The feeling of really making music - Dirk's switch to the left-handed trumpet
- Linksgespielt
- Jul 15
- 6 min read
"I finally had the feeling that I was really able to make music and stand behind what I was saying with the instrument. It was a new, colorful world to explore. For me, it felt like I was finally where I always wanted to be, that I could finally express myself and that everything was “good” at last."
Do you see yourself as left-handed or right-handed?
I am left-handed, but I only realized this shortly before I started my studies. Barely a month before I started studying the trumpet in Trossingen, I started writing with my left hand.
Have you always played your instrument left-handed?
No, unfortunately not. But as I said, I also lived in the illusion of being right-handed back then...
When did you change to left-handed playing and why?
In short, I experienced it as such a great liberation when I started writing with my left hand in my twenties that it was no longer an option for me to continue bending myself on the instrument and suppressing my left-handedness.
And what is the long version?
Well, that's the long road to this realization. The idea that I could be left-handed had already occurred to me much earlier, a whole three years earlier. Back then, my piano teacher at the time, who is a left-hander herself, first drew my sister's and later my attention to this issue. But unlike my sister, this did not initially give me any impetus to act.
But on the trumpet I always had the feeling that something wasn't right: Why am I holding the trumpet so unnaturally tense? Why am I so often told by my teacher to finally press the valves properly? And why am I just not able to come out of my shell? Passing the entrance exam at the HfM Trossingen fulfilled my greatest dream of studying the trumpet, but at the same time I knew that I was not suitable for artistic studies as I was at the time: I was withdrawn, inhibited and somehow blocked. Something had to change!
While preparing for the entrance exam, I had occasionally tried to play left-handed on my right-handed instrument and had the impression that this could be the solution, as everything seemed so much clearer and more natural. However, I couldn't really experience it for two reasons: firstly, a right-handed trumpet (contrary to popular belief) is relatively uncomfortable to hold on the left and secondly - and this was the real problem - over time I had got into the habit of placing the mouthpiece at a very oblique angle, as a result of which I had developed a very one-sided posture, which now made it difficult to play on the left. I realized that in order to really try it out, I first had to change my embouchure... No sooner said than done. At the same time, I also started writing with my left hand.
Naively, I thought the embouchure change wouldn't take long, but far from it: in the first lesson of the semester, I could hardly play a note. For fear of not being understood, I didn't dare to explain the whole background. This made starting my studies with the trumpet extremely difficult, while at the same time I was bursting so many knots by writing with my left hand and I was totally surprised at how much I was suddenly talking to other people. I felt really good, it was just the trumpet that wasn't working. Later, I finally dared to tell my teacher everything and in the second semester I finally switched to left-handed playing.
Please tell us more about you retraining process on the trumpet.
Before that, I had repeatedly played left-handed on the right-hand instrument - which now worked much better with my new centered embouchure - and noticed how much more comfortable I felt with it. At the end of my first semester, we had the task of recording an etude and I was almost desperate when I tried it right-handed until I tried it left-handed and was shocked at how much clearer and more authentic the result was.
There are only “three buttons” on the trumpet, which probably makes it relatively easy to switch - especially compared to other instruments...
What were the most difficult aspects of retraining?
Of course, it took a while for the technique to work the same as before. My height also dropped a little because I suddenly realized how hard I was pressing. But everything resolved itself over time.
The biggest challenge by far was my professor's lack of understanding. Not regarding my left-handed playing - he understood that and was fortunately open to it when I finally dared to tell him everything - but regarding what relearning meant for me. I'm afraid that it's simply impossible for outsiders to understand what goes on inside you during this process: I finally had the feeling that I could really make music and stand behind what I was expressing with the instrument. It was a new, colorful world to explore, but my professor insisted that I had to stubbornly and bluntly work on my technique.
We clashed a few times and my new, good feeling when making music became increasingly at odds with the feedback I was getting in lessons: For me, it was that I was finally where I always wanted to be, that I could finally express myself and that everything was now finally “good”. I certainly still had a long way to go, but the feeling of having gained so much outweighed this. At the same time, I was criticized more and more in class, felt more and more pressure and received less and less feedback that anything had improved as a result of the change. I think that tore me apart inside.
We had another teacher for orchestral parts who I wanted to talk to about it in confidence, and he gave me a real shitting: No one had understood why I had changed the embouchure and the left-handed trumpet really hadn't improved anything. A short time later, I unfortunately had to abandon my artistic studies. It just wasn't possible any more...
Did you have contact with other left-handed players at that time?
Of course I could talk to my sister about it, but unfortunately I had no contact with other lefty players. Back then, there wasn't the networking that is possible today - especially thanks to your great initiative. I think it would have helped me a lot if I had known that there were so many left-handed playing musicians out there.
You impressively describe the problems in your retraining process. Were there any other reservations about playing on the left?
No, I think what I encountered was not the rejection of playing left-hand trumpet per se, but simply that people often didn't understand what it meant to me. In the meantime, I've played my final exam in music education on the trumpet and my teacher told me, what a shame it was that I was so limited with the left-hand trumpet and couldn't do anything with the piccolo or flugelhorn in the exam... Of course, it is a big disadvantage that I have to have everything built for me from scratch and that if I don't have a certain type of instrument, I really don't have it. But these are small things compared to what I've gained by playing with my left hand: the opportunity to really make music.
In what context do you still play right-handed today?
Not at all on the trumpet. (However, I don't play the trumpet that much any more, as my studies are now focused on church music).
How did you come by your lefty instruments?
Back then, Thomann offered left-hand trumpets as standard, and I started with one of them. Later, Martin Böhme built me a left-handed trumpet, which I still enjoy playing today.
Does playing left-handed present any advantages?
For me as a left-hander, this is the natural way to play. It's not an advantage, it's just the way it should be from the start.
Photo credits: Laila Kirchner
Dirk Becker, born in 1998, began playing the trumpet in a “Bläserklasse” at the Eduard-Spranger-Gymnasium in Landau in the Palatinate. After completing his junior studies with Prof. Peter Leiner in Saarbrücken and winning prizes at the national Jugend Musiziert competition, he studied trumpet with Prof. Wolfgang Guggenberger in Trossingen from the 2019/20 winter semester, but then decided to change his course of study. After completing a bachelor's degree in both music education and church music in Trossingen, he has been continuing his studies at HMT Leipzig since the winter semester of 2024. In his bachelor's thesis entitled “…rechtsherum habe ich mich dem Instrument ausgeliefert gefühlt" ["I have felt at the mercy of the right-handed instrument”], he dealt intensively with converted left-handers' retraining processes on their instruments. Read his thesis in German here.
