The late David Bowie (8 January 1947-10 January 2016) was a left-hander.  The world mourns his passing but left-handers are particularly saddened to lose one of their own distinguished musicians.  A newsletter oriented toward left-handers noted that Bowie’s creativity is characteristic of left-handers who make up 50% of groups of entertainers.  There is an idea that appears occasionally in the research literature that left-handers have a special talent for music.  However, 50% participation of left-handers in musical professions, given the average worldwide population percentage of about 11%, seemed to me to be an overly high estimate.

I examined whether or not left-handers have higher than expected rates of participation among musicians by looking at guitar players inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH.  I live near Cleveland and have visited the Rock Hall many times. Rock musicians become eligible for induction into the Rock Hall of Fame 25 years after the release of their first recording. Rock Hall inductees represent musicians recognized for excellence and for their musical influence extending over many years. They are a good group to study for this purpose. I looked at photos and videos of rock guitarists inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame between 1986, the first year of inductees, and 1996, when David Bowie was inducted (see http://rockhall.com/inductees/).

I looked at the guitar playing positions of 64, all male, inductees over this period. These musicians included both individual performers like Chuck Berry and Bob Marley and members of rock bands like the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead.  Of these, I saw only 2, Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendricks, playing the guitar in the left-hand position with the neck of the guitar on the right shoulder and the left hand strumming the strings.

Some left-handers play guitar in the right-handed position with the guitar neck on the left shoulder and the right hand strumming the strings.  Photos show David Bowie writing with his left hand but he played the guitar in the right-handed position.  One claim is that 50% of left-handers play the guitar in the right-handed position (see http://www.michaelmurrayguitar.com/LeftHanded.htm).  In the group of Rock Hall inductees I examined, there are 2 more left-handers, Paul Simon and Duane Allman, besides David Bowie who play(ed) guitar as right-handers. Since this group of 64 musicians is all male, one expects, based on population percentages, 8 (13%) of them to be left-handed.  If 50% of them play the guitar as right-handers, then the finding of 5 left-handers (Hendrix, McCartney, Bowie, Simon and Allman…and I may have missed a few) supports the idea that rates of left-handedness among guitar-playing musicians inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame is about the same as in the general population. Among this group of musicians at least, the number of left-handers does not come close to an estimated 50% participation rate.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees notwithstanding, there are plenty of left-handed guitarists, many playing with altered right-handed guitars or with readily available left-handed guitars.  For a list of left-handed musicians see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_musicians_who_play_left-handed and for information about playing right- or left-handed guitars see http://leftyfretz.com/should-i-learn-guitar-right-or-left-handed.  Now, here is a tribute to David Bowie.