Charlie Chaplin died 44 years ago. To this day he’s often the first person to name when it comes to left-handed violin playing. Chaplin was left-handed, holding the violin bow in the left hand. He had „great ambitions to be a concert artist“ and practiced four to six hours per day since the age of 16, attending violin lessons every week. His violin was strung left-handed, with both bass bar and sound post reversed. According to his own information, the cello he used to carry around served for posing better than playing. Unlike the violin his cello seems to be a right-handed instrument without anything reversed. That probably didn’t bother him as from the player’s point of view the strings on a right-handed cello are in the same order than on a left-handed violin.
Although he had to give up his goal of becoming a professional violinist, his musical performances in films like Limelight and The Vagabond contributed a lot to a wider visibility of left-handed instrument playing.
Picture: Dekkappai at en.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons