“The biggest advantage is that feeling! If a left-hander is forced to bow right-handed, they always have problems feeling what I want to achieve in the lesson. [...] I cannot pull the string if I can't feel it. That's why it's so clear to me that I don't want to take this feeling away from anyone! To feel the resonance, the vibration - you don't have that in your non-dominant hand.”
Mechthild van der Linde studied cello and AME at the Detmold University of Music. She then taught cello, chamber music and orchestra conducting at the Bocholt Music School. From 1989 to 2004, she held a teaching position for the didactics of cello teaching in Dortmund, and from 2008 to 2020 at the Robert Schumann University of Music in Düsseldorf. She contributed to the curriculum for cello of the Association of German Music Schools (VdM) and is a trainer for cello teachers. Through a lecture by Walter Mengler in the 1990s, she became aware of the topic of handedness and inverted playing for left-handers and has been teaching her left-handed students accordingly ever since.
Conversation with Laila Kirchner on April 26, 2024
Laila Kirchner: Thank you very much for consenting to an interview! When I observed you in the JeKits cello class [“Jedem Kind Instrumente, Tanzen, Singen”, a cultural education program in elementary and special schools in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia] in Dortmund, I was very inspired by your work with the students and especially by the fact that all left-handers bowed left-handed. There are now many good developments in education towards more openness for left-handed playing...
Mechthild van der Linde: And unfortunately also the complete opposite! One of my students, Fabian Reichart, got a full-time job at the music school in Iserlohn straight after graduating. He didn't think about it at all and taught a lefty girl left-handed because that's what he knew from me. The head of the music school actually forbade him to continue teaching this girl like that. But he didn't comply with that. So he got a warning and asked me, as a “luminary”, to write him something about it. The head of the music school then quoted a musicologist or music physiologist from Hanover who claimed that it didn't matter at all if left-handers bowed with their right hand.
LK: I am familiar with the study and also quoted it in my bachelor's thesis. It comes to the conclusion that it is more difficult at the beginning, but once you have practiced enough and become a professional, it no longer matters. In my opinion, however, this study is not so easily transferable to a music school student, as it only surveyed (prospective) professional musicians - who are obviously the kind of left-handers who can manage on a conventional instrument.
MvdL: I argued against this with the psychological damage caused to left-handed children who are forced to write with their right hand. I had contact with an institute for left-handedness in Münster, where I had already sent pupils to have their left-handedness tested. They say that there is actually a very wide range of handedness.
They also published a study on the psychological damage caused to children who are forced to write with the other hand. I published the study in a newspaper article in Iserlohn and have of course been a red rag for this music school director ever since (laughs). The public debate continued...
LK: Yes, that's a shame. Unfortunately, it's children who suffer from playing against their handedness (I've experienced it myself elsewhere), who become incredibly aggressive, can't do anything, are totally stressed and of course can't develop any love for the instrument. Even when they stop, this somehow destroys something in them.
Personal start with the topic
MvdL: Yes, it was so clear with the very first child I taught left-handed! I would never let a left-hander play on the right again if I knew it was so clear and the child also wanted it automatically.
LK: How old was this student?
MvdL: He was twelve, but had been playing the cello right-handed for six years. We had discussed Walter Mengler's lecture at the cello teacher's meeting and then the scales fell from my eyes - for all my left-handers!
I had already taught a lot of left-handers up to that point and somehow thought to myself: “It's not so great for the left-handers!" But it was never discussed. That was in the mid-80s or early 90s at the most, so it must have been 30 years ago. I had a student who went on to study, who was clearly left-handed and always burst into tears month after month, saying desperately: “I can't feel what you want!” I always said: “Well, try to really feel your way into the sound...” He was hyper-talented. He could play everything immediately, but he could never find that access... and wanted to though!
He was first with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and is now solo cellist in Lisbon. He still plays on the right, but he had massive difficulties - very, very massive! - and didn't really know any difficulties otherwise... Just this difficulty in feeling the right hand and saying: the right hand leads! He tried it out again and again: How does that feel? How can you do that? And then, of course, he managed it through hard work and an incredible amount of commitment, but he would have been much faster on the left! - Incomparably much faster...
LK: And would have suffered less.
