Any left handers playing guitar right handed?

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tbmtbm Frets: 578
I'm probably getting WAY ahead of myself here, but my wee fella (turned 4 today!) loves bashing around on his toy guitars, and even mine occasionally when I help him. This may fizzle out and he might not have any interest in music, but I'd say the chances are that he'll play guitar at some point. I love the idea of holding onto guitars for my kids, or at the very least being happy to spend money on decent starter gear. Anyway, he's been favouring his left hand for writing, drawing, and smacking the snot out of his little brother for a while now, so he defo left handed.

My brother is also left handed and does a good bit of stand-in and session bass work, but he always comments about the lack of choice for left handed players. His main bass is a Mexican Jazz, which he's spent lots of money upgrading down the years but I know he'd like a few more decent basses if there was a good selection at decent prices. But for lefties, there isn't.

ANYWAY, to get to my point, I love guitar stuff. I love having multiple guitars and being able to buy sell, and do swaps. Left handers can't do this nearly as easily or cheaply. IF my son decides he wants to play, am I putting him at a disadvantage by getting him to play right-handed? At the moment he "plays" right handed becuase he knows what a guitar is supposed to look like hanging there, but will his ability be compromised playing a right handed guitar just becuase I want him to be able to aquire craploads of gear should be decide to play?

It's very quiet where I work today.

Noise, randomness, ballistic uncertainty.
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  • dafuzzdafuzz Frets: 1522
    edited January 2014
    I'm lefty and play righty - there's a bunch of famous examples if you google it. Us lefties have to be adaptable in this rightist world!

    I suspect a 'true lefty' would be able to help you better tbh - a lefty who plays righty won't know if it's harder to buy lefty gear! (I suspect that it is)

    EDIT: D'oh! Cos this is in Guitar and not Technique I thought you were talking about gear! As far as learning to play goes - I was best in my year at school, but then I practised more. I don't think it'll matter that much in the end if he wants it enough
    All practice and no theory
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  • SkippedSkipped Frets: 2371
    I will be interested to hear what the Lefties have to say.
    All that I wan't to say is that Gary Moore was Left Handed. I saw him play a very small gig when he was 17 ( I was standing right in front of him) and I was stunned with the power of his fretting hand (not just the speed).
    So maybe it is a good idea?
    Also....there is the aspect of finding the guitar you want.
    In an interview Gary was asked about playing a right handed guitar. He looked down at the guitar he was holding (the Peter Green Les Paul) and replied "We'll.....you don't see many left handed versions of these......"

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  • I'm left handed and play guitar right handed. The only answer that I've had from those that I asked about why they play guitar left handed is that it suited them that way round. I've not heard anyone say that their technique was better if they played guitar eft handed. I'm always fascinated by the lefties who play a right handed guitar upside down with the guitar still strung as a right handed guitar.

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  • xSkarloeyxSkarloey Frets: 2962
    edited January 2014
    I am a lefty who plays as a lefty. Sorry to any lefties out there when I say this, but it's been a consistent source of disappointment and frustration to me that I never learned to play right handed. Unfortunately no-one in my family had any experience of guitars or guitar playing. They'd seen Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix on telly though, so they assumed that lefties played the opposite way and that was that.I was 'left'to my own devices. C'est la vie.

    One of my kids is now left handed. Should she ever express interest in the guitar I'd get her to learn right handed first. I advised my left handed brother in law to do exactly that. He started playing when he was 15 and never had trouble. So it doesn't seem physically or mentally to be a big obstacle. Knopfler and Gary Moore are two examples of lefties doing it the 'right' way, so I can't see it as a disadvantage.

    I'm not fascist or fanatical about this. I'm just talking from the point of view of someone who even now has to 'make do' when it comes to gear. I usually liken being a left handed guitarist to being a vegatarian in a steak restaurant.

    So on a practical and financial level it's easier being a righty.

    Rant/ ramble over. Good luck!
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  • NPPNPP Frets: 236
    I'm a lefty playing lefty. I think it wouldn't be too difficult learning to fret with my left hand, but I'd find it hard to keep a good rhythm going picking with my right hand. Then again, I'm crap anyway and drummers and pianists somehow manage to keep time with both hands and all this just goes to show that we guitarists aren't proper musicians at all ...

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  • As a right-hander, when I just started to pick up a guitar my natural inclination was to play it in a left-handed manner. It just felt right. Within a day, my dad spotted me and turned me round to playing right-handed. I think when you're learning an instrument it's the muscle memory that counts, not the "right" or "left" inclination.

