Left handed kids - teach them to play right handed?

clarkefan

Kittyfrisk said:

My parents are both naturally left handed, they were physically beaten & forced throughout their lives to conform to right hand norms.
My younger sister is also left handed, she had a hard time too.
I'm right handed, I was caned & beaten throughout my educational life too, but not anything to do with my 'handedness', just because the educational system at the time was a bit shite & 'spare the rod, spoil the child' was an acceptable mantra.
Here's to a better future   

Wow.  Thank you.  My mother used to tell me similar stories, about literally having her left hand tied behind her back in school, something to do with the devil.  I didn't really fully believe her.  Wonderful 50's Catholic Ireland...

At least the better future is here!  None of that horse manure around anymore

Op, what did you decide? 

fields5069

I often think switch-hitters have certain advantages in having their dominant side working the fretboard. I'm almost tempted to buy a lefty guitar and retrain for a laugh. Almost. I'm just afraid of meeting the Devil.

hollywoodrox

Cameron cooper on YouTube is left handed but plays right handed 
  He shreds van halen style like nobodies business . Plus if you play right handed you have an epic choice of new & second hand guitars . It’s gotta be done 

Tannin

It's just wrong.

What's just wrong? Telling left-handed kids to play a right-handed instrument? No, that's just sensible and practical and better for them in the long run. The "just wrong" thing is calling a backwards guitar "left handed" and the other sort "right-handed". They are nothing, repeat nothing of the kind. 

Left-handed writing? Of course. Left-handed scissors? Of course, and shops should be required to sell them if they sell the other sort. Left-handed golf clubs? Naturally. Left-handed piano, guitar, saxophone? Don't be ridiculous.

The sad thing about a guitar is that it is physically possible to hold it backwards, and because of that some people do. And that leaves them forever paying more money for a poorer selection of instruments, and all for no benefit whatsoever. Both hands have difficult tasks on a guitar, neither one is dominant or "harder", they are just different.

(I write as a left-eyed right-hander. I write with my right hand, use an axe, a cricket bat, a golf club or a shovel "left-handed" (which isn't really left-handed, it's just other way about - both hands do work) and use a telescope or a camera with my left eye. Note that this last is a serious disadvantage for a wildlife photographer as you can't use one eye to shoot with and the other eye to watch the context. But nobody makes left-eyed cameras so I just have to deal with it.)

RocknRollDave

My understanding, admittedly as a right-handed person myself, is that whilst right-handed people do everything* with the right hand/ right foot, for non-right-handers it’s less clear cut, with a whole spectrum of handedness from ‘do everything lefty’ to, say, ‘write left-handed but do most other things righty’..,

point being: getting children who write lefty to try righty guitars isn’t necessarily a bad idea.

*not EVERYTHING, obvs…I mean ‘everything for which using a dominant hand is a thing’

Tannin

RocknRollDave said:

*not EVERYTHING, obvs…I mean ‘everything for which using a dominant hand is a thing’

Which rules out guitars. (Because you need two good hands to play one.)

ICBM

Tannin said:

It's just wrong.

What's just wrong? Telling left-handed kids to play a right-handed instrument? No, that's just sensible and practical and better for them in the long run. The "just wrong" thing is calling a backwards guitar "left handed" and the other sort "right-handed". They are nothing, repeat nothing of the kind.

Sorry, but this is complete bigoted ignorance and makes me quite angry.

Left-handedness has degrees, like many other things. Some left-handers can learn to play right-handed perfectly well. Some can't, because the two hand functions are very different, and forcing a truly left-handed player to play right-handed because you think that playing left-handed is "backwards" or "wrong" is as bad as forcing them to write right-handed.

