Hello everyone.
I apologize for my bad english. I’m playing guitar for a long time and I just started shamisen 1 month ago. I’m left-handed, but my teacher (I’m in Japan for now) is very adamant : forbidden to play left (he lends me a shamisen). So to please him I started to play right-handed. In three months I will leave Japan and buy a shamisen (probably nagauta). I’d like your opinion : should I get back to the left ( whereI’m naturally more at ease as with the guitar, or should I try to improve myself right, allowing me to buy a standard shamisen and without trouble with sawari. But it may be much longer, my left hand on the handle is often completely frozen. So lefties can you tell me about your experiences. Will the problem be resolved with pactice ? Thank you and congratulations for this site.
Hi Patrick,
Shamisen is supposed to fun! Handling the bachi is a very difficult thing to do, let alone trying to it with the wrong hand! If you buy a nagauta shamisen the sawari is simply made by the first string buzzing against the wood, the other two are raised up by a small piece of metal, you could just remove this and make your own little metal bar (can’t remember the name) and glue it on, or turn the original one around. Mine actually fell off my nagauta shamisen anyway so it’s not a major repair. I could be wrong but the only thing after that would be the tuning pegs being on the wrong side, but that is purely cosmetic. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong here, I just think you shouldn’t force yourself Patrick, you can damage your body and there’s no real need to.
Hi Patrick!
Welcome to Bachido! 
It seems classical musicians, as well as many school-trained pros all have been drilled with the notion that they must play with the right hand. I think it mostly comes from the point of view of playing in an orchestra. I mean, with a dozen violin bows going in one direction, you can’t have one singe bow going the other direction, eh? 
So, for an orchestra, that makes total sense. However, those classically trained in music take that idea too far.
My family firmly believes that music is for expression, and so should be played with your ‘soul hand’. Instruments can be a struggle enough, playing with your unnatural hand doesn’t help fluency. This is our feeling for the instruments we teach at toneway.com (mandolin, guitar, banjo, fiddle, etc), but it would especially apply to shamisen even more, because as Liam says, you can damage your hand.
A real example would be my friend Dimitris, a greek shamisen player who competes in Japan every year. As you can see, he plays left handed.
So bottom line, listen to your soul hand!
Thank you for your kind answers. I will not upset my teacher now, but knowing that I can play left when I have my own shamisen, it gives me courage. And what I am learning now will help me later anyway . As Liam says, It seems quite easy to reverse the strings as there is no sawary in a nagauta shamisen (by the way how did Dimitris settle the problem with a tsugaru one ?). Thank you again.
Good stuff!
Ah, your shamisen should actually still have the sawari style buzz because the ichi no ito touches against the wood. Fortunately, the kamigoma (nut) of a nagauta shamisen is thin and thus could be modified to move to the other side, allowing the ichi no ito to buzz when restrung.
Dimitris had the sawari installed on the other side of his shamisen. He is also an instrument maker in Greece, so he may have done it himself.
Ha (and sorry for the off topic, Patrick although I agree with the soul hand thing) I am not surprised at all you Kyle guy would choose this objectively awesome picture I had already noticed on facebook as your new avatar pic . . . (a chick magnet for sure and this of course is obviously a slightly whiskey enhanced friday night post in the good ol’ tradition of drunken senior bachido members)
what else yes I noticed on facebook another great image and have suggested there somewhere that it would be great to have some glamorous (shamisen) photo and wallpaper poster ready gallery being launched at bachido I mean with pictures like this or even just that one picture for starters that would already be far beyond alright I would reckon . . .
another taxi story before I will have a delicious mcdonalds to go meal under the influence and potentially fall asleep watching “flight” looking forward to the airpower airshow next weekend maybe?
okay with big dispatch company dropping its very last car I had the honour of driving I will be unemployed starting July 1 (vacation yeah) but all the more I feel blessed for that in the second to last week in which I would take any potential future taxi driving seriously . . . yes indeed I have been blessed with a naked and good looking customer . . . a McDonalds delivery 2 cheesburgers and some other stuff and a small sprite . . . destination lagergasse 126 (a local brothel) and she opens the door “oh I so have been waiting for it” without any clothes on . . . don’t get me wrong but what a refreshing change among the grumpy old ladies and grocery bags we usually get to driving usualy throughout the day . . . as a taxi driver considering old ladies and drunken I mean seriously drunken idiots we get to drive more often than one would wish for I could almost die happy now
(die laughing - therapy) shamisen cover anyone?
