Who Else Is Left Handed and Plays Guitar Righty?

[sirfun]

Originally Posted by Todd

Hi Rappy,

Interesting observation indeed. My father was like you. He was a lefty,
but he played guitar right handed. He was a flamenco guitarist up until
he was about 30 or so, and then he started his own video/audio post
production buisness, virtually out of nowhere. He bought a home video
camera (this was back in the early 80's) and he went nuts with it.
He wrote with his left hand, but held his fork/spoon in his right.

He was an amazing musician and great at everything he did.
I lost him to alchoholism about a year ago. RIP dad...

Cheers!
TK

My dad was also a lefty playing righty.
I'm currently playing (in 2 different bands) with 3 leftys playing righty.
I've noticed 10 to 20 more through the years.
I know only 2 true lefty leftys.
(one ,a drummer, that drums righty,plays guitar lefty)

[Rappy]

Man, there really are a lot of lefties playing righty. Many more than I thought, including some of the greatest guitarists ever. Maybe I had it wrong and this way of playing is actually more natural rather than against the grain. Maybe righties playing righty have the disadvantage (as some have pointed out) and have a higher rate of attrition, thus leaving the guitar world with a high number of lefties who stuck with it and achieved some degree of proficiency. Kind of analogous to the fact there are a lot of left handed batters in pro baseball because they face a lot of right handed pitchers and can see the ball better with greater depth perception (plus they are a couple of steps closer to first base). Even though there must be more right handers than lefties who try out baseball or guitar, a higher percentage of lefties "make the cut" and stick around, thus making their numbers higher than the 10% we would expect. It was possibly my bias to think that the first luthiers created stringed instrument for righties and that lefties had to adapt, but for all we know the luthiers could have been lefties crafting instruments for themselves and the rest of the world just copied them without thinking about it.

[Yeah, right...]

Originally Posted by Macky

The First Left-Handed Piano

There`s also this for midi but its always out of stock :(
The First Left-Handed Piano

I'm impressed...

[FFTT]

And here I thought I was special or something.

Add me to the list.

Always a lefty, but play guitar and bass righty.

BTW Rappy, I'm also in Northern VA, West Loudoun County.

[peet]

I'm a lefty that plays right handed because it felt natural when I first picked up a guitar. Same with scissors, computer mouse etc.


Peet

[Macky]

Originally Posted by Barish

Well, pay a little attention to Joe Zawinul's right hand on the middle keyboard here then, ... Year is 1978 by the way...

Man i just love this outfit and especially this piece. The whole album actually.

[PRobb]

Originally Posted by ARaudio

Lefty air guitar. Righty for real guitar.

Originally Posted by FireMoon

Lefty who plays righty...and yet, i play air guitar..left handed... weird that.

Originally Posted by NoVi

Ha, me too!

To me, this is the most fascinating thing in the thread. People who imagine guitar left but play right.
Handedness is an interesting thing.

[lifesglorydead]

I am a lefty who does nearly everything lefty besides playing guitar... to boot, when I'm playing keys my left hand coordination completely sucks compared to that of my right hand. Haha.

I know a guy who is lefty and plays guitar left handed, but he can easily pick up one of my right-hand strung guits and play it just fine. Freaking amazing.

[sgmw]

I am totally left hand dominant, including guitar playing.

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous though.

[Trailmix]

Originally Posted by peet

I'm a lefty that plays right handed because it felt natural when I first picked up a guitar. Same with scissors, computer mouse etc.


Peet

+1!

Totally the same here

[Macky]

Originally Posted by sgmw

I am totally left hand dominant, including guitar playing.

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous though.

-------

Its interesting to note that some cultures print and read their books from right to left and also write that way.....which as a lefty i think i would be suited to.
Never read the explanation for this.
Books that i have read on the subject of handedness imply that the brains wires get crossed over before birth, due to trauma. Some say its inherent during growth in the womb. Scans of babies sucking thumbs etc.

[Rappy]

In English as well as many other languages, we read and write from left to right. This means that right handed people pull their hand across the page as they write. Conversely, left handed people push across the page which is a more clumsy motion. Spiral notebooks and 3-ring binders always get in the way and pencil and ink get smeared more easily. I imagine in Hebrew and other languages that read right to left the opposite is true.

[Rappy]

I just found out Stewart Copeland is left handed but plays drums right handed.

[Musiclab]

there's a great drummer named Lionel Cordew, he plays with Mike Stern and a host of others, who plays lefty, he's my friend and I often have the pleasure of recording him

[mdme_sadie]

Another here.

[Robobaby]

Originally Posted by PRobb

Interesting, Rappy.
The finger/flat pick thing might just be a matter of what you learned first.

Has anyone ever heard of a lefty violin? Or a lefty flute?

And you lefties who do some stuff right- Were you encouraged to do things righty as a child, or was that natural?

