Right handed playing a lefty guitar!

darrenw5094

darrenw5094

Certified Bug Hunter
I've often wondered if us right handed people that are playing lead guitar would be better off if we played a lefty guitar, so our stronger right hand is the fretting hand instead of our weaker left hand.

In the technical side of things, eg legato would be probably easier as the fretting hand is doing 95% of the work.

Might be a dumb question to some people. 😜
 
After his tragic accident that involved the fingers of his fretting hand ; at the start of his career , I believe he attempted to switch to right handed and found it impossible.
 
I'm a lefty and hate it. I hardly get to try out a guitar at a store and I'm limited to what I can buy FML
 
I thought of this question before.

I feared I wouldn't be able to play guitar before/when I started well- or at a high level because I am so weak/useless with my life hand.

But I realized- why we think the left hand is harder, it's really the right that needs that precision- so I think it's right that you pick with your dominant hand.

Think about this- pick left handed- no fretting- just picking-- it's more difficult than the first time you tried picking with your dominant hand

I've tried learning lefty for the hell of it- I can do a few chords, but still- can't do it.

Hendrix and a few others- Dick Dale, who could flip a guitar around and play it with the strings in reverse sounds kinda difficult. (Hendrix did flip the strings around but he could play fine with them the wrong way)

I can play drums completely lefty and righty and I am equally good at either- which isn't very good- but for a guitar player not that bad.
 
My friend is left handed. He buys right handed guitars, flips them upside down with no restringing mods, and plays just fine. All his chord shapes are upside down to us right handed players.

He says it makes more sense to him. The low notes are down towards the floor and the high notes are up towards the ceiling.

Also he can then use his thumb for melody notes when needed.
 
dr bonkers said:
My friend is left handed. He buys right handed guitars, flips them upside down with no restringing mods, and plays just fine. All his chord shapes are upside down to us right handed players.

He says it makes more sense to him. The low notes are down towards the floor and the high notes are up towards the ceiling.

Also he can then use his thumb for melody notes when needed.
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Just like Albert King
 
dr bonkers said:
My friend is left handed. He buys right handed guitars, flips them upside down with no restringing mods, and plays just fine. All his chord shapes are upside down to us right handed players.

He says it makes more sense to him. The low notes are down towards the floor and the high notes are up towards the ceiling.

Also he can then use his thumb for melody notes when needed.
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I guess it all boils down to what you are used too. As for the OP, retraining your brain to play from right to left is probably a mindfuck for most people. Although I reckon that if you learn to play right as a lefty, or the other way round, from the start should be doable. If memory serves me right Gary Moore was a right hand playing lefty, which did help his bends and vibrato technique. Although methinks if you do exercises to strengthen your left hand its probably easier to improve your bends and vibrato technique then to learn to play lefty. As that will probably take years to properly master, whereas the exercises will work a lot quicker.

And that's excluding the money you will save on buying lefty guitars.

There used to be an American guitar player who lived in Amsterdam who played both right and left handed. I think he was kinda homeless as he spent most of his time busking in the parks of Amsterdam with a right and a left handed guitar.
 
darrenw5094 said:
I'm just after thinking of Michael Angel Batio..... Shreds with left and right..... At the same time 😜
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He’s one in a billion if not even rarer; the definition of a “freak of nature,” and I mean that as a compliment. There are thousands of virtuosos, professional and amateur, that can do everything Michael Angelo can with their normal playing hands - but no one has ever before or since Michael angelo been able to play upside down, backwards, and with both hands in a mirror image at the same time, and most likely no one ever will....I mean i love Michael Angelo, and watching such freakish shredding is a sight to see, but his music is average, boring, and most of it is tasteless and gratuitous shred, and it is obvious he sacrificed compositional strength completely for technique , but hey, it worked out for him (i wouldnt waste my time trying to do that, but I’m glad he did, at least to see such a feat)
 
