Originally posted by myeyes2020  
Is it that awkward for a lefty to use their left hand for the fingerboard and not flip the oud?


You also could ask the opposite question about righties ;)
Quote: Originally posted by Sazi  
I think the right side is meant to be the creative side, ...


In theories about the funtionality of the human brain I read the thesis, that the right side is the cognitive, intellectual side and the left side is the side of feelings/affectivity.

It would be interesting to know, if it is the other way round with lefties.

Danielo - 6-1-2010 at 04:19 AM

Thanks my friends for your interesting contributions :)

I really think that, for an instrument played for thousand years, the plucking task has been attributed to the right hand for good reasons.... even though it seems counter-intuitive to assign a repetitive task to the supposed most capable hand!


Here is my personal experience of playing as a right-handed even though I'm a lefty.

I've no particular issues with the left hand on the fingerboard (but I'm not virtuoso either!), my intonation is roughly accurate.

With my right hand I can pluck the strings with reasonable accuracy and relaxation if I'm careful enough.. However if I try to increase the speed to play a vibrato, I feel like I hit an insurmountable wall :( The wrist becomes stiff whatever I do. Trying to pluck with the left hand I feel that this wall would not be here with some training ....


I've also noticed that most oud players look at their left-hand on the fingerboard when they play... I do exactly the opposite, looking constantly at my right hand in order to pluck correctly !





Sazi - 6-1-2010 at 04:25 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Danielo  

I've also noticed that most oud players look at their left-hand on the fingerboard when they play... I do exactly the opposite, looking constantly at my right hand in order to pluck correctly !


I used to do the same as you, looking at my right hand, until I started playing Iraqi style on 58.5 cm ouds, then I had to look at my left for chords and precise intonation, just recently I switched entirely to 57cm ouds, and now I don't have to look anywhere.

myeyes2020 - 6-1-2010 at 07:46 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Danielo  


With my right hand I can pluck the strings with reasonable accuracy and relaxation if I'm careful enough.. However if I try to increase the speed to play a vibrato, I feel like I hit an insurmountable wall :( The wrist becomes stiff whatever I do. Trying to pluck with the left hand I feel that this wall would not be here with some training ....


I believe by "increase speed" you are refering to tremelo and not "vibrato" (vibrato= slight jiggling of the finger on a note to give it a vibrating sound).

I also believe that you hit the same stumbling block that we all hit as we progress in our training. Not that I'm good at tremelo myself but I could easily see that if I was a lefty, I aslo would have questioned my difficulty with tremelo.

Sazi,

There may be some logic and fact to what you're saying about left and right brian/hand. Consider however, the pianists and flutists etc who really need to be perhaps equally dextrous with both hands. In fact both right and left handed pianists play a great deal of melody with the right hand.

Sazi - 6-1-2010 at 08:12 PM

Very true. I think it might be a good 'balance the brain' thing... when I used to play baglama a Turkish Baglama playing friend of mine said ideally you would be able to play baglama both ways, but I couldn't imagine doing it myself!

Danielo - 6-1-2010 at 11:29 PM

Hi,

yes of course I meant tremolo ! sorry for the confusion...

Quote: Originally posted by myeyes2020  


I believe by "increase speed" you are refering to tremelo and not "vibrato" (vibrato= slight jiggling of the finger on a note to give it a vibrating sound).

I also believe that yond.




As far as piano is concerned, most virtuoso pieces that I know are more demanding for the right hand... but of course there're exceptions !



Dan

esteso - 6-17-2010 at 11:03 PM

Ok, I'm gonna jump in here even though I only dabble on Oud. But I'm a lefty and I've played guitar left handed for over 40 years. When i started guitar I tried to play left and right handed to see what felt better and chose lefty. i also played with flipped strings for maybe 4 years.

Here's what I think I know. You should play a lefty Oud as a lefty to get most mileage. Why? Well for one thing it's true that you will hit a ceiling faster with your risha if you're not using dominant hand. All guitar players work on their picking, it's almost never good enough for most. The fretting hand is easy.

Don't flip the strings. there's a reason the low string is where it is for droning. If it was on the other side of the oud you would have trouble keeping it ringing on some passages. Not impossible perhaps but who needs the extra hassle.

Also, on a real lefty the first peg doesn't get in the way of the hand when down low on the instrument.

There's a few reasons to consider.

Danielo - 6-20-2010 at 04:16 AM

Hi Michael,


thanks for your advice ! So I think it really worths trying to play as a lefty...

I was mentionning flipping my righty oud just to give a try, since I don't have any lefty model !

I agree that a true lefty model is probably better suited - although Sameer Makhoul doesn't seem to have problem to play well :airguitar:

Dan

Aymara - 6-20-2010 at 04:35 AM

Hi again,

I found something, that might be interesting here, though it's not an oud:

Jeff Schmidt is an american fretless bass player, who plays a lefty bass, but stringed as a normal righty.

It seems, he learned with a righty bass. But who cares ... he's a real virtuoso ;)