Left handers who play right handed guitars

Guitar techniques, music theory, recording and anything to do with actually playing your guitar

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sunshiner
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Post by sunshiner »

Sold an lefty guitar a while ago, but keep doing my experiment drumming generic rhythm patterns with my left hand on the side of my chair every so often and it actually helps. The progress is slow and my hand gets tired quickly and becomes sloppy, but I can see and feel the difference. That was about me masturbating by the way. Strumming also gets a wee better
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MrBatch
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Post by MrBatch »

Yep - changed from left handed to playing right hand guitar left handed. That's why i thought a short scale would help as better access to higher frets when your E is nearest fllor and e is nearest your face
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ekwatts
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Post by ekwatts »

I never saw this thread originally. But yeah, I'm a lefty that plays righthanded because I learned on my older brothers guitars, which were right handed. But he's also a lefty, but he started playing in the 80s and there was no way my mum and dad were gonna go round trying to find a left handed instrument for him.

I've thought about whether it was ever an advantage or disadvantage for either of us. Hes the best guitarist I've ever personally known and I'm a bit shit.

So I dont think it makes any difference at all in the long run. It evens out

Anyway, as i understand it, left handers can learn to do right handed stuff relatively easy while right handers find it harder to adapt. It would be interesting to make a comparison between lefties that play righty to righties that play lefty but that will never happen because you simply won't find enough of the latter to be able to perform a proper scientific comparison.

So, no, I don't think it's important at all.
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kim
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Re: Left handers who play right handed guitars

Post by kim »

Late but i saw it and felt i'd pop in.

I can not get on with flipped guitars.
I have a righthanded Hondo II SG style (EG-502) stringed lefthanded, that works fine, the body shape (symmetric and thin) and weight make it fairly ok flipped. The trem arm was missing when i bought it. It's got a 6 in line headstock but never had issues.

Then there's the squier Bass VI i bought last year.
Flipped it, put a strap button over a neck bolt.
Put rubber grolsch washers under the control knobs. (knobs right under my arm)
Then i got a set of labella flatwounds (stringed lefthanded, adjusted the nut, i didn't flip it...i should've),
still think it was a manufacturing issue but i had two strings snap in a week or so. Store refunded me.
The stock righty trem i couldn't use as the arm retainer touched the heavy top string.
Also not having the dot markers where i'm used to seeing them was a slight discomfort.

Oh and my only acoustic, a cheap fender, is righthanded too, i never changed anything to it, just flipped the strings.
Less than ideal for intonation with that glued in angled bridge.

I'm selling the bass VI after i've set it up righty again. I'd love a VI, but a lefty.

I like my guitars lefthanded, i wish i could play righties comfortably, ideally with upside down strings even, it'd be a lot less hassle.
But i can't.
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Re: Left handers who play right handed guitars

Post by sunshiner »

I tried to play a righty strat upside down and it was beyond uncomfortable with all the controls in the way of the strumming hand. It only added to the whole discomfort of trying to learn strumming with my non dominant hand which is left as I'm a righty. It was an experiment that didn't go well for me. I've watched Doyle Bramhall, who is a righty who plays left handed guitars strung upside down, say that Jimi Hendrix was a lanky dude with long limbs and was able to place his strumming hand around the controls. There's something to it as a flipped upside down strat is close to be unplayable to me

Nowadays it seems to be easier as a lefty to find cheap guitars, at the same time I'm a firm believer that the ability and opportunity of buying tons of guitars as a righty is overrated. I don't think anyone really needs lots of guitars, it's as much a fetish as buying dozens of pairs of shoes. At the same time I still cling to stuff I should have probably sold or thrown away years ago. I keep thinking that many of the artists prior to the 90s had ONE instrument to do it all, fucking ONE. And being a musician was their job
matte30is wrote:Someone man up and get a balloon.