Lefty but play righty?

i am a lefty - and initally learned right handed as a youngster because my dad and brother each had right handed guitars in the house.

However when I realised that Hendrix, McCartney et al were lefty I changed (probably 1 year in!). I restrung the Spanish guitar and started relearning. Golly - it was difficult at first because the brain had formed the muscle memory required for playing right handed. Equally I had to transpose chord boxes in real time.

However within a few months I was playing naturally as a left-handed. That was the mid Eighties and I am still definitely left handed when it comes to guitars. Funnily the chord boxes switched naturally in my head, tab was no bother anyway.

I am a very average player and even though I am in my 30th year of playing it is lack of time to play rather than than switching to left-handed that hinders me However have always enjoyed more complex finger picking as a challenge - and perhaps my switch has helped here.

I had heard that physiologically left handed people (in the main) tend to be naturally more ambidextrous (so for example I am naturally a right handed golfer and criketer, left handed tennis player and more left-sided football (soccer) player (although reasonably adept on both feet). I am sure there are plenty of right handed readers saying they are too...so excuse if this proves to be cod science.

Finally the question of equipment - this is the biggest downside to being left handed. Your choice is so poor compared to right handed players. While there might be 10% of us in the population, I would be surprised if most shops stock any near 3% of guitars as left-hookers.

All the best
Gilesy

If this straw poll is anything to go by then it would seem that a significant number of lefties play right handed. In which case the lack of left hookers in the shops being so small might actually be a closer reflection of the demand.
Indirectly it might be said that the manufacturers created the circumstances whereby many of us toughed it out back to front and thereby have perpetuated the apparent lack of demand for left handed instruments.
 
Steve morse and the head of GIT / Mi are great examples. There's no slouch in technique in either of those guys. Guitar is hard in either hand.
 
I'm a lefty and I play lefty, strung correctly, and I too have trouble with picking technique. Picking is more difficult, after a point, for both lefties and righties, partially due to the fact there are so many "cheats" for the fretting hand such as hammers, pulls, slurs, and glisses that diminish the need for picking technique. You can get around pretty well with faulty picking, for better or worse.

Steve Morse is left-handed. So much for limited right-hand technique. Lol.

Most lefties lean towards ambidexterity due to the fact that it's a right-handed world. We are forced into it by the sheer numbers of every day items and tasks designed for righties. People are often impressed at my ability to play a right-handed guitar upside-down with the strings, of course, backwards for me. What they don't realize is that I've spent a long lifetime noodling on righties that belong to friends and in music stores. It's not that different from learning how to deal with a right-handed deck of cards or righty scissors. Or learning to play right-handed.

I felt that Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney gave me "permission" to play left-handed. And it just felt right in my hands. Thank the gods that lefty guitars are now much more readily available than when I started 45 years ago.

I've heard it said that there's an advantage for lefties to play right-handed. They say the fretboard is where the action is and the dominant left hand gets you ahead of the game. If that were true, wouldn't righties be playing left-handed?

It's interesting to see that other lefties swing clubs right-handed. I do, as well. I wonder why that is?
 
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Hmm... I don't think it matters as much as people think it does. After all, the "righty" and "lefty" thing is just a subject of muscle memory.
I don't think that people are hard-wired to be more dexterous with one of their hands by default. It's just that at one point of your physical developement you just so happen to develope a habit using a certain hand for specific stuff which increases your hand-eye coordinates with that hand. If for some reason you pick up a completely new activity (like starting guitar) which requires the left hand to be used, you will find that your hand becomes incredibly skilled in doing exactly that activity, but nothing else.

For example, I haven't noticed me playing guitar affect the "general dexterity" on my left hand in any way. I'm still a clumsy fuck with my left. Only when playing guitar I feel like it suddenly developed more skill than the other (like, seriously, my right-hand picking is a MESS and can't keep up with my left hand, despite being a "righty" in every other activity).

Another example:
My mother is a righty, yet uses the computer mouse with her left hand. She picked that habit up at her workplace in which she had to use the numpad on the keyboard frequently. Since then she just can not use the right hand on the mouse anymore without it feeling "wrong".


What I'm actually curious about is (for all you lefties out there):
What is your primary eye? Does it coincide with your "handedness"?
Try this…
Make a circle with your thumb and first finger. With both eyes open look at an object on the wall or in the distance, and centre it inside the circle. Now close one eye, and then the other.

What’s happening?
When you closed your left or right eye you should have found that the object jumps outside the circle. If the object seemed to move when you closed your left eye, then you have left eye dominance. If the object moved more when your right eye was closed, then your right eye is the dominant one.

Your brain builds up an image of the world around you using slightly different views from your right or left eye. Most people tend to have a dominant eye so that even when both eyes are open, one is giving priority information.

The object you chose was lined up to be in the circle using information from your dominant eye. When you close this one you can see that the object was not lined up for your other eye.

