Any Lefty like a righty?

[GrindCustoms]

This questionning is happening while late chatting with Jubal81....

I'm a born lefty and only thing i do like a right handed person is play guitar or bass simply because when i was 13, the guitar we had at home was a right hand Ibanez acoustic... a friend showed me Black Sabbath's IronMan and from there... it was on.

Though, through the year i've faced many handicaps in my playing, aspect on wich i would struggle physicaly or mentaly in their mechanism of execution, like singing a melody over some riffage, overall lead playing or doing hand tapping the opposite way ( starting by pulling the tapped note instead of doing an hammer-on to it..nyway..) and despite all of my effort doing sweep picking on even 3-4 strings is something i can't do at all.

Anyone else playing mirrored and facing those difficulties?

Rej

[kothoma]

I confess I'm right handed.
But my impression is that it's not in the indiviudal hands but in the coordination of both.
And have you ever heard of a left hand piano?

[BaklavaMetal]

I face the same woes,
as i mostly play thrash metal where right hand tight picking is usually more important than left hand fingering wizardry i have trouble with precise and tight picking + singing at the same time. But i have a very good rhythm player by my side so i can always turn myself down a little bit when i sing and play

[RobA]

I was just wondering about this a couple of days ago. I'm not left handed, but when I was first starting to grab things to write or color, my left hand seemed to be dominant. For some reason, nudging or just seeing other people use their right, by the time I can remember, I always used my right hand for writing. Anyway, for whatever reason, I'm pretty much adextrous. That's like ambidextrous except I suck equally with both hands.

Anyway, that got me thinking about why stringed instruments for right hand players use their dominant hand for what seems to be the easier task (to me). I think it's kinda weird. Is it a strength thing? I can kinda see it on mandolin family instruments or bowed instruments, but why the guitar and lute? As far as I know, in the linage of the guitar, it's always been this way. But, it still seems weird to me. I was going to go look it up and see if there's anything on the biology/psychology of the question, but I got side tracked and forgot about it.

The left-handed piano thing came up in my mind too. But, that got me wondering, does say a left handed stride player have an advantage over right-handed players?

[dont-tase-me-bro]

I'm left handed.  Play guitar lefty, operate pedals with my right foot.  There's no way I could do a tap tempo switch with my left.  Throw a ball lefty, snowboard ridden left foot forward.

i can't conceive being able to play guitar right handed

[midwayfair]

I'm not left handed, but I can't figure out anything I do with my right hand that requires dominance. The motion I make doing tremolo picking is muscularly almost identical to the one I make doing vibrato. I fingerpick guitar and I still need more precision with my non-dominant hand than my picking hand.

BUUUUTTTTTT ... I can see how the motion required to use a pick is similar to holding a pencil. I hold them similarly (except the pick is thumb and forefinger while the pencil is thumb and middle finger) and they have to make similar motions. My dominant hand/arm can also straighten faster and probably more precisely, martial arts training notwithstanding, so strumming is probably easier with a dominant hand, but I have no idea if that's natural or learned, and strumming simply doesn't require that much force.

I'm with kothama on this -- I've never heard of a left handed piano, though left handed pianists are definitely going to have stronger left hand technique.

[alanp]

Anyway, that got me thinking about why stringed instruments for right hand players use their dominant hand for what seems to be the easier task (to me). I think it's kinda weird. Is it a strength thing? I can kinda see it on mandolin family instruments or bowed instruments, but why the guitar and lute? As far as I know, in the linage of the guitar, it's always been this way. But, it still seems weird to me. I was going to go look it up and see if there's anything on the biology/psychology of the question, but I got side tracked and forgot about it.

My completely uninformed theory based on no research is that people notice the *rhythm* moreso than the actual notes (you can get away with a lot if you keep going and act like you meant to do that), and the dominant hand would be better at keeping a solid rhythm.

[GrindCustoms]

Anyway, that got me thinking about why stringed instruments for right hand players use their dominant hand for what seems to be the easier task (to me). I think it's kinda weird. Is it a strength thing? I can kinda see it on mandolin family instruments or bowed instruments, but why the guitar and lute? As far as I know, in the linage of the guitar, it's always been this way. But, it still seems weird to me. I was going to go look it up and see if there's anything on the biology/psychology of the question, but I got side tracked and forgot about it.

My completely uninformed theory based on no research is that people notice the *rhythm* moreso than the actual notes (you can get away with a lot if you keep going and act like you meant to do that), and the dominant hand would be better at keeping a solid rhythm.

My dominant hand is on the fretboard and that's where i struggle most of the time, my picking/strumming/chugging ability is probably the best aspect of my playing. I also play bass by finger picking and got no problem doing it the Harris way or slap the funk out of it either. But i always have to keep things more simple on the fretboard side, otherwise the weakness will be heard.

[jubal81]

[Jopn]

And have you ever heard of a left hand piano?

Or watch a symphony perform and realize that all the bows going up and down are pointing in the same direction.

[gtr2]

I do many things lefty.  It was my natural dominance.  My grandmother more or less  got me to write right-handed which I am thankful for.  I play guitar righty never even considered that there were lefty guitars when I started playing, once again, thankfully.  Although it would have helped the bank account

We all have stumbling blocks in our playing, some of them are just really hard to get over, but that makes us all a little unique in our style.  I'm always kind of amazed when people comment on my playing because I only see what I can't pull off, we need to capitalize on our strengths and just be happy.  I am not much of an interesting person to listen to if its just me and an electric guitar, but within a band context its way easier for me to add and blend my playing to create interesting parts and textures.  That's been more my focus the past few years.

Josh

[lincolnic]

As a lefty, I tried playing right-handed guitars for about a minute when I was beginning to learn, but it just felt weird to me. Does it suck having an extra-tough time finding guitars? Sometimes, but I'm not really a guy who needs to own a lot of guitars. I play what I have in a way that feels natural to me, and that's the important part.

Having said that, I have learned to play a right-handed guitar upside-down if need be. I think most lefties learn to do that at some point just by virtue of being surrounded by right-handed guitars 90% of the time.

[trustybs]

Hi,
I am as far as i remember a complete lefty.  There is no application where my right hand is the dominant one, and it's the same for my feet.  But, i learned to play guitar as  right handed.  Don't know really why, I guess, it was mostly for guitar availability.  At the beginning, I always took the guitar as a left-handed, so I guess there is something natural in that.  The thing that has been the most difficult is the left-hand moves and techniques.  I grabbed the pick really wrong for years and i ended up each show with bleeding fingers (i found it cool at the time anyway).  And I still have some problem with rythm playing, like funky fast moves and i totally suck for finger picking.  So i think i should have been a better player if i have played like a lef-handed but more than that if i was not sooooooooo lazy and practice more.