White Light of Death said:
He’s one in a billion if not even rarer; the definition of a “freak of nature,” and I mean that as a compliment. There are thousands of virtuosos, professional and amateur, that can do everything Michael Angelo can with their normal playing hands - but no one has ever before or since Michael angelo been able to play upside down, backwards, and with both hands in a mirror image at the same time, and most likely no one ever will....I mean i love Michael Angelo, and watching such freakish shredding is a sight to see, but his music is average, boring, and most of it is tasteless and gratuitous shred, and it is obvious he sacrificed compositional strength completely for technique , but hey, it worked out for him (i wouldnt waste my time trying to do that, but I’m glad he did, at least to see such a feat)
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Some people are just born to play the compositions of better composers then themselves. Nothing wrong with that if you, like Batio, have the techniques but no writing talent. There are many roads to success, fake it until you make it, go Zeppelin and steal ideas of others, go The Colonel and find yourself an Elvis to leech off and of course if you can't write it, leech it or steal it, pay someone else to write things for you.

I do wonder if Batio's ability to play both left and right is just as much dedication as it is talent. As the saying goes, it takes 10.000 hours of practice to get good at something. Most people don't have the patience or dedication for that. But as pro athletes show us every time, some people do have the willpower to do go through all that. And I reckon the dedication to become the fastest and flashiest guitar player alive is pretty much sufficient to also learn to do all that left handed as well.
 
FWIW I didn’t say I didn’t have writing talent, I was saying Michael Angelo APPARENTLY spent so much time on technique that he disregarded composition ; that’s my opinion of his music as a fellow shredder - I THINK I can hear technique dominating composition but that’s just my experience

some people might love his music, and some might think he’s overrated - but he’s undeniably what we were discussing as a technical prodigy/genius as his technique is perfect 360’
 
The idea of retraining the brain to keep the fundamentals and just apply them in a different direction reminds me of the "backwards bicycle" - a bike modified to steer in the opposite direction from where the handlebars are turned.

 
White Light of Death said:
FWIW I didn’t say I didn’t have writing talent, I was saying Michael Angelo APPARENTLY spent so much time on technique that he disregarded composition ; that’s my opinion of his music as a fellow shredder - I THINK I can hear technique dominating composition but that’s just my experience

some people might love his music, and some might think he’s overrated - but he’s undeniably what we were discussing as a technical prodigy/genius as his technique is perfect 360’
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Well, I for one couldn't name one of his songs if my life depended on it.
 
I write and eat left-handed and play guitar right-handed. I also play golf and throw right-handed.
 
I am that very weird person that plays guitar like this.

I am completely right handed. I throw right handed, play drums right handed, write with my right hand etc, but play guitar left handed.

I started out playing guitar hero before I ever played a real guitar. I tried playing right handed at first and found it really uncomfortable and painful on my little finger. I think this is because in that game you have to use your little finger more than you need to in real guitar. I kept getting frustrated because my hand would constantly cramp up and I eventually tried it left handed. I found it so much easier and there was no more discomfort so I kept playing that way. Fast forward many years and I had developed such strong muscle memory and dexterity playing this way that it would have taken so much unlearning to play the other way. So when it came to the point when I wanted to get a real guitar I had to get a left handed one.

When I went to buy a guitar for the first time I explained that I wanted a left handed guitar. The assistant presumed that I was left handed and tried to convince me to play a right handed guitar saying: "It's actually much easier to play that way." She obviously didn't realize that I was right handed and that was the reason I wanted a left handed guitar haha.

For me it just feels natural to play like this, but that may be just because of all the prior years playing this way. I sometimes have to remind myself that no one else does this because it feels so natural. As for how it's different, the only thing I really have trouble with is finger picking. I've never been able to use all five fingers when trying to finger pick. But all the others things aren't hard in terms of my strumming hand.

As for making legato and soloing easier, it's very hard for me to compare because I haven't ever gotten to a decent enough level playing on a right handed guitar, but it definitely seems easier and I have no trouble using my little finger constantly. I think you'd have to get to a decent level in both to really compare them.

Would I recommend playing this way? No, but only because 90% of the guitars you will ever see are right handed and you will have to take one your guitars around with you if you ever want to play or show someone. Also going to guitar expos is the most frustrating thing in the world, 100s of guitars and you can't play a single one of them.
 
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