MvdL: Exactly. That was one of the professional examples... And this twelve-year-old who came straight after Mengler's lecture. He'd been with me for a long time and I was always annoyed because he was just making nonsense! His parents were both musicians - his father a cellist, his mother a violinist. The mother was also left-handed and had been trying out left-handed bowing for a while and then tried to imitate it on the right.
About 14 days later, I simply said: “Let's give it a try. Take the cello in the other hand!” And he immediately started crying! Immediately. It was like, “Yes, that's what it must feel like!” He'd always just messed around and made nonsense before because he couldn't feel what I wanted and realized: “I can't do what she wants from me!” And then it was his way - a temperamental child and somehow also stubborn: “No, I don't want it the way everyone else wants it!” But he didn't want to because he couldn't and because he had never learned that it was possible. He had decided to play left-handed right away. His father was a cellist and right-handed, so he swallowed a little at first. His left-handed mother remembered her own struggle during her studies and immediately agreed: “Yes, we'll do it, no matter whether he wants to become a professional or not!”
LK: So where did the instrument come from?
MvdL: At first it was a standard instrument from the luthier, with only the bridge and strings reversed. It was a three-quarter cello. All other instruments, including those in recent years, have always come from Streichinstrumente-mieten.de. They offer everything also for left-handers - back then even double basses. A very extensive range and beautiful instruments. All you have to do is write to them and you'll get a well-equipped left-handed instrument.
LK: I heard that Volker Bley in Dortmund also rents out left-handed instruments.
MvdL: Yes, he does that too. It's a bit more expensive, but he also offers it...
So then I worked with this particular student, Markus, and in half a year he had made more progress on the left side than he had in six years on the right. He then played in the state youth orchestra several times up to his Abitur and got through to the national Jugend Musiziert competition with chamber music. He developed a really genuine interest, whereas before you would have thought: “That's just some kid who's being pushed along by his parents.” He then really enjoyed playing the cello.
Left-handers in the music school orchestra
LK: What was it like for him in orchestras, was it always problem-free? I mean, that was quite early on, when you say “early 90s”...
MvdL: Yes, that must have been in the early 90s. He was in our orchestra at the Dortmund music school and in the cello orchestra and then in the entrance exam for the state youth orchestra. At that point he was no longer with me, I had given him to Hauke Hack.
We currently have a left-hander in our youth symphony orchestra - also a student of mine - who started playing left-handed right away. She is now over 20 and started at the age of 4; she first started coming every 6 weeks in a playful way and by the time she had decided to do it properly, at the age of about 7. She had played on left-handed from the start. That works without any problems. Sure, she needs a bit more space in the group, unlike when people all bow in the same direction. But that's not a problem among the youngsters. At some point, a violinist came and said: “It would be great if all the second violins played to the left, then the first violins would sit here and the second violins would sit there.” That was just a fantasy. Of course, it's also unfair if you force all left-handers to play second violin. That's not a solution either.
LK: Do the lefties in this orchestra sit on the left or on the right?
MvdL: It depends. They usually sit on the outside because they prefer it to sitting on the inside. And we have so many cellists, so there are always three or even four in a row and they usually sit on the outside. That's when they feel they can move best. If we have to set up differently because the parts are distributed differently, then they simply need a bit more space.
Total number of students playing left-handed
LK: How many cello students have you taught left-handed so far?
MvdL: I don't have any at the moment, but there have been quite a few. Seven or eight. And that was just the one-to-one students. With JeKits there were even more! Of course, sometimes there were two children in a group playing left-handed. That must have been another ten. But I only ever saw and taught them for those three years. And I know that Florentine, for example, one of the last ones before I stopped, still plays the cello. I don't know exactly who of the others continued.
LK: There were three of them when I was an intern in your JeKits project. I was totally fascinated! Because I had just changed my place of study from Osnabrück, where I had written my bachelor's thesis on the subject, to Münster. I had to do an internship and looked for something in Dortmund, where I lived. Of course, I had no expectations at all. On the very first day, I was supposed to tune the children's instruments, went from one to the next and suddenly realized: Something's not right here! I thought to myself: Ok, that's special - a left-handed player! But then came the next one and the one after that... they were sitting next to each other. I was completely blown away! It was two boys and a girl.
