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Lefties: What do you gain?

#41
the OP topic was what do you gain being a lefty, and I think most said it right, you gain nothing except headaches when you want badly to get into a poser band and everybody just HAS to point the same way so you don't even audition, or when your looking for just 1 nice guitar in the sea of rightys, but beyond that everything's still the same, technique/tone --- IMO nothing is gained.;)
 
#42
Now I know we've sorta done this to death, but I thought I'd share someconversations I had with some guys a year or two ago...

A friend had a business opportunity with his guitar teacher and they asked my advice. We ended up discussing the fact that I was a right handed guy playing left handed bass and the teacher said..."STOP NOW. Re learn to play your natural way and you will be twice the guitarist/bassist you will otherwise be". He explained he had convinced an student of his to do this - the guy struggled for a year (to "unlearn") and then broke through...but I thought "this guy is a fantastic player/teacher but probably knows Jack about human physiology etc but I'll let it slide"

So I told this to my son a couple of days later. He was taught guitar performance by Dave Kilminster at ACM Guildford (Europe's premier - at least at the time - rock school). Dave is a mean guitarist, who has played alongside Kieth Emerson in post ELP days and "duels" with Emo, copying his keyboard licks on guitar. My son told me that Fave was originally a great left handed guitarist...but retrained to play right handed after injuring his wrist in a karting accident!!!

I think this more than anything tells it for me...you either love music enough to work at it long and hard to become good...or you don't. Put in the hours, you'll get the rewards.

;-)
 
#44
I am left-handed,too.When I played baseball,I was a switch-hitter.When I go bowling,I can bowl right,or left-handed.I write left-handed.But,when it came to playing bass??Right-handed seemed the most natural way to play,to me.Maybe because I was always around right-handed players,and seeing them on TV,and such.But,I can pick up a lefty bass and play simple rock grooves and runs left-handed,no problem.But,don't ask me to slap on one!I have NO coordination when it come to doing that as a lefty,for some reason.Another thing I do left-handed,er...Nevermind.
 
#46
JoelEoM said:
like i said, it makes sense to me that way. i think righties playing right are the ones who have it backwards. pretty much the only thing i actually do left-handed is write. you're partly right about availability, but i viewed that as a bonus, and it wasnt a deciding factor when i learned to play


i now see that was probably meant for the OP, but it still applies.
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I'm in agreement here too. I bat, golf, bowl, play guitar, cello, bass, saxophone, piano all right handed. The only other thing I do lefty other than right is cut with my knives at work. But here the kicker, I use a knife in my right hand at the dinner table, *** does that mean. Too me it really seems silly to have a guitarist hold pick in their right hand and fuble about for years trying to coordinated their left hand with the right (dominant) hand that only has to hold one thing.
 
#47
There has been research done on this fellas. I read an article as it related to classical guitar. Basically you want your dominant hand doing most of the fine motor skills, and that would be plucking/picking strings. The off dominant hand is basically pushing buttons the study found.

Lefties have to be somewhat ambidextrious in our world, so most can go either way with some competency. However, the study concluded that your ceiling is higher if you use your dominant hand for picking/plucking. I saved that thing somewhere. Will look for it and post if I find it.
 
#48
The thing I'm unclear about is how plucking is more intricate than fretting.

I have a left-handed friend who is strongly a lefty in the sense that he almost can't use his right hand at all. He jokes that it's his T-rex hand because it's so gimpy. Most of the rest of the people I know, and *especially* the lefties given that it's mostly a rightie's world, have varying degrees of ambidexterity. So I'm still unclear why a certain hand dominance necessitates a certain type of motion.

I realize I may never "get" it, but I sure have enjoyed reading the different responses!
 
#50
derekd said:
There has been research done on this fellas. I read an article as it related to classical guitar. Basically you want your dominant hand doing most of the fine motor skills, and that would be plucking/picking strings. The off dominant hand is basically pushing buttons the study found.

Lefties have to be somewhat ambidextrious in our world, so most can go either way with some competency. However, the study concluded that your ceiling is higher if you use your dominant hand for picking/plucking. I saved that thing somewhere. Will look for it and post if I find it.
Click to expand...

Your ceiling is higer, but I have a ladder:D
 
#51
Besides, there aren't many left handed violinist, cellists, etc. playing orchestral music.
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There might be, they just play right handed :)
And I've never heard of a left-handed piano...
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I read somewhere that Joe Zawinul, when he played with Weather Report would setup two keyboards in such an arrangement that he could play each with one hand. The one for the left hand was programmed with the keys in reverse, bass notes on the right.

I'm a lefty and play right, probably because I fiddled around with a J45 Gibson that was in the house when I was a boy. I have wondered if my plucking technique would be improved were I to play a left handed instrument - not enough to do anything about it though.
 
#52
aikakone said:
I also wonder (yes, more cans full of more worms) why or how "leftie" instruments came about as it seems a popular music thing and not in classical music.
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You don't have to look abroad (from the Finnish viewpoint) to find classical musicans playing left-handed instruments: for example (I've heard that) cellist Karoly Garam does that. And it is quite logical: many cello players say that the bow hand is much harder to control than the "fretting" hand, and at some point it would just be no use to try and make the wrong hand better than the main hand could be.

I'm a leftie that plays right-handed, by the way. But having never played left-handed*, I can't comment on the real topic.

*except one song on one gig, long ago... no comments on that :ninja:
 
#53
An instrument is a tool used in order to play music. While making music I want to be closest to the actual music instead of first needing to think about how to play the actual instrument. Just like any tool you use it with the hand that feels most natural.

I am left handed and the natural position and playing style assumed by me was left handed.Sure I could learn to play it right handed, but that would mean playing with my brain first instead of with my heart because i have to interpret the instrument in an unnatural way.

Playing the way that feels right just removes an obstacle. That's what i gain.
 
#54
The problem with trying to play right handed if you're left handed is that in general your main hand is better at keeping rythym. My friend (my band's guitarist) thinks that companys should just make right-handed instruments to save themself hassle. Cue long argument about how he wouldn't know how to play left handed so he can't talk about it.
 
#55
Lifelong lefty player and teacher for almost 30 years. This topic is close to my heart, so please excuse me if I chime in. After reading all the contributions to this debate it occurs to me that generally speaking the most sense has been talked by the people in the best position to understand lefthandedness as an idea (take a wild guess about who that is, guys). Most of the shortsighted and/or uninformed debate has been perpetrated by people who don't just don't seem to get it (again, take a wild guess...).

Hopefully this will shine a little light into the gloom:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-handedness



Re: comments about left handed classical instruments,anybody wanna check out (for example) this link?

http://lefthandedpiano.co.uk/
 
#57
+1 to the mention of availability.

When some people start off, either they don't know the difference or they receive an instrument as a gift. With this mentality, it seems only natural that whatever you start off with, since there is no room for conparison, is what you will end up playing. Of the several music stores in my area, only one will special order lefty instruments. The rest don't even think of selling them.

I'm a lefty gone right, and my big reason behind this was that if i ever borrowed or bought a bass, more likely than not it would be a right handed bass.
 
#58
leftybassman392 said:
Re: comments about left handed classical instruments,anybody wanna check out (for example) this link?

http://lefthandedpiano.co.uk/
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Left-handed classical strings do exist as well, however rare. Some luthiers are willing to do a custom build, or at the very least convert a righty (at the sacrifice of tone).

Much unpitched percussion is either not specific or easy enough to arrange left-handed (drums and timpani, for example). I have never seen left-handed pitched percussion (like a vibraphone or a glockenspiel) but I don't see why it couldn't be feasible.

Now as for woodwinds, I have no idea.
 

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