About 80% of the population are right-eyed, and a very small percentage seem to have no eye-dominance at all.


TLDR: There is no "lefty" or "righty". It's all about what we decide to learn on. Both hands develope exactly the movements required for the activity you train them on.
 
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When my Mom taught me to write before starting school, I tried to left handed and she said most things in the world are set up for right handed people and taught me that way. I play guitar right handed, but when I originally started I held it lefty but only had my Dad's righty guitar available so that's what I went with. I'm happy I learned this way and picking was difficult at first (especially lead) but not now.
Shoot pool lefty
Bat righty
Shoot bow lefty
Pitch righty
shoot pistol righty
shoot rifle lefty

I find there are things I can adjust to with not much effort with either hand but many things just don't feel right the other way around
 
At least two of the most talented guitar players I've known personally in my lifetime were lefty playing righty and had much more dexterity than any other players I've seen. One was like watching Yngwie with a completely different style
 
Here's the ultimate example of lefty playing righty gone wrong - and its awesome :)






 
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Any righty boys who play lefty even?

Present!
I am a pure right-handed but often play left-handed. My right eye is the first to focus and my right ear hears a little better than the left. But I enjoy playing backwards !!
I can tell you: fingers are tools, music emanates from your soul.
Many comrades here have one favorite guitar playing exclusively, this allows you to achieve an excellent technique but in my opinion you lose the spark of improvisation, of doing things on the fly.
Your post reminded me of when I was 12, was a time of changes. My handwriting was terrible, and decided to change my typeface during vacations to make it neater. One of the things that helped me was to write with both hands interchangeably to adapt to novelty.
At that time it was just when I started playing guitar, I told my father I wanted to learn guitar and he brought me a classical guitar with a nice triangular hole on the top: Thanks Daddy!
I learned like many others: playing with a cassette tape and breaking too many strings !!!
During this learning I was changing the strings from right-handed to left-handed every two weeks, that fact may seems a delay in learning but I did not want to tie me, I like to play both ways. I also started using my left hand more often in all the tasks of my daily life.
Throughout the years I was slowly decanting by playing righty, but I always have a guitar strung left-handed because I like to change.
I have 15 guitars of all kind and play all alike, I like not being tied to a concrete scale/radio/height frets/gauge strings. I play bass for a while, then pick up the acoustic ... variety!

Summarizing: Never it’s too late, don’t regret for play righty, grab a lefty and give it a try!!
 
Present!
I am a pure right-handed but often play left-handed. My right eye is the first to focus and my right ear hears a little better than the left. But I enjoy playing backwards !!
I can tell you: fingers are tools, music emanates from your soul.
Many comrades here have one favorite guitar playing exclusively, this allows you to achieve an excellent technique but in my opinion you lose the spark of improvisation, of doing things on the fly.
Your post reminded me of when I was 12, was a time of changes. My handwriting was terrible, and decided to change my typeface during vacations to make it neater. One of the things that helped me was to write with both hands interchangeably to adapt to novelty.
At that time it was just when I started playing guitar, I told my father I wanted to learn guitar and he brought me a classical guitar with a nice triangular hole on the top: Thanks Daddy!
I learned like many others: playing with a cassette tape and breaking too many strings !!!
During this learning I was changing the strings from right-handed to left-handed every two weeks, that fact may seems a delay in learning but I did not want to tie me, I like to play both ways. I also started using my left hand more often in all the tasks of my daily life.
Throughout the years I was slowly decanting by playing righty, but I always have a guitar strung left-handed because I like to change.
I have 15 guitars of all kind and play all alike, I like not being tied to a concrete scale/radio/height frets/gauge strings. I play bass for a while, then pick up the acoustic ... variety!

Summarizing: Never it’s too late, don’t regret for play righty, grab a lefty and give it a try!!
Interesting. Do you feel it's an advantage to be able to play both sides? Like changing guitars/sides for a particular song that is heavy on the gripping hand or heavy on the picking hand?
Or do you end up "locking in" anyway?

Is there music that is easier to play as soon as you turn your guitar upside down?

I could imagine this REALLY messing with your head to switch back and forth during a session.
 
I think playing both sides don't makes me a better guitarist, but makes me a better musician.
No doubt that my righty skills are better, but I enjoy playing lefty, is another feeling and makes me rethink many things. Make music in a less competitive way, as if you walk whistling...
I don't do it for a concrete result...It has more to do with a philosophy of live that is opposed to the current lifestyle of living comfortably and effortlessly. Maintain a portion of your brain ready to changes.
Isn't the goal, is the path you travel that makes you wiser and stronger
I have a neighbour in the rehearsall place that is attached to a wheelchair...you can believe that he plays drums? yes, he do
Instead complain himself all day for his bad luck he fights...he's a winner!
...this is Sparta!
 
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