MvdL: Yes, one of them, Ole, was very talented! And Tibor, who switched to double bass, then joined the jazz academy. He had just completed his Abitur. The girl was Katrin. She's currently doing a voluntary social year with us at the music school. She now has a cello again. In the meantime, she only sang and her singing teacher lent her a cello that had been lying around for decades. Mr. Bley, the violin maker from Dortmund, converted it to the left. Now she plays a bit of cello and guitar again. She wants to study singing to become a music teacher.
LK: That's great to hear!
Advantages of playing left-handed
MvdL: The biggest advantage of left-handers bowing with their dominant hand is that feeling! If a left-hander is forced to bow with their right hand, they actually always have problems feeling what I want to achieve in the lesson. If I simply let a student slide over the string, it's not noticeable. But if I want a note to really sound and the resonance to be felt - you can feel how the string vibrates under your hand when you pull the bow - and if a left-hander can't feel that because their hand just doesn't give it to them, then you have to do it the other way round! Everything else is a matter of education. You can compensate for a lot with hard work, but not everything.
LK: Above all, it is not possible to change the handedness and switch this feeling from the dominant hand to the other. I feel everything in my fingering hand and the bow hand feels very far away, when I play right-handed.
MvdL: Yes, that's the predisposition that is caused by handedness. You can already tell when you take over left-handed students that they display an insane intensity in the left hand. That was the case with Julia, for example, who didn't retrain to bowing with the left. Her vibrato was rather too fast, with a lot of pressure in the hand. That's what made me realize immediately: This somehow also indicates left-handedness. She didn't switch to left-handed playing, but relatively soon after she started with me, she broke her collarbone on the left. That was an incredibly good situation because she was then no longer allowed to play with the left hand, so we could only do bow exercises. As soon as she tensed her left arm, it would hurt. In other words, you noticed that at first she couldn't play a single note without it hurting. I taught her to tell herself: “Okay, I can do something with the right arm without tensing my left” - that actually ensured that her left hand was no longer so tense once she was allowed to play again. Of course, this still doesn't ensure that the right hand can greatly contribute. But at least the struggle to do everything with an insane amount of force was broken. That had a very positive effect. Of course, this was a case that you can't create like that. This pain reaction was so clear that she realized: “Oh, my bowing always originates here [on the left]. I want to pull with the right, but it's tense on the left.” And of course it took those six to eight weeks to get rid of that. She made really good use of that time.
Own attempts to play left-handed
LK: Have you ever tried playing left-handed yourself?
MvdL: Yes... yes, but it's hard! Of course I can play a bit of open strings and also play positions and so on... well, it's a feeling for me that's truly awful!
LK: Then perhaps you can understand a little of what it might feel like for a left-hander to bow right-handed?
MvdL: Yes, somehow... it just feels strange.
LK: I also handed my lefty cello to some of my fellow students during the early stages of my bachelor's degree, just so they could try it out and see how it felt. I don't know whether any of them kept this topic in mind or not, but it was interesting to see how differently they approached it and what they described. A right-hander who had practiced bowing with his left hand more often to become more mentally flexible was really good at it - better than I was at first!
MvdL: For me it was really strange, although I actually do a lot with my left hand myself. So I also use my knife and fork the other way round and get on my bike from the other side... There are also left-handed parts of me. But it was so clear with the cello: I just need that feeling! I cannot pull the string if I can't feel it. That's why it's so clear to me that I don't want to take this feeling away from anyone! To feel this resonance, this vibration - you just don't have that in your non-dominant hand. It feels like such a block.
Teaching terminology
LK: Have there ever been situations where you or the students were confused because a student played inverted? Have you immediately used the terms “bow hand” and “ fingering hand”?
MvdL: Yes, indeed. With the first student who played left-handed, Markus, I realized that I couldn't teach him in the middle of the afternoon. I had to put him at the end and briefly orientate myself beforehand, sort out my mind and then I was able to teach him. But I wouldn't have been able to switch back and forth as quickly as I did later. It really took one or two years until I had the vocabulary and the ability to see: “Oh yeah, that's why it's like this now!” At the beginning, I was puzzling: “Is this the right position? Which way do I have to turn it now?” As a right-hander, you have a knot in your brain when you watch left-handers playing left-handed. But it's also just a process of getting used to it.
