Charging more for left handed models.

[Clef_de_fa]

Would that make most pianos left handed? Actually, how is it that rhythm is not seen as being expressed through both hands. They need to be in sync.

Most piano player I saw ( Classical and Jazz ) use both hand equally and their hand are somewhat independant to make bliztering melody or when they comp they spread the chord for both hand.

I think that being right or left handed have an impact when you play a stringed instrument otherwise it just doesn't matter.

 

[khutch]

As for being extremely stubborn, your fretting logic would suggest that 90 percent of all guitarists (right handed players) are playing their instruments the wrong way round and would be advised to change.

Yes and no. As a righty I do believe that we may all be playing the wrong way. As someone who has potentially played the wrong way for years I am not about to change or to suggest that others in the same position should change. I am suggesting to leftys just starting out that they consider learning a "right handed" instrument, simply because if that works well for them they will have a much better selection of instruments throughout their lives. I have no idea how much better a bassist I might have been if I had chosen to finger notes with my strong, agile, precise right hand.

Ultimately I am not sure that it makes a great difference which is another reason to suggest that we all play "right handed" basses. When I play my clarinet, as with many other instruments, both hands have to be equally strong, agile, precise, and rhythmically accurate. There has never been a time when I felt I could be a better clarinetist if only I had two right hands, never. French horn players do all their note fingering work with their left hands. The right hand plays a very important role in shaping the tone and pitch of notes but all the precise work, rhythm included is done with the left hand. Keyboard players, drummers, ... there is actually a considerable body of experience that suggests that musical tasks are less hand centric than other tasks so those just starting out should consider their options. And one of the most common human activities of all is the same: walking/running. Both legs do the same things equally well. Us old hands are locked into what we have always done but that should not deter a newbie. All that and you save money besides!

Ken

 

[TheOnlyJuan]

I am glad that you brought that up Ken. The bass is definitely not my first instrument. I have played piano and in point of fact hand dominance does not play a role here as both hands have to be precise to bring from those hand some semblance of music. I also learned to play conga. Here is where I separated from the norm. I tried my damndest to play right hand dominant players do and I could never get it. The friend teaching me said let's try switching the two drums around. No sooner had he done that than I was more comfortable and able to learn a lot faster. I can understand why some lefties want to play that way if in fact they ever tried playing righty. I was fortunate in that when I was learning to play a guitar as a child I was encouraged to play righty. One, there were no left handed guitars in the class so there really was no choice and two, when I decided to learn how to play the bass I asked myself if I wanted to learn left or right handed. Ultimately only you know what is best for you. The market for lefty basses is still significantly smaller but there is one out there. That was not the case back in the mid-seventies.
I must also agree with Ken in that you do save a ton of money on bass purchases and the selection is infinitely more than left handed basses.

One down side to playing righty (if you want to call it that) is that because there is such a huge selection of basses that a righty is more apt to develop GAS as would a lefty. What I am saying is that in terms of savings, lefties in the long run will save money. Sounds crazy or stupid or whatever you want to call it but think about it...

 

[Ele Basses]

Being right or left handed is sort of a tendency, not an absolute limitation. I play bass and flute and the left hand has always a more complicated job to do, but once you start learning the technique, you forget that you are righty or lefty.

 

[TheOnlyJuan]

Being right or left handed is sort of a tendency, not an absolute limitation. I play bass and flute and the left hand has always a more complicated job to do, but once you start learning the technique, you forget that you are righty or lefty.

+1

 

[Ele Basses]

About the 15% overcharge for a lefty, when you use tuners like the ones in Fodera, they are not left or right tuner, so they cost the same. And if you are using CNC for the woodwork, no extra cost in mirroring the tool path. If you do it by hand like me, there is no difficulty in mirroring a template. I think in the case of boutique basses, the lefty overcharge must have other causes, it has nothing to do with production issues.

 

[Ian the bassist]

i dunno if i buy into that. Jimi Hendrix (my favorite guitarist of all time) was actually right handed and he played lefty, which is the reverse of what you're saying.

i'm left handed and play right handed (and not because i was told to). IMO, i think that i'd play the same if i would've started out playing lefty. to me, it's more in the head than it is in the hands. ymmv.

I'm pretty sure he was ambi-dexterious. As far as I know, Jimi's Dad was a believer that left handed ways of doing things were wrong(or the devils work) so he wrote with his right hand and used a fork with his right hand. But the likes of guitar and pitching he used his left hand. Not sure now that you mention it. Although there are people who are right handed and do things left handed. My mother holds a guitar and snooker que lefty even though she's a righty.

 

[johnk_10]

i guess what i was trying to say is that, IMO, there really is no advantage one way over the other, since, also IMO, both hands are equally important, and have to be in perfect sync with each other.

 

[XC077]

i guess what i was trying to say is that, IMO, there really is no advantage one way over the other, since, also IMO, both hands are equally important, and have to be in perfect sync with each other.

That's kind of where I ended up.

Trying to determine which 'handed' bass you are actually playing is probably an arbitrary decision made long ago and lost to history. It is ,after all, a 50/50 chance/choice.

If the dominant handed is granted superior control/rhythm. Are you sacrificing quality with whatever you assign to the other hand? They both have high levels of coordination required of them. I switched from right to left 2 years in. Somethings are better and some things I'm sure are not, but not always with the same hand and in the same way. They both had strengths and weaknesses. The issue with handedness is not as black and white as it seems.

 

[Southpaw5]

If nobody told you to learn righty, it's ignorance. If someone told you, and you ignored them, you're at the very least extremely stubborn. There are no advantages to being a left handed guitarist. You completely ignored my fretting hand logic, as most lefties do, because of stubbornness.

