- Tue May 31, 2011 7:03 pm
#20288
Hi all,
I was recently taking a class in New Hampshire from Namory Keita, and one of the other students in the class happened to be left-handed. This student was having serious trouble feeling a couple of the solo techniques, and Namory suggested that, as a long term solution, the student learn to play the djembe right-handed, essentially reversing the hand pattern for everything that he already knew. Namory feels that there is *fundamental* difference in sound and feel between the right and left hands, regardless of which one is dominant.
I also heard that something similar happened in Mamady Keita's class in Boston a couple of weeks ago, where Mamady insisted that a left-handed student play right-handed.
On the other hand, I've taken a few workshops with M'Bemba Bangoura over the past couple of years, and he's always said that "you can start with whichever hand you want."
So, I guess my questions are: Are there any lefties in the house, and if so, do you play "right-handed" or "left-handed?" Has anyone else experienced something similar, where a West African teacher has insisted that a student play with a certain hand pattern, regardless of hand dominance?
I'm hoping to be able to teach some djembe in the near future. My inclination would be to allow left-handed people to play left handed (that is, with the hand pattern reversed from mine), but I wouldn't want to tell someone it was fine for them to do that, only to have them be told later that they need to relearn everything with the opposite hand pattern.
Peace,
~D
I was recently taking a class in New Hampshire from Namory Keita, and one of the other students in the class happened to be left-handed. This student was having serious trouble feeling a couple of the solo techniques, and Namory suggested that, as a long term solution, the student learn to play the djembe right-handed, essentially reversing the hand pattern for everything that he already knew. Namory feels that there is *fundamental* difference in sound and feel between the right and left hands, regardless of which one is dominant.
I also heard that something similar happened in Mamady Keita's class in Boston a couple of weeks ago, where Mamady insisted that a left-handed student play right-handed.
On the other hand, I've taken a few workshops with M'Bemba Bangoura over the past couple of years, and he's always said that "you can start with whichever hand you want."
So, I guess my questions are: Are there any lefties in the house, and if so, do you play "right-handed" or "left-handed?" Has anyone else experienced something similar, where a West African teacher has insisted that a student play with a certain hand pattern, regardless of hand dominance?
I'm hoping to be able to teach some djembe in the near future. My inclination would be to allow left-handed people to play left handed (that is, with the hand pattern reversed from mine), but I wouldn't want to tell someone it was fine for them to do that, only to have them be told later that they need to relearn everything with the opposite hand pattern.
Peace,
~D