LK: Yes, even I feel that way as a left-hander, although I also play left-handed because it just happens so rarely. You have to translate that first. I also used to learn the common terms “right” for bow hand and “left” for fingering hand.
MvdL: But the students never had any confusion. The clear left-handers take the bow in their left hand from the outset - if you leave them alone and don't give them a model at all, but let them take the cello themselves. There are some tests on this. Even with me, they simply take the bow with their left hand. There were actually also cases, like with Ole, who you experienced, where his mother had shown him in advance at home and had always said: “No, you have to take it the other way round" and then he came home beaming with joy after the first JeKits lesson and said: "There are also cellos for left-handers and I want a real one now!" He had immediately taken it in his other hand, so I had asked him: “Ole, are you left-handed?” They hadn't declared that beforehand. But it was very clear. So sometimes parents are also influential because they assume the conventional playing direction.
Working with parents
LK: What do you generally encounter from parents? Do they support their left-handed children's play or do they tend to have reservations and prejudices?
MvdL: Yes, I have seen this very often with parents. Especially when the parents themselves are clearly right-handed and when left-handedness is not so common in the family. As I have many parents who work as professional musicians themselves, I often encounter prejudices as to whether playing left-handed rules out a professional career from the outset.
Relatively at the beginning, I had a case where the uncle and grandfather tried to prevent it. Both were professional musicians: “Well, if he really wants to become a professional musician, he won't stand a chance!” and “That's not possible, you can't do that!” And they also held this theory that it's difficult for the left hand too and that there are tasks for both hands that are demanding. I had to work really hard! Thank goodness the mother was understanding. She was an elementary school teacher and had already internalized the principle that you shouldn't retrain children and she said: “No, no, you can't do that. If that's what Felix wants, he'll play on the left.” He definitely wanted to play on the left.
It was the same with a boy whose father plays with the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra. The father said: “ Well, I don't know, it will never become something proper like that”, so he was very negative and I argued euphorically: “In the next 20 years it will probably catch on and become normal!” So now 30 years have passed and it's still not normal (laughs).
Passing on to students
LK: When I was an intern with you, you were still a university lecturer in Düsseldorf. Did your students pick up on that?
MvdL: Yes! Fabian, for example, was my student in Düsseldorf. And so was Julia, who now holds a full-time position at our music school in Dortmund. Fabian was the one who immediately internalized it and when this student came, he immediately taught her left-handed as a matter of course. Julia took over Felix, whose relatives wanted to prevent that at the beginning. I don't really know any of my students who wouldn't be willing to do that. Christiane Schröder took over my position in Bocholt and does the same.
LK: But were there also students who rejected it?
MvdL: You realize, of course, which people are still of the opinion that this is all nonsense. I've had them too. I don't think they would have been eloquent enough to argue with me. That's probably why they left it alone. They are usually people who find it very difficult to empathize with other people in general.
LK: Were there any left-handers among your students?
MvdL: I had the lectureship for methodology and didactics. I didn't teach the students on the instrument. But I was involved in taking the exams and was always able to see relatively quickly who was left-handed. I think you can see and feel that. Even with the violins and violas in the orchestra, I can tell who is left-handed and who is right-handed.
LK: That's probably based on your long experience with left-handed players.
MvdL: Yes, an eye for who has difficulty with bow movements when training timbres...
LK: Can you describe the effect this topic had on left-handed students in your methodology and didactics lessons at university? It made a big impression on me back then and had a lasting effect when it was discussed in developmental psychology. Do other left-handers who play right-handed have a similar experience?
MvdL: Yes, I think so. Back then, at that first meeting with Mengler, there were several colleagues who had attended the lecture and said they wished it had been brought to them 30 years earlier! They were all a bit older than I am now and were very sorry that this development hadn't come sooner. They also always realized for themselves that it was difficult for them. But I've had relatively little contact with people who do it professionally and have tried to play inverted.
Slow process of acceptance
LK: Yes, it is a very slow process. There are good developments, but a study like the one from Hanover takes us back to the Middle Ages in one fell swoop.
That is also the reason why we lefties want to network and work together to educate and inform. Because if parents and teachers are against it, the children usually have no chance to choose.
