Any lefties that play rightie here regret goint that way?

[MrDB]

I fall into the 9% semi ambedextrous. I golf left. Batted and threw left when I played ball, shot left in Bball. But there were no lefty guitars available when my parents bought me my first guitar so I learned righthanded, never gave it a second thought.

[Paraclete]

Originally Posted by jimmy bookout

Let's see. First I get "whatever" which we all know really means.....
Then I have a problem and a chip. And all because I corrected you.
Sorry, go back and read your post (#37). You said that violins were bowed with the left and fingered with the right, which in your orchestral setting is incorrect.

You typed it, not me. I think we all understand that orchestral instrument MUST be played in a certain position.

You have been here 2 months. I suggest you use the search function and read all the lefty threads that pop up here, so you can get a feel for the subject on this forum and why folks that play the opposite way from the majority are sick of being lectured. Speaking for all the "opposite" players, we would just as soon play and not be told that we're doing it wrong/should have learned the "right" way/guitar is a 2 handed instrument/etc.

Jimmy

Ok, right... I typed that wrong. Sorry. I've actually been here for about 6 years, but somewhere along the way lost my original login due to a hiatus and loss of the email account to which my account here was linked.

[Chin music]

Another lefty that plays right-handed guitar here.

I agree with some other posters that state they don't believe it has affected their fingerpicking, but it has affected their flatpicking. For me, in particular, after playing on and off for 30 years now (although probably only 15 years actively practicing), I simply cannot build up any speed strumming (think: Lennon's guitar on All My Loving). Just playing air guitar today left-handed vs. right-handed, I have a lot more speed making a strumming motion with my left hand than I do my right hand.

[Wade Hampton]

As it happens, I'm ambidextrous, leaning mostly to the right. I've always done everything with both hands. As a small child I mostly favored my left hand, but once I started school it was just easier to conform to the right-handed world I found myself in.

For my mother, it was more difficult. Nowadays she'd be allowed to follow her left-handed tendencies, but she was born in the 1920's, and left-handedness was frowned upon. So she was forced into a right-handed mold, and at least partially as a result had the most indecipherable handwriting I've ever seen....

So as a practical matter she was ambidextrous, leaning mostly to the left.

Perhaps the most accurate way to think of handedness is as a continuum, with those most profoundly left-handed and right-handed at either end of the spectrum, with most folks falling somewhere in the middle:

1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8---9

Someone who is completely and profoundly left-handed would be a 1, their opposite would be a 9. My mother was probably a 4 or even a 3.8, while I'd put myself at about 6 or maybe 6.5. My sister and father, both strongly right-handed, would probably clock in around 8 or 8.5.

Jimmy wrote:

Originally Posted by jimmy bookout

This is the thing that infuriates me...you want to play lefty, instructor says no, and you lose 25 years of playing and enjoyment. I always want these "experts" to take a walk in our shoes, so to speak (try playing a lefty guitar) so they could appreciate what this really is.

Something I do before starting any classes at music camps and similar situations where I'll be teaching is to flip my instruments over and play them upside down and left-handed. I do this mainly to remind myself of the physical pain and overall awkwardness that beginners have to fight their way through, but it's also a useful method to make myself have to think through strategies to make my fingers work in such an unfamiliar way.

As for left-handed students, over the years at least half of the students who've identified themselves as lefties to me seem to manage learning right-handed pretty well. It might be an even higher percentage of them than that.

But that still leaves a significant percentage of lefties who, try as they might, simply cannot play right-handed. Those would be the ones farther to the left on the handedness continuum.

The advantages to playing right-handed are obvious: far more instruments are available to try out and to buy, instruction manuals and most teachers are oriented toward right-handed players, and so forth. So I do encourage my new lefty students to at least attempt to play right-handed when they're starting out.

Some left-handed students can manage that, some cannot. So it's not a matter of willpower or "intestinal fortitude" or anything else, it's a brain-wiring issue that no guitar teacher can change, no matter how determined the teacher might be.

It certainly can't be "corrected" by faceless strangers on Internet guitar forum offering helpful tips, withering sarcasm or anything else.

Like Jimmy, I find it fairly amazing that right-handed guitarists with no personal stake in the matter feel free to talk down to lefties who play left-handed. To those of you who feel nothing but amusement and, perhaps, borderline contempt for those who use guitars set up for left-handed playing, take five minutes and flip your guitars over and play left-handed and upside down like Elizabeth Cotten did.

Seriously, give that an honest try. Not so easy, is it? Downright painful and incredibly awkward, isn't it?

Well, that's what it's like for that percentage of left-handed guitar students who simply can't adapt to right-handed playing. All the sneering or high-minded "good advice" to learn right-handed offered by strangers on guitar forums can't crash through the physical impossibility of the task for those positioned at that farthest left end of the handedness spectrum.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[jimmy bookout]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

As it happens, I'm ambidextrous, leaning mostly to the right. I've always done everything with both hands. As a small child I mostly favored my left hand, but once I started school it was just easier to conform to the right-handed world I found myself in.

For my mother, it was more difficult. Nowadays she'd be allowed to follow her left-handed tendencies, but she was born in the 1920's, and left-handedness was frowned upon. So she was forced into a right-handed mold, and at least partially as a result had the most indecipherable handwriting I've ever seen....

So as a practical matter she was ambidextrous, leaning mostly to the left.

Perhaps the most accurate way to think of handedness is as a continuum, with those most profoundly left-handed and right-handed at either end of the spectrum, with most folks falling somewhere in the middle:

1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8---9

Someone who is completely and profoundly left-handed would be a 1, their opposite would be a 9. My mother was probably a 4 or even a 3.8, while I'd put myself at about 6 or maybe 6.5. My sister and father, both strongly right-handed, would probably clock in around 8 or 8.5.

