Rhythm “handedness”?

[SteveCS]

...
If you hit the notes in time, then I see no problem.

The point is if you hit the note in perfect time with your right hand but your left hand is late making the stop you get a flub, and if you hit the note in perfect time with your right but your left hand is early making the stop you get an unintended acciaccatura (or dead air and rhythmic 'disturbance' caused by cutting the previous note short). As tempo increases and the timing discrepancies approach the intended note durations you end up making no sound whatsoever.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

I am right-handed so I pick/pluck with my right hand. I recently realized that my right hand’s rhythm is much better than my left hand’s. By this I mean if I tap along with a song with my right hand, the tap “disappears” into the music because my tapping is rhythmically pretty accurate. But if tap with my left hand, I can hear “flamming” or inaccuracy between the music and my tapping.

So… I have some questions:
- Do other people experience this?
- Is it because I am right handed, or because of the rhythmic training my plucking hand gets?
- Is there any possible benefit to training my left side to have better rhythm?

I'm cross-dominant (my wife thinks I might actually be left-handed, but I'm not convinced). Different high dexterity tasks use different hands for me. I write right-handed as we used to have being left-handed beaten out of us, more-or-less. I'm right-hand lead on keyboard instruments. There's a fair bit of left-handedness or ambidexterity in the family, about double the usual percentage.

I haven't done African drumming for a while, but my preference was left hand lead, but I could play either handedness which used to annoy the band leader as sometimes I'd swap back and forth multiple times during a piece. Even though it's been a while, if I visualise playing, it's with a left-hand lead.

For me, rhythmically, handedness doesn't matter, but I tap my left foot to keep rhythm, be it with bass of a djembe. That's convenient as given I play bass right-handed, I jiggle it less that way.

Anyway, it works for me.

But getting back to the point, I'm pretty sure that unless you are super right-handed you should be able to learn greater left hand facility. Recommendations I've had include doing tasks with your off hand where that doesn't compromise safety, like chopping vegetables, as well as specific rhythmic training.

 

[wiscoaster]

It's natural because you're right-handed dominant. You can retrain yourself. When I started playing bass I had to learn to retrain my left hand so I could move the fingers on that hand independently from each other and also independently from my right hand fingers.

I think for most people, at least those past a certain age whose muscle memory is pretty well set, it takes a conscious effort to get your appendages to do something different than they're used to doing.

 

[scott sinner]

What an interesting metacognitive exercise for someone identified as ambidextrous as a kid.

Ya, I'm never experienced anything like this.

I do most things right now and that's pushed my achievement for common things very right handed. But novel activities, it absolutely doesn't matter. And I adapt very quickly, like I had a gf for many years that was a lefty and I'd use our shared desktop at home with the mouse on the left no problem, even precise and fast gaming. Go to work and I'd be right, never would even register as a mental thing beyond my pre-coffee occasional reach for the wrong spot.

My anomalous self aside, I presume, as others suggest, that this relative aptitude can be overcome by practice.

 

[bwildt]

There are a lot of daily tasks I vaguely recall being difficult to perform "orthodox" at some point in time (scissors, can openers, etc.), but after a lot of time doing things right-handed, trying to do them left handed would be awkward at this point.

Lefty, here, plays righty. I think training and repetition can overcome handedness in most cases. I do a lot of things right-handed because 1) left-handed tools were unavailable or I did not know about them. 2) The person who taught me was right-handed. After a while, it becomes natural.

I play guitar right. I use right-handed scissors in my right hand. I use a computer mouse with my right hand. In baseball, I throw left (my dad was left-handed and there were only left-handed gloves at the house), but I bat right, because that is what all my friends did. My golf swing is right, although I don't play. I write lefty.

All the things I do right-handed feel natural at this point. I am very glad I learned guitar/bass right-handed. The book showed right-handed and I never even entertained the thought that there were left-handed guitars. Playing righty widened my choice of available instruments.

 

[smeet]

How does your timing feel if you play a line just with the left hand, i.e. tapping and hammer-on/pull-off?

My rhythm is solid for hammer-on/pull-off. I played violin for many years, and there are similarities there with the stick, since there are a lot of slurs and no plucking.

I don't do much tapping, except when I need to go one-handed to adjust my amp or whatever. I played Elephant Talk in a band years ago, and that seemed to feel fine.

Generally I like to keep my sides equal if I can. I try to throw and shave with my left hand when I can.

Bodies and minds and nervous systems are weird.

 

[SteveCS]

...
and there are similarities there with the stick
...

It was the Stick that helped me get both hands in sync. More to the point, perhaps, is that playing the Stick really shone the spotlight on any asychronicity and what to do about it.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Lefty, here, plays righty. I think training and repetition can overcome handedness in most cases. I do a lot of things right-handed because 1) left-handed tools were unavailable or I did not know about them. 2) The person who taught me was right-handed. After a while, it becomes natural.

I play guitar right. I use right-handed scissors in my right hand. I use a computer mouse with my right hand. In baseball, I throw left (my dad was left-handed and there were only left-handed gloves at the house), but I bat right, because that is what all my friends did. My golf swing is right, although I don't play. I write lefty.

All the things I do right-handed feel natural at this point. I am very glad I learned guitar/bass right-handed. The book showed right-handed and I never even entertained the thought that there were left-handed guitars. Playing righty widened my choice of available instruments.

I use the mouse with my left. I wear a watch on my right wrist as when I started wearing one at ten is was easier for me to put the strap on using my left hand to manipulate it than vice versa.

I can use a drum kit (inexpertly) either way round, but my preference is a mix of left and right styles. I'm not sure if that facility is because I could do that naturally or because I might have used my 'off' hand sufficiently since I was young that I've developed it. If the latter, then the OP should be able to improve cross-hand rhythm.