    Look at many other instruments that need digital dexterity: keyboards; string instruments; brass; woodwind. They ALL play in the same way. Can you imagine a violinist playing left-handed in the middle of a string section? It would be chaos. New starters would be best to learn right handed and get the best choice of gear.
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  • ESchapESchap Frets: 1428
    edited January 2014

    I'm a left hander playing right handed.  Tried left handed when I started at age about 14 but it felt all wrong, so right handed I went.  Never found it to be any kind of handicap (though I'm generally a crap player).   Even when I decided to get into classical and then finger picking, my "weaker" right hand didn't present any barrier to learning.

    Same with golf, play that right handed too, again tried left handed at first and it just felt wrong.

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  • ThePrettyDamnedThePrettyDamned Frets: 7472
    edited January 2014
    I had a go at playing a left handed guitar (I'm a righty) and, while it felt very unnatural to begin with, I soon settled into playing chords.  

    In other words, I think if I'd learnt left handed, I'd be a left handed player. 

    So I would encourage going righty.  It's not necessarily a 'rightist' world - do you get left handed pianos?  Or clarinets (which is a fairer comparison perhaps)?
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  • Gary Moore was the first example that sprang to mind, and he said there were certain styles he couldn't play well because he didn't have the fluidity in his strumming hand, and so forth...

    But then again, IIRC Mark Knopfler's another leftie-who-plays-rightie...and he's not known for his "bull in a china shop" touch, is he?

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  • frankusfrankus Frets: 4719
    I like being a left handed guitarist... it got me out of playing at the south east gasfest, they don't know how lucky they are and they needed spectators.

    All my guitars are bought from companies who don't charge extra for being a lefty or second hand (where left handers clean-up as resale isn't good) or made myself (it burns that Squier don't make a lefty Bass VI - but making one has been fun).

    If your son wants to play, he'll decide how he wants to play.

    I played ukeleles from about 4-5 and got my first guitar at 8 and instinctively put it left handed... the teacher and a class of 20 other guitarists wanted it the other way around as I would bash heads with their guitar when we were sat in a circle...

    There's not a great selection in most shops ... except Lefties in Holiday Music (might still be owned by Steve Jolly who's a left hander).

    I tend to buy certain brands with a good quality control reputation second hand from ebay (Ibanez, Tokai, MIJ Fender) or get USACG to spin me up parts so I can pretend I'm Tony Stark ;) - I've also enjoyed the challenge of sourcing stuff or making do - lefty jazzmaster tremoloes don't seem to have been made :( but I can flip the plate if I chose...

    Anyway, it's kinda out of your hands ;)


    A sig-nat-eur? What am I meant to use this for ffs?! Is this thing recording?
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  • As a right-hander, when I just started to pick up a guitar my natural inclination was to play it in a left-handed manner. It just felt right. Within a day, my dad spotted me and turned me round to playing right-handed. I think when you're learning an instrument it's the muscle memory that counts, not the "right" or "left" inclination.

    Look at many other instruments that need digital dexterity: keyboards; string instruments; brass; woodwind. They ALL play in the same way. Can you imagine a violinist playing left-handed in the middle of a string section? It would be chaos. New starters would be best to learn right handed and get the best choice of gear.
    Beat me to it! No left handed flutes, clarinets, violins... 

    Actually, guitar is kinda odd that is *does* have a left handed option!
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  • xSkarloeyxSkarloey Frets: 2962
    edited January 2014
    As a right-hander, when I just started to pick up a guitar my natural inclination was to play it in a left-handed manner. It just felt right. Within a day, my dad spotted me and turned me round to playing right-handed. I think when you're learning an instrument it's the muscle memory that counts, not the "right" or "left" inclination.

    Look at many other instruments that need digital dexterity: keyboards; string instruments; brass; woodwind. They ALL play in the same way. Can you imagine a violinist playing left-handed in the middle of a string section? It would be chaos. New starters would be best to learn right handed and get the best choice of gear.
    Your reply was what I wanted to say in my longwinded effort! 

    Learning an instrument requires conscious effort first, until the core skills become second nature. If left handers can learn bowed or woodwind instruments then why not guitar? 

    There are some things though- call them more instinctive functions- where forcing people to adapt and alter is detrimental and should be avoided. Think back to the dark days when left handed kids in schools were forced to write with their right hand. That ruined many a young life. 
     
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  • frankusfrankus Frets: 4719
    edited January 2014
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    Do we need to explain this in a sticky post somewhere? I really love the right-handers explaining how there's no need for left handed guitars... how would you know? Really know I mean.

    I spent 2 years playing left handed, 2 years playing right handed upside down, 1 year playing right handed... I've earnestly tried a lot of different ways and do you want to know what I decided? I have no right to judge anyone elses preferences in playing the guitar, oh and for me I play left handed far better in all approaches except visualising the fretboard that was a lot easier on a right handed guitar for some reason... so I've had to adapt my playing for that.. I use my ears and fewer patterns to play.. win win!

