Why is the fingering on the violin traditionally assigned to the left hand and the bowing to the right when most violinists are right-handed ? It would appear easier for their right hand to do it( I've posted this elsewhere, without much result; you classical people are certain to know ! )

A question after my own heart! I've asked Ritzmar similar ones about pianos, where all of the advantage seems to be in favor of the right-handed types (more dextrous by far than I, Fred ).

Stringing a piano backwards would be of course prohibitively expensive, but why not just string strings for right or left? I've heard there are left-handed guitar players who have guitars strung oppositely from right-handers. Seems to me it would be easy enough to string a violin in a similar way. Has this ever been tried?

This website may interest both of you, Fred & Maiku.

http://www.lefthandedpiano.co.uk/

I am goint to post a query in DR to see if we can get more information from other members. As a pianist I, too, would be interested to learn about how left-handedness affects musical instrument fluency.

The topic becomes more puzzling when left-handed guitarists are considered. Sir Paul Mcartney is the most famous southpaw example. He plays an instrument where the fingering is for his right hand and the plectrum is in his left. So he is using his weaker , right hand for the apparently more difficult task, exactly the reverse of the right hander. I would have expected him to delight in being born suited for the conventional arrangement.No doubt the fingering required is not comparable; at its most basic level perhaps only a few chords; but I have seen one French guitarist, with a classical repertoire, who did the same.

Well, Fred, I have posted this in DR, EOD & Silver Threads, and there has been very little response. Groves is no help and neither are my (many) works of reference nor are the Search Engines. So I will start to ask among my colleagues and their sources. This may take a little while, but I am sure that we will have information soon. Perhaps there is a Ph.D. thesis in here somewhere for an interested post-graduate!
I will just add that although I have never played a violin at all, I did double bass as second study when I was at the RCM. Obviously the way of holding and playing the instrument is very different from bass, but the thought of attempting violin left-handed is impossible to me. Apparently for a right-handed person the left hand naturally wishes to do the fingering...don't ask me why!

Jimi Hendrix was left-handed and obviously did very well that way. Here are some other left-handed musicians: www.indiana.edu/~primate/left.html#Musicians (there's even a Pig Latin translator for the Pig Latin speakers)

And on the same site, www.indiana.edu/~primate/lspeak4.html#violin1

Thanks for your efforts, everyone. For the right-hander the right arm and hand are the more natural to use to display emotion. The right-hander will thump a table, point, even embrace using that arm first. My guess is that the bowing arm is the right arm because it seems more natural for this. Through it is the spacing of the notes, rhythm, emphasis and volume conveyed. It is the right arm that is giving the artist's personal performance, his interpretation, it's life.The left hand just has the mechanical task of making sure that the pitch of each note is the one written by the composer. On a violin this is technically more difficult than the learner would like but once learned is insignificant in comparison. A guitarist no doubt has the same feeling. This would explain Sir Paul McCartney (correct spelling this time !) and apparently a great many southpaw guitarists, before and since, going to such trouble to play as they do, too.

On classical guitar it is clear that at an advanced level the right hand needs more control, since this is the hand that actually determines the tone color and rhythm.

I have had the theory that the left hand connects to the portion of the brain that is spacially driven, the right more verbal. Since for both the violin and guitar the expressiveness is much determined by the right hand it makes some sense. In my experience bowing is more difficult than fingering ultimately.