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The woes of a lefty

#21
"Forced to learn how to play right handed." Is something like a quote from above. I have always been curious to know why people played left-handed instruments. Do you think there is a definite dominant function of one hand over the other? My room and band-mate is left handed is a great guitar player playing right-handed.

It's so hard to get either limb to learn the new functions of instrument playing, that I doubt hand-dominance issues need to apply. In which case I might argue that left-handed instruments are a marketing scheme....except that I'm not left handed, so I have no idea how different it might feel.

Given the chance, would you as a lefty go back and switch to eleminate future problems of limited choices for lefties? Does your sense of individuality because you're a lefty perhaps overrule the inconvenience?

Discuss amongst yourselves.
 
#22
Calebmundy said:
"Forced to learn how to play right handed." Is something like a quote from above. I have always been curious to know why people played left-handed instruments. Do you think there is a definite dominant function of one hand over the other? My room and band-mate is left handed is a great guitar player playing right-handed.

It's so hard to get either limb to learn the new functions of instrument playing, that I doubt hand-dominance issues need to apply. In which case I might argue that left-handed instruments are a marketing scheme....except that I'm not left handed, so I have no idea how different it might feel.

Given the chance, would you as a lefty go back and switch to eleminate future problems of limited choices for lefties? Does your sense of individuality because you're a lefty perhaps overrule the inconvenience?

Discuss amongst yourselves.
Click to expand...


You know what's crazy?.... My dad tried to teach me guitar when I was 11, on a RIGHT handed guitar. It didn't stick with me. That thing sat and collected dust until I ran into some legal troubles in my teens and had to sell it.....

When I turned about 19 or so I wanted to start playing bass.... When I went into the pawn shops to try out basses it just clicked to turn the thing upside down & play. My first two basses ( a Fender Bullett & an ESP ) were both rightys that I just flipped & restrung. But that brought on new problems.... Balance & upper fret access were a PITA. So from then on I just bought leftys. Problems solved. But, I do EVERYTHING left handed except play golf.

My little brother is a guitar player & lefty also.... He LOVES Fenders & tells me that I should just give in. Whatever... My dad also played & he was a righty & doesn't know where he went wrong to raise two lefty musicians. :p

Oh, and to answer your question.... No, I wouldn't go back and be a righty.... I really think that my brain just doesn't work that way.
:D
 
#23
fretlessman71 said:
It's really subjective. I had a righty student who had enough troubles with her bass that we re-strung it lefty and she did terrific on it. Go figure!
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or, how about people like me who use a righthanded bass flipped upside down so the G is on top? my only "woe" was to find a righty bass that was comfortable to flip over and wear back in the day, cause I wasn't about to buy a 2500.00 custom back then, and that wasn't hard to do at all.

( I have 5 righty basses and a restrung righty, just in case you are curious )

and yes, I can play lefty normal as easy as upside down, and have done many a show playing BOTH ways to totally confuse or freak out the musicians in the audience but I wont be selling off my righthanded basses to replace them with lefty ones any time soon.

as far as people who "need" to play with the E on top lefty, then like the posts are showing, why even BOTHER looking for a Fender, when there are SO MANY other companies (IMO)- a lot better than your average lefty junk Fender that has been sitting at a G.C. for 2 years cause noone wants it.
 
#24
mrkode said:
I would be very curious to take 100 young new musicians who never touched a bass or guitar before and give them the choice between a left handed and a right handed instrument not telling them which one is the right handed one and see which one they would end up choosing.
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Before I knew how to play guitar I went for lessons at a local teacher who supplied the guitars. At my first lesson, he handed the guitar to me and I instinctively turned it upside down and held it as a lefty would. He said to me, "What are you doing? Turn the guitar back around," to which I replied, "But it feels more natural to me this way." His response?: "What the hell do you know, you don't even know how to play yet!"

To some extent, he was right, and perhaps had I stuck with it "his way", I might have eventually gotten the hang of it and it would be a lot easier for me today to walk into a store and try a new bass out. But I suspect that, more than likely, had I been forced to play right handed,
I would have given up trying to play.

