Hands Across the City

(Please note that the schedule is in Barcelona time: UTC/GMT+02:00).

International Symposium

Hands Across the City: Musicians and Handedness in Urban Contexts

Date: 4th of June, 2026

Venue: Sala Tarot de Quinze, Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

(Abstracts for each presentation can be found at the end of the schedule).

Schedule:

10:00 Welcome from the Organising committee

10:15 Introduction to the Research Project Música y Ciudad: lugares, instituciones y encuentros desde la Revolución Industrial by Francesc Cortès (UAB)

Moderator: Gabrielle Kaufman (UAB)

10:45 Communication: Folk Songs for Inverted Guitar. Practice-based observations on playing guitar transcriptions ‘upside down’. Danica Hobden (HfMT Hamburg)

Moderator: Greg Gottlieb (UAB)

11:15 Communication Am I Right? Handedness questions in the classical guitar repertoire. Francesca Naibo (Siena Jazz University)

Moderator: to be confirmed

11:45 Coffee Break

12:15 Communication Maybe YOU’RE Playing Backwards. Laterality, identity and the case for the idiodextrous brain. Greg Gottlieb (UAB)

Moderator: Silvia Martinez (UAB)

12:45 Communication: ‘Left-handed’ instrumental play in Germany – from an artistic, educational and academic perspective, Laila Kirchner

Moderator: To be confirmed

13:15 Round table discussion (Francesca Naibo, Greg Gottlieb, Danica Hobden, Laila Kirchner + Lidia López Gómez) Navigating a right-hand-dominant profession: musicians share their experiences

Moderator: Gabrielle Kaufman

14:00 Lunch break

15:30 ”All hands on deck”: Interactive, participative activities (try playing an instrument backwards!) + open jam session

17:00 Wrap up

Abstracts

Am I Right? Handedness questions in the classical guitar repertoire.

The guitar has benefited from a high level of versatility in its form, portability and affordability. This has contributed to its wide spread around the world in the last centuries, and to the spontaneous rise of innovative technical approaches. Nevertheless, the classical guitar seems to be deeply grounded to the posture and technique of its tradition.

Through my research, I have analysed the concepts of symmetry and asymmetry in the relationship between the guitarist’s body and the instrument. The guitar’s affordances constituted the basis for a study on how guitarists and composers have intended different approaches to posture and technique, from historical 19th-century guitar methods to contemporary approaches.

Through this study, which connects the topics of symmetry and posture to handedness in classical guitar performances, a reflection on the act of flipping arises: does it have to refer to the instrument, the body of the performer or the general way of thinking the guitar?