MvdL: Yes, and I think that when I see in the orchestra that hardly anyone plays left-handed despite a safe 5% of left-handers, then I know that my colleagues don't teach that either. There is now also a violin colleague who has exchanged ideas with me and has been teaching a student the other way round ever since. But only because he was a friend of my student Ole, who played left-handed. They went to the same school and he was also left-handed and had tried it out and immediately realized that he wanted to do it the other way round. As a result, this colleague taught the boy left-handed. But I think she did it once because she couldn't avoid it because her student had been influenced by mine. That was an exception, I think.
LK: Probably also because it is more difficult to switch?
MvdL: Yes, with a group, of course! In the beginning, you have to deal with the vocabulary. What I teach in the group must be understood immediately. I use the terms “ fingering hand” and “ bowing hand”. But if you're so used to always working with “right” and “left”, then you simply have to deal with it. Not everyone wants to do that. So not everyone is prepared to do that. It makes work.
LK: It should be established in training right from the start.
MvdL: Exactly!
Contacts between left-handed students
LK: Do you think it would be interesting for left-handed instrumental students to exchange experiences and network with each other?
MvdL: Well, I think there are different characters! Philine, for example, who is now just over 20 years old, has always been very interested in it. She always asked about it and talked to the younger members of the orchestra when she saw that someone was also playing left-handed.
Felix also played with her. He must be about 17 years old now. So he still knows Philine quite well and the JeKits children know her too. Katrin is just a bit younger than Philine. They have communicated with each other.
LK: But more on a verbal level and not that they said: “Let's play something together”?
MvdL: No, there were never enough of them at the same level to play together in an ensemble. I couldn't have made a cello trio with three left-handers.
LK: Except in the JeKits class that I sat in on. Three left-handed players once played together with three right-handed players at Jungend Musiziert...
MvdL: That was an even bigger group. There were eight in total and they sat three-three-two. That was age category 1B. They played very well and also scored very high. But that was really something unique. In the groups after that, I never had three left-handed players at once again. It was also a large group of 12 children in total. Normally we have six to eight and there's usually one of them left-handed, two at most.
Future tasks
LK: In your opinion, what else can be done to achieve greater acceptance for left-handed playing?
MvdL: I believe that it is really important to address this at an institutional level. When I see that a music school director has the right to forbid a colleague from teaching students left-handed, then there is something wrong with our system! We should create really clear guidelines at the institutional level, for example at the Association of German Music Schools. Publish this case and ask: “What is your position on this as the VdM? Is it your position that someone is allowed to do this?” That's definitely where I would start!
This girl then played left-handed and had private lessons with Fabian. But she wasn't even allowed to play in the children's orchestra at the first level! She wasn't allowed to play in any orchestra at the music school. An absolute no-go! Telling a 13-year-old girl: “You're wrong. You're not allowed to play here like that.” She doesn't understand the issue behind it and relates it to herself: “I'm wrong. What's wrong with me?” The girl was so burdened by this argument that she became ill and stopped playing the cello.
I think there is still far too little awareness at association level! I know of individual colleagues who are aware and open about this, but there is no general, binding solution. It should actually be a mandatory part of the training program for junior teachers to deal with this issue. That they have tried it out. That they know what it looks like when they see a left-hander playing the other way around. This image should simply be part of normality! That's why the students who have experienced it with me don't question it at all. Fabian wouldn't have thought to ask his boss if he was allowed to do that. He was completely shocked when he suddenly heard that he wasn't allowed to do it. That was unbelievable for him!
However, if this is really clarified at association level, that there is a code of conduct, that this is permitted and that it is also desirable in the music school orchestras that students who play inverted are allowed to participate, then I think you have a completely different point of view. So every VdM music school has to adhere to certain association rules.
LK: Yes, we will take up this idea. Some left-handed players are already in contact with the VdM and hopefully we can create clear principles and manners to support left-handed instrumental students and prevent discrimination against them.
Thank you for taking the time to share your great wealth of experience with us!
Photo credits: M. van der Linde (orechestra pictures), Linksgespielt / symbolic image (cello photo above)
Click here for interviews with professional musicians who play their instruments like the cello left-handed.
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