I ended up quiting lessons that day because I didn't appreciate how quick he was to try to change who I naturally am. Maybe in hindsight he was trying to do me a favor in order to avoid all the issues we lefties have to deal with, but it struck me more as disrespect for me. I ended up restringing the righty guitar lefty and stuck with it. Learning came much quicker for me and I got results much faster.

To answer your question: if you handed a guitar to 100 new young musicians they would probably do what I did: instinctively turn the guitar in the direction they feel most comfortable.
 
#25
pjmuck said:
Before I knew how to play guitar I went for lessons at a local teacher who supplied the guitars. At my first lesson, he handed the guitar to me and I instinctively turned it upside down and held it as a lefty would. He said to me, "What are you doing? Turn the guitar back around," to which I replied, "But it feels more natural to me this way.

To answer your question: if you handed a guitar to 100 new young musicians they would probably do what I did: instinctively turn the guitar in the direction they feel most comfortable.
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+1 million!!!!!!

and who actually SAID that you MUST play with the E string on top for it to be correct?

the ONLY reason they want you to do that, is some people require TABS for everything, and they don't write them for "G on top" players.


you go to a piano, you play low notes to high notes UP the scale, UP the keys..well with the G string on top, it's the same thing up the fretboard, and up the strings :D

and all the newbies who MUST play lefthanded, they go out and buy the "first" cheap lefty SX or whatever bass, then when they know that's what they want, they go and buy a $$$$ lefty bass....easy logical solution.
 
#27
Calebmundy said:
It's so hard to get either limb to learn the new functions of instrument playing, that I doubt hand-dominance issues need to apply. In which case I might argue that left-handed instruments are a marketing scheme....except that I'm not left handed, so I have no idea how different it might feel.

Given the chance, would you as a lefty go back and switch to eleminate future problems of limited choices for lefties? Does your sense of individuality because you're a lefty perhaps overrule the inconvenience?

Discuss amongst yourselves.
Click to expand...

me-dan-1.jpg


This is me and my little brother on the Christmas morning we both got guitars. I naturally picked it left handed. This is the very first time
I ever touched a guitar and it seemed the way to hold it. My little brother is right handed so for him is was monkey see, monkey do.
He since then has learnt to play bass right handed.
A ndy
 
#32
I came from a classical string background. There are no "left-handed" classical orchestral string instruments (beyond those special-made).

Especially if you play a bowed string instrument, you do more with your left hand than your right. Hardest part about bass/guitar technique is finger plucking with the "wrong" hand.

But really, it's not harder than using scissors, a can-opener, writing, using a mouse, or other things that are "automatically" designed for the right-hander.

I broke both arms a couple times as a kid...so I'm either a "weak" right-hander or a left-hander who adapts.
 
#33
mrkode said:
Either if you're plucking or picking, you are using more of your left hand than your right as your plucking hand will use at the most three fingers but the norm is really two while your left hand uses all 4 fingers to fret the notes on the neck.

Therefore you need more dexterity out of your left hand than your right. Right?
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i don't think so. that's assuming that dexterity actually helps in the utilisation of all 4 fingers. IMHO it's not dexterity, it's finger strength.

dexterity is for speed and rhythm. the fingers on your left hand hardly have to move as fast as those on your right if you are using economical left hand technique. unless you are doing something like sweeps of course.

or to put it simply, which hand would you be more confident of doing a fast tempo constant beat, or slap/pop techniques?

anyway if you are a lefty and you have nowhere else to go, swap the nut and restring a right-handed bass.

HENDRIX STYLE.
 
#40
Mine was a wierd one. 8 years of accordian lessons prior to picking up my first guitar/bass. Think about it.... Keys/melody on right hand and rhythm/bass on left.....makes sense! Funny thing is when I first picked up an accordian I wanted to play it lefty.....teacher fixed that real quick! Try to buy a lefty accordian!

Anyhoo, that's what happened to me.....

There has to be at least one person out there with the "accordian excuse"

Or is there?
 

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