    There are right handers who play left handed... Hendrix - he's mildly ambidextrous but he wasn't predominantly left handed.. his Dad let him get on with that.

    Guitar requires one hand to play rhythm and one hand to make pitches... if you stop to think about it...  piano, drums (of which there are left handed kits - my brother has a kit signed by Little Stevens who played left handed), pretty much all woodwind instruments use the same motor skills with both hands... violin has scherzos but that's the closest you'll get to generating a rhythm with one hand and notes with the other..

    There are left handed guitars get used to it, regardless of how you left handed spectators feel about it, left handed people enjoy using them.
    A sig-nat-eur? What am I meant to use this for ffs?! Is this thing recording?
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  • ThePrettyDamnedThePrettyDamned Frets: 7472
    edited January 2014
    I'm not saying there shouldn't be left handers. But it *is* advantageous if they can learn right handed, purely because the guitar was designed as right handed instrument and, rightly or wrongly, there are many more right handed guitars available, new and used.

    I'm left handed, too. Righty for guitar, but lefty for everything else, from snooker and rugby to left footed in football. I write right handed mostly, though... I'm certain the only reason I'm right handed for guitar is because the first guitar I got was right handed.

    Each to their own, ymmv etc, but guitar is more forward thinking than any other instrument.
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  • xSkarloeyxSkarloey Frets: 2962
    edited January 2014

    Do we need to explain this in a sticky post somewhere? I really love the right-handers explaining how there's no need for left handed guitars... how would you know? Really know I mean.

    To be fair I don't think anyone's suggested that. 

    And my comments are a reflection of (CUE EXTRA SAD VIOLIN MUSIC PLEASE) being a lefty learner back in the days when there were far fewer left handed models to choose from and most companies back then (with the honourable exception of Gordon Smith) sometimes charged pisstakingly high markups on left handed instruments. I could never afford them. 

    I wish I did have the time and talent you had for making your own guitars. More power to you and I'd genuinely like to see some photos of the stuff you've made. As for me, I've never had the talent or time to make my own guitars, though I've seriously thought of it in my frustration. 

    Things are a hell of a lot better now for buying lefty guitar, thank goodness. It's not the potential stumbling block it was. I'd have been alright if I was 20 years younger and starting out today. 

    Ultimately it's horses for courses. I like to keep things simple, which is why I suggested the OP's young lad tries right handed first. There's a lot of examples to suggest that it won't be a problem. But if he simply can't then you're correct and you can't force him. As you suggested, instinct will sometimes out. And like I said before, we used to live in a world where left handers were actively persecuted and forced to do basic things like writing the other way, and that can't be... er...right. 
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253
    Just cause...Ernie Isley who apparently plays exactly the same left handed as he does right handed.

    I would have thought that for some styles using your dominant hand as the one making pitches is an advantage - Gary Moore would seem to be the perfect example of that. However, as a rightie, it does seem to be an odd thing that I expect my left hand to do some quite complicated shapes on the fretboard yet I can barely write my own name using it.  

    Hmmm.
    :-?
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • frankusfrankus Frets: 4719
    edited January 2014
    The lute and other instruments evolved as right handed instruments because left handed instruments caused complications - like being burned at the stake.

    It's possibly misguided to think left handers are only 10% of the populace... the stats saying left handers are more likely to die early are based on interviewing old people and asking them whether they're left handed or not... there's a reluctance to say they are left handed.. (like they'll say I started writing left handed but I stopped)..

    A lot of stuttering is due to the corpus callosum recieving signals from the left and right hemisphere about what to say ... because a person's predominant side has been tampered with externally... punishment for left handedness so a young mind develops the right hand side equally and even when both sides are sending the same word to say next the callosum has to choose one and it can't.

    There are degrees of left handedness - I do everything left handed except golf - I'm shit either way... I'm a good archer and I need a left handed bow for that.. other people prefer different grips for cricket.. my left handed roundhouse kick is strong but the right handed roundhouse kick has better technique (because my left leg is the standing foot) simple it is not.

    The electric bass is the most forward thinking instrument - it has by far the most untapped potential it's range as rhythmic instrument and accessing purer high notes via harmonics means it's a range of frequencies from percussive to lead with stronger tones than the guitar (IMO) also anything above the 12th sounds like a bag-lady being mugged. ;) mmdv ;0)


    A sig-nat-eur? What am I meant to use this for ffs?! Is this thing recording?
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  • Just get one of these:

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  • He used to have a 4 necked X guitar...
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  • I'm a lefty who plays right, mainly because when I started playing in the 60s, there were few options for left handers, even less in the Black Isle where I was brought up. Quite happy as a lefty who plays right, but on the odd drunken "air guitar" moment, I am still naturally left handed
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