“I will kill for a good night sleep” the (even for a day driver taxi driver’s motto considering long daytime working hours . . .
Drunken BH: I’ve gotta say, the last pic I had (red shirt) was very spontaneous, (back stage at a Japan tsunami relief concert) and it turned out so well I swore I wouldn’t change it.
Well, with an equal level of spontaneaety, along came it’s replacement! I was unimpressed when I saw the original, but when my friend switched it to black and white, my jaw dropped. (Ironic, as I’m not usually a fan of B/W shots)
Ah yes yes yes!!! I did have plans for a gallery when Luke and I were first designing Bachido (maybe that idea turned into the front page slideshow?). He may have said, “just put 'em on a flickr page” but I’ll have to ask him again when he gets back.
I’m already covering Red Light in My Eyes You should cover it on your sem!
(Children of Bodom - Red Light In My Eyes - Pt. 1 - YouTube)
Man, sorry Patrick, this has gone waaay off topic.
Ha! I shall cover it on an actual shamisen . . . although I might also give it the name sem
I would suggest creating in house galleries for the user submitted pictures also featured in the startpage slider AND another pictures section with shamisen wallpapers that are jaw dropping poster quality style like the one I included in my post above . . .
wallpaper section could be started with one picture without looking bad I think and for the community section there are already more pictures so yeah would be cool whenever you or Luke could find the time for doing that
(yes sorry Patrick I can only say in my defense that I thought the original thread topic was pretty much resolved already so I did this small talk post here)
BH daijoubu !
arigato . . .
Hi! I am left handed, and I comes from a “classic” point of view, so I can give you and all this point of view.
at first, my violin teacher tells me that I cant play violin as a left handed ( because the orchesta thing kyle tolds in his first post) And that really upsets me. but later, I take it like a self improvement. I have to make more effort at first, so its like to be a very high mountain to climb, but you will like what you see from the top when you reach it…
now I am so happy to reach that top, and play violin as a right handed with solture.
Anyway, as kyle told, this is another path, and its good to take the path you like, but please try it as right handed for a time…perhaps you will be proud of this efford in the future
Thanks you for your answer, Paco. I have a question : would it be the same answer if you had played 30 years left handed violin before changing side ? It’s a bit what happens to me because I played guitar for over 30 years left handed ! Isn’t he mountain even more difficult to climb ? Anyway as you suggest, I will play right handed (as I have no choice for the moment) and I will decide later when I have my own shamisen.
Yeah that´s a good point, it is not the same. But think about this:
You will play as left handed if your teacher didnt say that you play as right handed. You have the opportunity to try and amace yourself if you can, with time, play as a right handed!
Of course it is different in your case, but you need to se that you have a very good opportunuty to self improve! usually we give to ourselves peeks to climb that we know we can reach. Buy in this case, you have another point of view.
As I see you have no choice… do that something that its bad becomes a good thing. Make it as a self improvement test. I make this change on my mind and later, when the years past, I see I take a good path.
Anyway, music its soooo subjetive! I follow that path, and really becomes my good choice. My path does not have to be yours.
I hope I helped you a bit
Of course you helped. Thanks again.
Nice!
I forget one thing: we are left handed but to play an instrument, we use both hands For me in violin (and shamisen) means I have a quick left hand, thing that a right handed doesn´t have (but of course, a worst arc). To play an instrument, right or left handed we need both hands, its another thing I used to think when I was starting to play.
All right !!! Drunken BH taxi stories! My day just got a whole lot more interesting!
Not to leave out the topic from Patrick and everyone else’s commentary… I was just excited to get more stories from BH. It seems like its been a while!
True, it’s been a while since we had a drunk BH story! That’s why we love you!
Let me ask you this though, was your naked customer a grumpy old woman?
To continue the wild string of tangents (sorry Paco and Patrick!), man, for some reason I’ve been really enjoying CoB’s covers of pop songs. I figured some might get a kick out of this. Sleeping in My Car by Roxette, covered by the Bodom Children.