Being left handed is the way your brain is wired, you can force it the other way but it doesn't feel right. Maybe life is easier if your straight as opposed to gay too :scowl:

There may be financial reason for the pricing but your logic here is painting a sad little picture

 

[fraublugher]

Play right-handed at gigs and charge extra.
problem solved

 

[carl h.]

Being left handed is the way your brain is wired, you can force it the other way but it doesn't feel right. Maybe life is easier if your straight as opposed to gay too :scowl:

There may be financial reason for the pricing but your logic here is painting a sad little picture

Are you really equating being left handed with being gay?

 

[darkstorm]

It is sad that companies like Ibanez, ESP Ltd, BC Rich, etc dont make more lefties. But really each company should offer 2-3 leftys at least at same cost as the rightys. If I had a bass and guitar making company Id do that. And for any custom made Id not charge extra. No reason to. Factory bought bridges can have saddles moved about to make lefty. Same tuners can be used as for rightys. It just be std for lefties and reverse for rightys for inline headstock. And no change needed for 2x2 and 3x3 headstock.

 

[Southpaw5]

Are you really equating being left handed with being gay?

No, I'm equating two thing you are born with and which changing woudl be unnatural, it was hyperbole. Look at context of the post next time, he was stating that left handed people who don't just conform are being stubborn.

and for the record, I'm left handed (see avatar) and chose to play righty to use my dominant hand for fretting.

 

[paste]

Yeah, learning lefty is stupid IMO. there's a time to rebel and then there's a time to realize you're just being an idiot. I write with my left hand and am left side dominant in nearly everything save hockey and batting. So it made sense to grab the guitar and use my MOST COORDINATED hand to do the HARDEST JOB, the fretting. I'm sorry if i seem rude but i argued with one of my buddies who is learning guitar for literally days about learning guitar right handed. He was a lefty and said it didn't make any sense, then i explained my theory. He looked dumfounded and then claimed being a lefty just "felt right". His loss, in an attempt to be cool he's lost out on serious selection and dollars. smart move for something you can easily adapt either hand to do as you have no previous experience with the motor skills necessary to play guitar.

 

[Immigrant]

Sheesh. This never ending argument continues, but is morphing.

Larger guitar companies have the right to charge extra for left-hand models, but they shouldn't. Taking a $30-$50 hit on a few instruments isn't going to break them. It's greed-based when it comes to mass producers.

I remember the nuns at Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering School had a harder time NOT teaching the lefties to write right-handed when they decided to stop it.

 

[PotsdamBass8]

This thread is going in a dark direction....

I think that because of the nature of the bass instrument business, we get used to and expect dollar amounts to be directly linked to value of parts used.

If you look at brass instruments, the cost of the raw materials between a $1000 instrument and an $8000 instrument is minimal. It's the craftsmanship that you pay for. And it is worth it, for those at the top level of playing.

If it takes longer to make a semi custom instrument (as a Fodera employee stated), then I think it warrants the up charge.

If you disagree, then were you really going to buy that bass?

 

[DaDrew2112]

he was stating that left handed people who don't just conform are being stubborn and for the record, I'm left handed (see avatar) and chose to play righty to use my dominant hand for fretting.

You just did what i suggested to my friend...didn't you? It's not as though the fine motor skills required to play guitar are built in from the start. Guitar feels awkward for a while, whichever way you play it. Honestly, righties are the one's doing it wrong IMHO lefties should be grateful they use their dominant hand for fretting. I truly believe the only reason someone would start playing lefty is because that's what the guitar is claimed to be: a guitar for lefties. In reality, i don't believe that's the case.

 

[BBox Bass]

My advice to new guitarists and bassists is play how you want, but be aware of the consequences of your decision. In general, the world isn't going to change drastically for the small percentage of us who do things differently.

I'm mostly a lefthander except when it comes to bowling, swinging bats, and golfing (I'm not really into sports, so those things don't play much of a role in my life). I clearly recall the day when I started playing trumpet in the 5th grade and the band director saw me holding the instrument left-handed and said "You can't play it that way". I said okay, and switched to righty without giving it much thought. Two years later, I took up French horn and played it lefty because there's no other way to do it. Again, I didn't think much about it. When I started taking guitar lessons two years after that, I followed what everyone else in the class was doing and played righty. To this day, my right hand is still dumber than my left, but I manage. When I played guitar in a folk duo with a fiddler a few years ago, he once remarked that my right hand looked like it was in pain, yet my strumming sounded fine to his ears and he couldn't figure out how I did it. I think that unless you're completely ambidextrous, one hand always works harder than other and you just have to figure out how to deal with it.

My personal bass weakness involves picks. Fingerstyle has never been a problem, but when I hold a pick, I feel like I have to squeeze it to death or I'm going to drop it. The fiddler taught me how to hold a pick comfortably to play guitar, but it doesn't work for bass. As a result, I mostly play with my fingers and I'm okay with that.

 

[paste]

You just did what i suggested to my friend...didn't you? It's not as though the fine motor skills required to play guitar are built in from the start. Guitar feels awkward for a while, whichever way you play it. Honestly, righties are the one's doing it wrong IMHO lefties should be grateful they use their dominant hand for fretting. I truly believe the only reason someone would start playing lefty is because that's what the guitar is claimed to be: a guitar for lefties. In reality, i don't believe that's the case.

This hased to be one of the most ignorant posts ive read in a while. You do realise a left handed person feels "natural" fretting with there right hand, as a right handed person feels "natural" fretting with there left hand. It has nothing to do with placebo like you claim, but how people are just wired.