Jimmy wrote:



Something I do before starting any classes at music camps and similar situations where I'll be teaching is to flip my instruments over and play them upside down and left-handed. I do this mainly to remind myself of the physical pain and overall awkwardness that beginners have to fight their way through, but it's also a useful method to make myself have to think through strategies to make my fingers work in such an unfamiliar way.

As for left-handed students, over the years at least half of the students who've identified themselves as lefties to me seem to manage learning right-handed pretty well. It might be an even higher percentage of them than that.

But that still leaves a significant percentage of lefties who, try as they might, simply cannot play right-handed. Those would be the ones farther to the left on the handedness continuum.

The advantages to playing right-handed are obvious: far more instruments are available to try out and to buy, instruction manuals and most teachers are oriented toward right-handed players, and so forth. So I do encourage my new lefty students to at least attempt to play right-handed when they're starting out.

Some left-handed students can manage that, some cannot. So it's not a matter of willpower or "intestinal fortitude" or anything else, it's a brain-wiring issue that no guitar teacher can change, no matter how determined the teacher might be.

It certainly can't be "corrected" by faceless strangers on Internet guitar forum offering helpful tips, withering sarcasm or anything else.

Like Jimmy, I find it fairly amazing that right-handed guitarists with no personal stake in the matter feel free to talk down to lefties who play left-handed. To those of you who feel nothing but amusement and, perhaps, borderline contempt for those who use guitars set up for left-handed playing, take five minutes and flip your guitars over and play left-handed and upside down like Elizabeth Cotten did.

Seriously, give that an honest try. Not so easy, is it? Downright painful and incredibly awkward, isn't it?

Well, that's what it's like for that percentage of left-handed guitar students who simply can't adapt to right-handed playing. All the sneering or high-minded "good advice" to learn right-handed offered by strangers on guitar forums can't crash through the physical impossibility of the task for those positioned at that farthest left end of the handedness spectrum.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

Ah, Wade, my friend. You are much more adept at tiptoeing through this lefty/right minefield then me. Well stated as always!

Jimmy

[Larry Pattis]

I don't see any sneering...and it seems that this is a pretty loaded word.

So it goes.

[Pitar]

I'm right handed and when I first picked up the guitar it didn't matter which hand I favored. It was completely foreign to me, as it would be to anyone.

[Steve Christens]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

When it came time to play a real guitar it seemed natural as it always seemed to me that the really hard part was what the left hand was doing anyway!

This was exactly how I felt when I first, literally, picked up a guitar. The fingering seemed to be the main part, while "all the right hand did was strum". So it felt quite natural to use my dominate left hand on the neck.

[alien]

This has been an interesting thread. I commented in an earlier post about my lefty nephew who plays righty. He plays, strums, frets, flat picks and fingerpicks very well. Playing right handed has not been an issue for him. I am a righty, who plays righty. Been playing that way for (nearly) 50 years. I can fret, finger pick and strum also very well. Funny thing is, I can't flat pick worth a darn! Don't really know why other than I never practiced it much. Wasn't my style of music.

Wind and reed instruments use both hands to play. As well as percussion. The slide trombone and most brass horns are fingered/played with the right hand. Except the the french horn which is fingered with the left hand. I would imagine that if someone wanted or needed to change the orientation of these instruments it could be done. More than likely at a considerable cost.

My point being. The guitar is an instrument which can be made and played in either orientation and basically any string configuration desired. And usually at little to no additional cost. So who cares if another person plays "backwards or upside down" from you. If that mean music is being made, then all the better!

[JayWalkingBlues]

I have to say, when I posted this thread I never imagined how passionate it would get. It's nice to hear from a lot of fellow lefties. I do want to state for the record, I in no way regret learning right handed, I just sometimes wonder how I would play differently.

[Steel and wood]

I find it really interesting that there are varying degrees of left handedness. (From extremely predominant 1% of the population to the other predominant 9% who seem to be more ambidextrous than the 1% and the 90% right handers like myself. (Where nothing comes naturally left handed).

My wife and son both belong to the 9% lefty club and although predominantly left handed, their guitars are right handed/couldn't play left handed guitars.

Lots of famous left handers in the 1% club also. (Those playing left handed guitars or modifying their guitars/their playing to suit their extreme left handedness).

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by JayWalkingBlues

I have to say, when I posted this thread I never imagined how passionate it would get.

Yeah, for some reason it's a real hot button issue for lots of people. It makes perfect sense that it should be for those who are left-handed, whether they play lefty or right-handed. What puzzles me is why right-handed people should ever get wound up about it, but as you may have noticed in this thread, sometimes they can and do.

Originally Posted by JayWalkingBlues

It's nice to hear from a lot of fellow lefties. I do want to state for the record, I in no way regret learning right handed, I just sometimes wonder how I would play differently.

The interesting takeaway that I've gotten from this particular thread is that this whole handedness issue might possibly have an impact on whether someone can flatpick or fingerpick well. Speaking as someone who functioned mostly as a lefty as a small child, then mostly as a righty/somewhat ambidextrous older child and adult, I've often been way ahead on some musical tasks and way behind on others.

For example, anything that involves the left hand has always come easily to me: chord changes, chord shapes, what have you, no problem. Particularly when I was just beginning to play, I raced through all that left hand stuff with no trouble at all. The right hand stuff like fingerpicking and using a flatpick took me a LOT longer, and while I've gotten a lot more advanced with a pick, I have no real aptitude for fingerpicking. I do fingerpick some, but it's pretty basic.

Some of the comments written about the relative ease and difficulty some of you have had with these picking hand techniques have given me food for thought.


Wade Hampton Miller