Handedness in musicians: bimanual constraints on performance

Handedness in musicians was examined in terms of the relative roles of the hands in bimanual motor activity involved in instrumental performance. Musicians playing instruments requiring temporally integrated (e.g., strings and wood-winds), as opposed to independent (e.g., keyboard instruments), bimanual motor activity were found to exhibit weaker degrees of handedness. There were no significant differences between groups in direction of handedness. Results are interpreted in terms of greater bilateral hemispheric integration and control of fine motor movements among subjects exhibiting mixed-handedness.