Some people are right-handed, some people are left-handed. Neither is "right", even though the language is deliberately prejudiced.

roberty

I read that the reasons for using your dominant hand to strike the strings are:

1. This convention comes from classical guitar which has complicated finger picking
2. The strumming hand has to work unconsciously while you focus on what your fretting hand is doing

3. That's the hand that actually produces the sound so it is more important. All the rhythm and dynamics come from there, and the timbre 

I'm a left handed person who plays right handed guitar. I would say to try and teach a lefty on a right handed guitar first and if they struggle with it then flip it around, like what Paul McCartney did

Tannin

ICBM said:

Tannin said:

It's just wrong.

What's just wrong? Telling left-handed kids to play a right-handed instrument? No, that's just sensible and practical and better for them in the long run. The "just wrong" thing is calling a backwards guitar "left handed" and the other sort "right-handed". They are nothing, repeat nothing of the kind.

Sorry, but this is complete bigoted ignorance and makes me quite angry.

Flat wrong. It is a two-handed instrument. That is a fact. There is no "left-handed" or "right-handed" to it anymore than there is to a piano or a flute. Both hands have tricky work to do and it is a nonsense to suppose that one hand or the other is "superior" or "works harder". Anyone who wants to play guitar (or almost any other instrument) has to learn to use their non-favoured hand to do hard stuff. 

Tannin

roberty said:

I read that the reasons for using your dominant hand to strike the strings are:

1. This convention comes from classic guitar which has complicated finger picking
2. The strumming hand has to work unconsciously while you focus on what your fretting hand is doing

3. That's the hand that actually produces the sound so it is more important. All the rhythm and dynamics come from there, and the timbre 

I'm a left handed person who plays right handed guitar. I would say to try and teach a lefty on a right handed guitar first and if they struggle with it then flip it around, like what Paul McCartney did

1: Is irrelevant. It's just history, and both hands have to work hard if you want to be any good.
2: Makes no sense. The fretting hand also has to work unconsciously while you focus on a tricky bit of picking. Each is equal to the other.
3: Has some merit. On the other hand (so to speak) the fretting hand produces the actual notes, it is entirely responsible for correct pitch (especially note bending and slide and fretless playing, where this becomes critical) and for anyone who hammers on, pulls off, and slides into notes (which in some genres is a huge part of playing) the fretting hand produces the notes too. As for timbre and dynamics, the fretting hand has a lot to do with those too. So all up, point (3) works out to be a wash.

euan

Oh I guess I should have worked harder, after 6 months of being refused to play the single left handed acoustic in the music class and trying to fret let alone change chords right handed being impossible, I gave up for a year. The only way I can describe it was brain freeze, and it’s still like it. 

Then I got my own left handed guitar and made more progress in six hours than I did with 6 months right handed played. 

Bloody slacker I guess

RocknRollDave

I have a left-handed friend who plays right-handed and it always seems like his right hand is hitting the strings too heavily, and lacking in looseness, flexibility in the wrist.
As a righty, I’ve tried playing left-handed and the same (well, opposite) thing happens to me - if I try to strum with my left hand, I hit the strings very hard - I worry I’m going to break them, the angle’s all wrong, there’s no dexterity to it.

I would liken it to braking with your left foot (don’t try it in traffic if you’ve never tried it before!) With my right foot, I can apply varying pressure for a smooth slowing of the vehicle. With my left foot, it’s like I’ve hit a tree and stopped dead.

prowla

Who says which way a given "-handed" is anyway; it's only a convention, not a rule.

RocknRollDave

Tannin said:

RocknRollDave said:

*not EVERYTHING, obvs…I mean ‘everything for which using a dominant hand is a thing’

Which rules out guitars. (Because you need two good hands to play one.)

Same as for eating with a knife and fork or playing drums…but some people choose to do them the other way around to what is considered the ‘right-handed’ way, so there must be some difference between what the hands do and how the dominant hand affects how you orient things.

jmf1928

Lefty here who plays righty. Glad I chose to do so. I also like having my most dexterous hand on the fretboard. It feels more natural to me that way. 