Alot of things are designed for right handed use but you never really think about it. Its just the way it is and thus seems normal. For instance, I was one of few children that was allowed to write with a Biro in primary school because I was left handed. The problem with a left hander learning to write with a fountain pen is that writing from left to right involves dragging your writing hand over the drying ink. I can write with a fountain pen but some people would consider it unusual. I write "under" the line with the page turned almost sideways (edit: like picture #5 and a grip like picture #7 here). I have never been good at written examination. I have never thought of it as unusual. I only started to realize it was unusual when other people pointed out that I write in a really odd way.

I have also gotten used to ambidextrous computer mice and some types of right handed mice that can sort of be used left handed (i.e. Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 3.0). I cannot use contoured left handed mice though, despite being left handed. I tried recently and conceded that I've been using ambidextrous for most of my adult life and didn't like the change.

Also hahaha. I play air guitar right handed too.

[camdie]

I write, eat and anything that requires detailed fine motor skills as a lefty.
I play guitar, play sports as a right-hander.

[LeGrand]

I'm One of the lefty-plays-righty Guys as well. As Dome of you mentioned, the availability of lefty Instruments has to do with it I think. The cello was the first instrument I learned and as far as I know there are no lefty celli. I learned it righty and from then on every other instrument felt right that way. As both hands do an important job, I don't think there is a right or wrong way.the right way is going righty, because of cheaper guitars and a bigger range of them...

[LeGrand]

Btw: my father is a lefty too. In school he was not allowed to write with his left hand and had to learn it the other way round. Today his hands are almost equal in ability. But there are studies that forcing children to use the unnatural side can lead do brain damages. Luckily my father hasn't got and obvious ones ;-)

[tulsraeg]

Originally Posted by bencahill

I believe Joe Perry from Aerosmith is a Right-Playing Lefty.

He is and of course Steve Morse:

Dixie Dregs - The Bash (Live 1978) Montreux Jazz Festival, Jul 1978.

Dixie Dregs - The Bash (Live 1978) - YouTube

[Humanomusician]

I will join the LR support group, if I may.

I am a life-long left-handed. I generally use both my hands for most things (even though sometimes I favour my left), and left for dexterity and strength.

At the age of thirteen I have started learning guitar. I got a classical, and maybe because of my first teacher's (who was about eighteen) advice to just switch hands, I used it normally. It DID help with barrés, and since then I can't even properly teach a lefty how to play a song by finger placement. I just get a headache and waste thrice the time.

Another thing is my strumming technique. I use no pick. Mostly, I use either finger-strumming or plucking. At riffs, I don't necessarily even pick all notes. Call me a lazy person whose full of excuses, but I think not picking some notes is giving them a different sound and adding interest.


Any righties who play leftly will be nice, and also some lefties who are normal.


P.S. We should open a guild. "the LR Musicians' Support guild". We'll form bands and take over the world!

[PRobb]

Interesting thread.
Open question- Why is there no such thing as a left handed violin?

[doncaparker]

Originally Posted by PRobb

Interesting thread.
Open question- Why is there no such thing as a left handed violin?

My smart-aleck answer is that, in the orchestra pit, you are liable to put somebody's eye out with your bow if you play left handed.

The real answer is that, while rare, there apparently are some left handed violinists out there.

[Cold]

I will add myself to the list.
Lefty playing righty. everything else lefty. I hate scissors.
Steve

[Musiclab]

Originally Posted by doncaparker

My smart-aleck answer is that, in the orchestra pit, you are liable to put somebody's eye out with your bow if you play left handed.

The real answer is that, while rare, there apparently are some left handed violinists out there.

think about it, your left hand does the real hard work, why not have your strongest hand there?

[Electric Blue]

I'm a lefty that plays right handed as well. It was just much easier to follow my classical teachers playing style by playing it righty.

[joeq]

Originally Posted by Musiclab

think about it, your left hand does the real hard work, why not have your strongest hand there?

I always have my left-handed drum students play righty for similar reasons.

a strong, fluid left hand is every righty drummer's dream, and left-handed people kind of have a head start here.

At the highest levels, many of the great drummers are hand-agnostic, some even truly ambidextrous.

there are also what I like to call "social mobility" reasons for sticking with the traditional way of playing. For example, I have seen many a lefty drummer relegated to the graveyard set at the jam session, because of the hassle of rearranging the kit and then putting it back again.

to need a special guitar or a specially strung guitar just to play can kill a lot of spontaneous musical opportunities

There is the theory that a "wrong" approach to an instrument opens up creativity and originality. Jimi Hendrix or Albert King come to mind. You wonder though, if this is cause or effect. 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger' - i.e. many other lefty or upside-down guitarists hit a wall, were unable to find a good teacher, etc. and gave up. Maybe the Jimis and the Alberts are just the survivors of a particularly brutal selection process, so they anomalously stand out.

the "thing" about stringed instruments is that the left hand is 'responsible' for the What - fingering the pitch or chord, and the right hand is responsible for the When- the actual plucking of the string. In the case of improvisation, note choice and rhythmic choice.

if you believe in the Right Brain/Left Brain pop psychology, this can lead to some interesting ideas about what might happen when the "personalities" responsible for each aspect of playing are reversed.