Who Else Is Left Handed and Plays Guitar Righty?

[Rappy]

I write left handed and play guitar righty. I have met at least 3 other sound engineers, besides myself, who are this way. I also do a lot of things left handed, and other things right handed. I am wondering if there is a pattern where people with ambidextrous tendencies are attracted to the world of audio engineering. One could make the argument that this art/science uses both sides of the brain and that people who are caught between left and right handedness have a good chance of excelling in the field. Please post here if you have a similar background.

Cheers,
Rappy

[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

[WB1984]

My folks didn't want to pay for a lefty guitar, but that felt natural for me.

Now I can't imagine playing lefty.

Sent from my VM670 using Gearslutz.com App

[Early21]

I'm a lefty who plays guitar righty, but I always thought there was something other than logic behind lefty guitars -- there are no other lefty instruments that I can think of, and I don't think I'd be a better guitarist today if I'd started the other way around. Playing guitar is, after all, a coordination between two hands.

[KenHR]

I'm a lefty who plays righty, as well. Just felt more natural to me...must've been all those years playing air guitar in imitation of the bands I liked before I actually picked up an axe.

[The dman]

I'm a lefty that plays lefty and if I could step back 35+ years in time and I would have learned righty from the start.

[AndyVanDerVught]

Interesting! I'm a lefty who plays righty as well. I have many other strong right handed tendencies though.

[FireMoon]

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

[adeptusmajor]

Me! I remember my parents wanted me to play lefty, but it just felt so unnatural, even before I learned to play.

I also use my right hand to wipe, jerk it, and shake people's hands...

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by adeptusmajor

Me! I remember my parents wanted me to play lefty, but it just felt so unnatural, even before I learned to play.

I also use my right hand to wipe, jerk it, and shake people's hands...

With a bit of sanitation inbetween though, right?!

[jimmyboy7]

I'm a lefty that plays lefty, however, I write righty!!! I was made too right that way :( Consequently, my penmanship sucks!!!!

[Robobaby]

Left handed but played right handed for 14 years. The last 2 of those years I restrung my Jag upside down and I'm learning again left handed so now I can row both ways so to speak.

The reason I started with a right handed guitar is because I never wanted to play guitar at all in the beginning. My sister asked mum to buy her this really cheap baby nylon stringed acoustic when I was 12 or 13 and my primary motivation for playing back then was to simply be better than my sister. Over time, she drifted away from playing guitar and I stuck with it and I'm still sticking with it.

There are certain things I find easier to do on a left handed guitar. For instance, on a right handed guitar, I have a tendancy to lead with my dominant hand so I dictate pace and tempo on my fretting hand. For a number of years my picking hand didn't develop properly because I didn't finger pick using all my fingers and my hybrid flat picking is still sloppy.

On the left handed guitar I have a tendancy to dictate pace and tempo on my picking hand and my fretting hand follows. I feel like I have a better sense of rhythm on the left handed guitar and I can usually play for longer periods without tiring.

Another thing worth noting is that when I learned on a right handed guitar I tended to have a vice like grip. Now I have a very loose grip both ways but it took a long time to unlearn that right handed.

I think that as long as you set the rhythm on the picking/strumming/flat picking hand and follow on the fretting hand it doesn't matter which way you play. Certain things will be more immediately evident based on feel and others not so much, so over time, it will open some doors and close others. I think this is just a natural process that happens to every guitar player, regardless of which way they play and it is part of what shapes individual playstyle.

The only other thing I will say is that in 2 years I have picked up the left handed guitar at a *rapacious* pace. This has more to do with the fact that when I played right handed, I picked up loads of bad habits I had to unlearn, which took years. I just haven't repeated those mistakes on the left handed guitar.

[river]

I qualify. I was in a band about 12 years ago that had five players and a female singer. All the players were southpaws playing righthanded.

[mingustoo]

I write left, play right, write on a chalk board with either, tennis with the left, hockey is on the right, but goalie stick can go on either side. I catch with my left but spray paint with my right...no wonder I'm crow-eyed half the time.

[AndyFromDenver]

Signing in.
Righty is what was available as a kid.

[PRobb]

Fascinating. I'm a righty, but this something I've been curious about.
I was interested in Robobaby's post. I've never understood the advantage of one way or the other. It seems the left hand (playing righty) requires at least as much strength and coordination as the right.

A friend with a lefty kid who wanted to learn guitar, I was arguing to teach him righty just because it's more social. I have had some really great times when I was somewhere where there just happened to be a few guitars and people started playing. Lefties can't do that.

[TRA]

I write lefty, but everything else is righty. Bowling, guitar, throwing, batting..etc...all righty.

I was ambidextrous as a kid, and I'd freak out my teachers when I'd switch hands writing. Now not so much.

[Rappy]

Originally Posted by mingustoo

I write left, play right, write on a chalk board with either, tennis with the left, hockey is on the right, but goalie stick can go on either side. I catch with my left but spray paint with my right...no wonder I'm crow-eyed half the time.