Edit: ha! I replied to this two years ago. 

roberty

Tannin said:

roberty said:

I read that the reasons for using your dominant hand to strike the strings are:

1. This convention comes from classic guitar which has complicated finger picking
2. The strumming hand has to work unconsciously while you focus on what your fretting hand is doing

3. That's the hand that actually produces the sound so it is more important. All the rhythm and dynamics come from there, and the timbre 

I'm a left handed person who plays right handed guitar. I would say to try and teach a lefty on a right handed guitar first and if they struggle with it then flip it around, like what Paul McCartney did

1: Is irrelevant. It's just history, and both hands have to work hard if you want to be any good.
2: Makes no sense. The fretting hand also has to work unconsciously while you focus on a tricky bit of picking. Each is equal to the other.
3: Has some merit. On the other hand (so to speak) the fretting hand produces the actual notes, it is entirely responsible for correct pitch (especially note bending and slide and fretless playing, where this becomes critical) and for anyone who hammers on, pulls off, and slides into notes (which in some genres is a huge part of playing) the fretting hand produces the notes too. As for timbre and dynamics, the fretting hand has a lot to do with those too. So all up, point (3) works out to be a wash.

Point 2 absolutely makes sense. There is more conscious thinking with the fretting hand because there are only 6 strings but there are 132 possible finger placements, in various combinations. You're wrong about this I'm sorry

edit: tablature, which is the most common form of guitar notation, in most cases shows only the fretting hand. The other hand is taken for granted

Sporky

I think we should let people try both and go with whichever works better for them.

There are some logical advantages to learning right handed (for want of a better description), but they don't outweigh different people being wired differently. 

roberty

euan said:

Oh I guess I should have worked harder, after 6 months of being refused to play the single left handed acoustic in the music class and trying to fret let alone change chords right handed being impossible, I gave up for a year. The only way I can describe it was brain freeze, and it’s still like it. 

Then I got my own left handed guitar and made more progress in six hours than I did with 6 months right handed played. 

Bloody slacker I guess

It's probably more useful to listen to left handed players than tell them they are wrong

Mattharrier

I'm nominally left handed, as I write with that hand, but in many other respects I'm right handed. I can no more shoot a basketball with my left hand or kick a football with my right foot than I can write with my right hand.

I play guitar right handed as it feels more natural (I've never actually had opportunity to play a left handed guitar, but tuning an acoustic to open G, flipping it over and strumming some barre chords feels really wrong). Whether this is social conditioning, and I'm just used to seeing guitars that way round, I have no idea (I suspect not, as most of the time when I see a guitar, it's from the front and so "backwards" anyway).

I do kayak left handed - I've been using a right handed paddle for ages, and I've never felt comfortable as a kayaker. I recently had a chance to try a left handed paddle, and it was a game changer. I bought a LH paddle second hand recently, and the guy I bought it from is, oddly, right handed - he just prefers a left handed kayak paddle.

Ultimately, there are many, many people who are a combination of left and right handed, depending on the activity, and a lot of the time, people possibly use their right hand because so much stuff is designed that way (scissors, for example - some scissors are agonising to use with your left hand as they are shaped for a right hand thumb; tape measures are upside down if you use them "left handed").

If you can, give your kids the opportunity to try both and see which is most natural.

Roland

Sporky said:

There are some logical advantages to learning right handed (for want of a better description), but they don't outweigh different people being wired differently. 

Wis’d. We’ve had the left handed discussion several times over the years. A person is not either left handed or right handed. It’s a spectrum. Like many human attributes it’s a combination of nature and nurture. When I started primary school I would do things with either hand, including writing. I was “cured” of this, not by teachers, but by other pupils who believed that right meant right. Some of them also confused right with write.

Guitar playing was the first time that I was faced with a left-right decision. It was a conscious decision to play right handed, knowing that it would cause my body to develop asymmetrically, because I knew that it would give a wider choice of instruments. I also thought that being dexterous with my left hand (pun intended) would be advantageous. @Tannin I don’t think that guitarists do equal work with both hands. Legato is an example.

Playing right handed is the advice I would give to any pupil, based on those two reasons, whilst acknowledging that some people just can’t do that.