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playing upside down.
- Thread starter eSmith
- Start date
There's actually a lot of folks (many professionals too) who play this way. Al Jarreau had 2 different bassists (Chris Walker & Stan Sargent), both who played lefty upside down.
Really, it's an advantage as far as finding your own unique style. Some movements will come natural to you that would be difficult or impossible to play in regular fashion.
Seems like you could let the open E and A string ring while playing on top of them a whole easier.
Its ok to be envious of us....you righties are only human afterall
I AM a lefty.. just a normal one
Check out the video for "Breakfest at Tiffinays". I think that guy played that way also. And it was a Music Man.
I used to know a guy around Dallas named J.D. Haight who played like that, a conventionally-strung bass flipped over. He was left-handed and had just learned to play that way because lefty instruments were rare.
So some very conventional & easy slap-and-pop lines were difficult or impossible for him to play, yet conversely he could write bass lines that were physically impossible to play using conventional position. It was also *very* difficult for me to look at his fingers and understand what he was playing. Watching someone play righty is easy, watching someone play lefty is no problem, but playing lefty and upside was just more than my brain could compensate for on-the-fly.
So some very conventional & easy slap-and-pop lines were difficult or impossible for him to play, yet conversely he could write bass lines that were physically impossible to play using conventional position. It was also *very* difficult for me to look at his fingers and understand what he was playing. Watching someone play righty is easy, watching someone play lefty is no problem, but playing lefty and upside was just more than my brain could compensate for on-the-fly.
Thanks for the info guys, I guess it is not as uncommon as I thought it might be. It does look weird but I guess there is no way to tell if your eyes are closed.
I think for a beginner it would be a challenge because you couldn't just look at standard fingerings for scales and I guess have to kind of figure out your own. I guess unless your ready to rewrite it all, Tab is useless also.
However, pitch is still pitch so if you learned where all the notes were, you could still read standard notation.
-eSmith.
I think for a beginner it would be a challenge because you couldn't just look at standard fingerings for scales and I guess have to kind of figure out your own. I guess unless your ready to rewrite it all, Tab is useless also.
However, pitch is still pitch so if you learned where all the notes were, you could still read standard notation.
-eSmith.
I want to see the one instance where a righty player only had a lefty to learn on and just ran with it.
Nah. I learned to play DB "backwards" using the regular Simandl book, the standard fingerings and positions work just fine. It's not really a big deal, except for I guess slap and pop.
I'm actually right-handed, but I learned to play lefty by accident/mistake years ago when I started on guitar. Hey, it was symmetrical, how I was supposed to know?
All that counts in the end is the sound. I think there's something to be said for playing an instrument in an unconventional way. It may keep you from being able to play some things, but it also has the potential to open up new vistas to explore. That's pretty cool in and of itself.
It doesn't take long to draw the scale forms in a reversed manner, far less time than it'll take you to get those scales into your fingers' muscle memory and burned into your ears.
You could probably still use tab by mentally transposing, but with more difficulty. That's actually a good thing. Tablature communicates so little musical information that it's like watching video where they've pixelated out part of the picture. Standard music notation conveys more information, but still a long way from 100%. Tab can be useful training wheels for awhile, but in the long run there's huge advantages to eventually moving on to the harder task of learning standard musical notation. That's the standard language, and reading it enables you better to learn stuff from other musical instruments, and from history, and to communicate musical ideas within your band.
That's exactly what my instructor does. It really messes me up to watch him. Not only do I have to remember that he's mirroring me when we go up and down the fretboard, but then I have to remember to go opposite him when we're going up and down the strings.
It's completely the opposite of following a "typical righty" and drives me freakin' crazy sometimes! But on the other hand I have to focus more intently and think quickly, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
It's completely the opposite of following a "typical righty" and drives me freakin' crazy sometimes!
But on the other hand I have to focus more intently and think quickly, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Not quite but Keith Horne is a natural righty who decided to play righty basses left handed with the strings upside down! He said it was easier to play that way for him!
pklima
Thanks, I will give this a try on my project bass when I get it modified and put back together. For a start I will probably string it up with suitable used strings to try it out. It would be a shame to put new ones on and find I cannot play it.
Wayman Tisdale!! I'm a new fan!!!!
Man, Thanks BassPlayerBob the video was great.
That dude is hugh! looks like a little guitar in his hands.....
I mean this guy gives new meaning to ""Walking" the Green Mile"
There is an end to your heckler problems right there.....
-eSmith.
Man, Thanks BassPlayerBob the video was great.
That dude is hugh! looks like a little guitar in his hands.....
I mean this guy gives new meaning to ""Walking" the Green Mile"
There is an end to your heckler problems right there.....
-eSmith.
Keith Horne....
Ok, so sure he's a great player who sounds incredible...... but look at that microphone... You would swear he's gonna dent his forehead..... He needs to take a page out of Wayman Tisdale's book and invest in some platform shoes.....
Sorry guys, its Friday and I'm loaded with caffiene from work all day.....
-eSmith.
Ok, so sure he's a great player who sounds incredible...... but look at that microphone... You would swear he's gonna dent his forehead..... He needs to take a page out of Wayman Tisdale's book and invest in some platform shoes.....
Sorry guys, its Friday and I'm loaded with caffiene from work all day.....
-eSmith.
Got a great 6 player locally who does it, plays the only Modulus that ever felt decent to me, and it was fantastic. Lefty bass, so, when he tossed it over at a jam, it played fine righty, just the controls were up near my armpit. Kinda cool 
He'd slap using his fingers then pop using his thumb or index. Had some killer tricks with it. I'll see if I can hunt down a vid.
He'd slap using his fingers then pop using his thumb or index. Had some killer tricks with it. I'll see if I can hunt down a vid.
A few years ago I a discussion about this very thing. All the participants seemed to have heard of the practice, and there was a stigma about it. I couldn't understand that, to me, it's just kind of a "who cares what that guy does with his ______?" kind of thing.