That's funny, I sometimes write on a chalk board with my right hand as well even though I write on paper left handed. I read that Larry Byrd does the same thing. I throw a baseball with my right, bat from the right, bowl with either (equally bad), brush teeth with my left, use a knife with my left, a mouse with either (but more often the right out of convenience). My right eye is more dominant than my left.

I agree that a lot of lefties end up playing guitar right handed because standard guitars are much more plentiful.

Thanks for the responses so far!

-Rappy

[savyurrecords]

Great I feel like I just joined another support group!

My name is Rich (crowd gives the obligatory "Hi Rich") and I am a left handed writer that plays guitar and sports right handed.

[Pchicago]

I:

write lefty
throw lefty
bat righty
golf righty
cut with a scissors righty.
play guitar righty.
work a computer mouse with my right..lefty=hilarious.
kick a ball right footy
shoot a basketball lefty.
use a hammer righty but can go lefty
my strong arm is my right arm.
#!^%-off righty
my right eye is my dominant eye

play drums in a right hand setup but i dont cross over on snare and hihat..left hand hihat..my right foot on the kick is my strongest rhythm limb, the ride cymbal is on the left side of the kit though.

To play piano I have to take my arms off and switch them, requires a surgeon.

my lefty handwriting is horrible, unreadable by me a day later, like a 5 year old.

I can draw very well though

[Kris]

My dad wouldn't let me flip the strings on his acoustic when I started playing. That guitar STILL has the same strings on it...At LEAST 30 years old...

[Rappy]

Originally Posted by Early21

I'm a lefty who plays guitar righty, but I always thought there was something other than logic behind lefty guitars -- there are no other lefty instruments that I can think of, and I don't think I'd be a better guitarist today if I'd started the other way around. Playing guitar is, after all, a coordination between two hands.

Good point. Although left handed drummers sometimes set up the kit backwards.

-Rappy

[scro_tum]

Instinctively, I wanted to play guitar lefty, but my first instructor told me I'd be better off playing righty. For most other activities my handedness seems to be distributed pretty evenly between right and left. I'm definitely not ambidextrous - trying to write with my right hand is like trying to learn to write all over again.

[bencahill]

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

[doncaparker]

I'm a lefty who plays guitar right handed.

Like all other lefties, I have a mish-mash of things I do right handed.

I've never seen a lefty drummer (i.e., snare and hi-hat on the drummer's right), but maybe they have been there and I've just never noticed.

I've never seen or heard of anybody playing bowed instruments as lefties. In some orchestra pits, you would be in danger of poking someone's eye out with your bow. That's probably why I've never seen it.

[Rappy]

"I've never seen a lefty drummer (i.e., snare and hi-hat on the drummer's right), but maybe they have been there and I've just never noticed."


It is fairly rare, but there are definitely lefty drummer who set up with the hit-hat and snare on the opposite side. They also reverse the order of the toms and cymbals. The only thing that stays in the same place is the kick. It really sucks doing live sound when you have 3 bands and the middle act has a left handed drummer. I've worked several shows like that!

What is interesting to me about this thread is no so much finding other lefties who play guitar righty, but the fact that those people also became sound engineers. That has to be less common than simply playing the instrument that way. Is there a pattern? I assume that anyone on this board is an engineer, obviously.

-Rappy

[FireMoon]

Slightly off topic however, in these days of everyone being PC there is a word that used everyday that is highly insulting to all those of the left handed variety.... The word is *sinister* as it from the French meaning left sinistre and was originally used a term in heraldry.
In the exact opposite way to the word dexter became compliment... ie dexterous, of the right hand, the word sinister is actually an insult to all us lefties.

[ianvargo]

I'm actually right handed, but play lefty. Picked up my Dad's right handed guild when I was 14 and just started playing how I wanted to. Eventually bought a left-handed guitar so I can pick up a guitar regardless of orientation and have fun.

It still blows going into a store and not being able to play but a fraction of the guitars.

[Gharper23]

Left handed here and play bass right handed.

[Jayyj]

I'm a lefty who plays guitar righthanded... but I work in the violin trade, and my first instrument is violin. It's almost unheard of to play violin left handed - and you'd look a bit of an idiot at orchestra. I remember two players in ten years - both folkies who wanted to learn violin after learning guitar / mandolin left handed - who played lefty. I don't feel lefty violinists are in any way disadvantaged learning the normal way round - both hands work equally hard, and rhythm and tempo are dictated by both hands anyway.

It's interesting to compare that to Robobaby's observations about playing technique trying left and right playing. I guess there's an argument that - at least in the earlier stages of learning - the roles of left and right hand are more distinct, and that lefties might find more obstacles on a right handed guitar. It's hard for me to comment, as I came to the guitar already reasonably advanced on another instrument, so right handed always felt more natural anyway.

Regarding whether sound engineers might be more likely to play right handed, I have a feeling it's more that the odds of any lefty playing right handed are actually a lot higher than we might imagine. If 10% of people are left handed I certainly don't see 10% of guitarists playing lefthanded guitars - probably more like 1%. I can't think of any reason as to why an engineer might have a specific leaning towards not needing a lefty guitar.