On 25 Dec 1996, Alan S Moore (or was it Ginny?) wrote:
8-) In <59rm40$m90 at shellx.best.com> rlk at best.com (rlk) writes:
[...]
8-) >The violinist has his left ear quite close to the instrument and the
8-) right
8-) >ear relatively far away. It would be interesting to compare pitch
8-) >discrimination in the two ears of violinists. (Or has that been
8-) done?)
8-) >
8-) Actually I vaguely recall a study of which ear dominated in trained
8-) musicians, in general. By recollection, it was left dominant, but I'd
8-) say there's only a 50% chance of this being true (at best) :-)
Someone else already pointed out that both ears project to both brain-
halves, although that doesn't rule out a left/right dominancy (after
all, we do have directional hearing). Out of personal experience, I
know that there is a difference in both ears in violinists: usually,
the left ear is - errr - more adapted to the louder sound-volume
resulting from being so close to the instrument....
8-) However, violinists ear preference would not be relavant as to why
8-) cellists, bassists, er-hu, oud and gadulka players have the left hand
8-) doing the pitch oriented work. It's an interesting topic tho.
Is this a joke? I'd suppose that the same underlying principle is
responsible.. and cello/bass players do have their left ear closer to
the instrument (at least the strings..): I've often seen 'em hold that
ear even closer to fine-check intonation.
All this discussion about cultural reasons made me realise that there
is of course a parallel between (at least) the plucked instruments,
and bows (as in shooting arrows ;). And of course (but why...?), bows
are usually held in the left hand, and "plucked" with the right.
Because, again, the coordination needed in the right hand (which is
responsible for almost everything except crude aiming (?) in arching)
is far greater than in the left? Accidently, at least one family of
bowed instruments, the viole da gamba, evolved from a plucked
instrument, the vihuela.
__oWo__
| RenE J. V. Bertin http://WWW.NeurEt.biol.ruu.nl