Left-Handed Pianos?

Many things were built primarily by and/or for right-handed people. IE: there's no such thing as a left-handed piano, violin? or pedal steel? (that I'm aware of anyway) And even though you can get a lot of left-handed things, the huge majority of items are either so common place we don't realize their utility direction, or they are universally centered/non-directional for either hand anyway. (Hammers, Staplers, Brooms and Rakes, etc.) How many things that have direction or 'handedness' have come to be that way is a mystery in some cases. Why are the majority-common 'right-handed' guitars so dependent on the left hand, yet so little in comparison on the right? (It actually makes more sense for pedal steel players to be right-handed.) I don't doubt any (Boogie-woogie) bass line on piano is easier for left-handers than right. Whether chording with the left hand calls for more dexterity than melody with the right probably depends on the complexity of the tune.

Anyway, the majority of the human species are right-handed (and left-brained), yet we also tend to believe that everyone's heart is on the left..... not so. There are a few, rare people that are 'backwards' internally and their heart is actually on the right. Literally all of these people are at least a twin, or are among the siblings of a multiple birth. The average person is usually aware of only two types of twins; Identical and Fraternal.... ones that look alike and ones that don't. However, there is a definite third type: Mirror Image Twins; ones that look alike, but are an exact reverse of each other..... and this is where the 'right-hearted' twin comes into the fray. (Take note that in reality, studies have identified at least seven other types of 'twins', such as Siamese or Conjoined.)

Twins can develop nearly exact asymmetric features in reverse, both external and internal. The term differentiates them from Identical in order to properly describe their opposite physical features. For example; One is right-handed and the other left, or each having a birthmark on the opposite side of their bodies, or even having hair whorls that swirl in opposite directions. In theory, if the twins faced each other, they would appear to be exact reflections of each other. About one-quarter of all identical twins are the mirror image type and just about all of them are internally reversed as well. Since twins commonly occur once in every 80 births, mirror image twins are about 1 in every 320 pregnancies. This equates to approximately .3125% of the world's population, which is currently at about 6.7 billion. Therefore, among us are some 20,937,500 people (about 21 million) who probably are "right-hearted". However, any of these calculations can vary drastically depending on the survival rates in different parts of the world.

Triplets occur about one in every 6,400 births, yet identical triplets only occur about once in every half million births. As the multiples increase, (quadruplets, quintuplets, sextuplets, etc.) the survival rate for all the babies plummets to near zero, no matter what part of the world it happens in. Quads (4) are very rare, quints (5) are extremely rare and six or more at a time are super-rare. Such calculations of occurrence result in geometrically exponential figures.... and when the rate of all surviving is included, this last instance is nearly zero. This means that the "1 in X" number is higher than the current population; being that "X" in the result exceeds 6.7 billion. When such an occurrence DOES happen and all survive, it is due to taking the estimated figures of the entire history of the world's population (over many thousands of years) into it. This calculation is so broad and varied in approximate guesses by experts that the huge figures are ridiculously indeterminable, like trying to come up with a number for all the planets around all the suns in all the galaxies of the entire universe. Ga-zillions?

The odd thing, (getting back to twins) is that a large number of single births grow up with the feeling that they are the 'surviving twin', with little or no evidence of a second fetus ever developing. This 'feeling' is probably due to the manner in which our cells split to create more cells AND, in the initial stages of this division, a second (or third, etc.) person. It is a totally unknown figure of how many single births were actually twins (or more) in their very earliest stages, but then somehow one fetus dominates and this literally eliminates any evidence of all the 'other possibilities'. As of yet, without any realistic figures and having no way of making such an undeterminable calculation, this occurrence can only be theorized.

Some notes about 'handedness' regarding travel, no matter it being pedestrian (walkways, doorways and stairs> IE: handrail placement), water craft (canals, rivers, lakes and oceans), land vehicles (trains, automobiles, trucks, bicycles and -with or without pulling a draft- animals) and all aircraft (except hot air balloons and rockets). The world-wide generality is approximately 1:2 for left and right 'drive', although there is a mix concerning "drive right, keep right" and "drive right, keep left" as well as visa-versa. (drive left, keep left & drive left, keep right) The term 'drive' being universal for walk, steer and fly. It all depends on what type of transport it is being applied to. The figures of 1:2 for 'left' and 'right' world-wide are not the same when mileage is taken into account for land vehicles on common highways and roads. This changes to a ratio of about 7:18, or roughly 1 to 2.57, focused mainly on 4 (or more) wheels on rubber-tired vehicles.

There is also a directional 'handedness' regarding the texts of different languages and it works both left and right as well as vertical and horizontal. Beginning at any one of the 4 corners, top left or right and bottom left or right, either one of the two remaining directions can go from there. A large part of the world reads such text from top left to the right and down. The rest all depend on that language's format.

Circular directions, (Vehicle rotaries, clocks, gears & windings such as scrolls or roll-ups (shades, maps and toilet paper or paper towels), have but 2 directions; these are either clock-wise (from the top to the right) or counter-clockwise (from the top to the left) and top-over or top-under, meaning from the top toward you or top away from you, assuming that the scrolls, rolls or shades are horizontal. Other than analog clocks, these 'directions' have the most significance in regard to vehicular traffic flow and, of course, screws. Whirlpools on the other hand, spin according to which side of the equator they are on. NOTE: I have no idea how they would spin ON the equator, nor at the poles which, in THAT case, would require warm, hot or some type of anti-freeze mixed in with the water in order to observe any spin direction at all.

In case anyone wonders, I'm a right-handed, left-hearted, left-eyed and left-brained person, which, by all accounts and as far as I know, is the most common arrangement of the human species. I have endeavored to post information that is, to the best of my knowledge, reasonably accurate. I do, however, have one difference from the 'norm' in that I draw a bow left-handed; Why? I have no clue, I just do, yet I write right-handed, play both guitar and shoot pool right-handed; although it matters not in the ambidextrous design and function of guitar picks and cue sticks.... LOL.

PS: Please leave a comment, pro or con. Please take the time to let me know if I have published a HUB that you have enjoyed reading. -TYVM!