Left handers who play right handed guitars

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Fri Jul 15, 2016 5:15 pm

Do we have the members of the forum who play a guitar that way?

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Fri Jul 15, 2016 6:09 pm

Louis IIRC.

Also I want to say Kim/Heavium had one or two flipped stangs.

There's different ways to do it, some people mod them by flipping the nut and saddles around, others just learn the strings upside down. Both my dad and my ex-boss at Guitar Center played the latter way because it was easier to just pick up any guitar and play it without mods.

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Fri Jul 15, 2016 7:13 pm

It is intersting how difficult it is to play rhythm patterns with the non dominant hand. There are many famous left handers who play right handed but almost all of them are some serious lead players. Maybe only Billy Corgan strums and shreds the same amount of time

Mo Law-ka · Post by **Mo Law-ka** » Sat Jul 16, 2016 2:05 am

Suh d00d.

I've only ever played righty, but do everything else lefty. For me, it was a matter of using my dominant hand to play the complex stuff at the beginning, but now I've been playing long enough where it's become muscle memory for both to "play their roles" and now I can't not play righty.

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Sat Jul 16, 2016 5:05 am

^thanks d00d. That's exactly what I wanted to know

WayToHip · Post by **WayToHip** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 7:42 pm

I'm left handed and started by playing left handed, but switched after reading about I should use my dominant hand to fret, because my pick hand just strums, and I haven't changed for 6-7 years.

I never had a problem with rhythm playing, basses are my prefered instrument.

mezzio13 · Post by **mezzio13** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 8:08 pm

Louis played flipped, Kim plays regular lefty.

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 8:12 pm

My dad.

My son, so he can play mine (and, long game, so I can play his).

Brandon W · Post by **Brandon W** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 10:04 pm

my friend plays either way with either a left or right handed guitar.. upside down righty, or upside down lefty.. regular lefty or regular righty.. not sure what it's called.. its like ambidextrous and backwards +1.. it makes me really angry.. so i asked him how and he said it's not that hard really.. just back the chords up in your head and if you know where every note is you find new and interesting ways to play chords.. i asked him how he learned this and he said being a lefty he often couldn't find left handed guitars to demo at guitar shops on tour. So while everyone slept or drank or whatever, every town they went into he found a guitar store and most of the guitars they had that he liked were right handed so he started playing with the high e on top in the store just to try it out and kill time. Then he got good at it and started playing regular right handed with the low e on top like we do.. He did this for a few long tours all around the country and then got bored traveling and taught himself how to play his leftie guitars right handed.. I think the degree in jazz guitar helps as well as playing guitar before you can walk.

edit.. i think i have some videos of him playing my right handed gibson les paul somewhere.. i'll see if i can find them.. I thought the neck felt strange so he told me to bring it and broke a string and grabbed it and went to town with it at a gig.. he played it both ways.. its pretty badass. I'll find it tomorrow

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Mon Jul 18, 2016 10:48 pm

benecol wrote:My dad.

My son, so he can play mine (and, long game, so I can play his).

Clever!

paul_ · Post by **paul_** » Tue Jul 19, 2016 3:52 pm

My boss is a lefty and has a slew of 60s/70s P and J basses as well as some vintage partscaster ones so whenever I want a go on vintage Fender basses it's upside down. Admittedly not too regular a thing.

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Fri Sep 30, 2016 5:48 pm

Mo Law-ka wrote:Suh d00d.

I've only ever played righty, but do everything else lefty. For me, it was a matter of using my dominant hand to play the complex stuff at the beginning, but now I've been playing long enough where it's become muscle memory for both to "play their roles" and now I can't not play righty.

Hey, Mo. After all the years that you play the guitar, do you still find it sometimes challenging to strum fast rhythms with your right hand? Thank you in advance

dezb1 · Post by **dezb1** » Fri Sep 30, 2016 6:17 pm

benecol wrote:My dad.

My son, so he can play mine (and, long game, so I can play his).

I think my boy is going to be a lefty... I was looking forward to the guitars I could buy in hisome name now that dream if gone...

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Fri Sep 30, 2016 6:36 pm

Kids are left handed from the early age as far as I know, like toddlers they already use their dominant hand for most tasks.
I just restrung my Strat for a lefty for scientific reasons, not that I want to awake my inner Hendrix, just to go through the initial phase of learning how to play using my non-dominant hand for strumming/picking. And strumming is challenging, I noticed that there are almost no really good strummers among all the famous left handed guitarists who play right handed. All of them are notable lead players. So maybe problematic strumming is a thing that can't be entirely fixed in the case when a guitarist uses his non-dominant hand or I am just over thinking it

Mo Law-ka · Post by **Mo Law-ka** » Sat Oct 01, 2016 11:43 am

sunshiner wrote:
Mo Law-ka wrote:Suh d00d.

I've only ever played righty, but do everything else lefty. For me, it was a matter of using my dominant hand to play the complex stuff at the beginning, but now I've been playing long enough where it's become muscle memory for both to "play their roles" and now I can't not play righty.
Hey, Mo. After all the years that you play the guitar, do you still find it sometimes challenging to strum fast rhythms with your right hand? Thank you in advance

As I've gotten better, I've definitely found it more difficult to learn new/more complex rhythms. Eventually, I'd like to be able to do gypsy jazz style strumming with really quick up-downs. The issue comes down to not being able to coordinate anything other than a relatively slow up-down motion at my elbow.
EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT PICKING IS CRUMBLING AS I WRITE THIS

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Sat Oct 01, 2016 1:54 pm

Mo Law-ka wrote:
As I've gotten better, I've definitely found it more difficult to learn new/more complex rhythms. Eventually, I'd like to be able to do gypsy jazz style strumming with really quick up-downs. The issue comes down to not being able to coordinate anything other than a relatively slow up-down motion at my elbow.
EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT PICKING IS CRUMBLING AS I WRITE THIS

Thank you, man. I've got some problems with my ring finger on the left hand, because of the old trauma. I decided to restrung the guitar and to try to learn everything I know left-handed. As you said it's really hard to coordinate strumming hand. Gipsy jazz style strumming not the simplest, I have to work a lot to get there.

Have you ever thought of going fully Kurdtz?

Johno · Post by **Johno** » Sat Oct 01, 2016 3:36 pm

I'm left handed but play right handed. Feels totally natural to me. I have tried to play left handed but can only do open and barre chords really slowly.
I don't feel hindered playing complex rhythms or finger picking with my right hand. Left handed guitars were not an option for me as none of the shops stocked them when I was a lad.... I actually started off playing bass.

Concretebadger · Post by **Concretebadger** » Sat Oct 01, 2016 9:18 pm

I've always played righty guitars, despite being left handed. It felt unnatural at first, but after nearly 20 years it now feels more unnatural when I pick up my lefty bass.

The original plan for my bass was to make a "fresh start" of sorts and learn on an instrument that was suited to my, um, handedness. I'm now considering picking up a cheap lefty guitar and doing the "ambidextrous guitarist and bassist" thing properly. That way I could (theoretically) pick up any bass or guitar and be able to use it. Which would be pretty sweet.

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Sun Oct 02, 2016 3:41 am

I guess that with practicing it comes. I've just started and it feels unnatural. You need to explain to your strumming hand what to do, like you are teaching kids how to do math and outside of the given knowledge they are not able to do anything.

sunshiner · Post by **sunshiner** » Sun Oct 02, 2016 3:43 am

Concretebadger wrote:
The original plan for my bass was to make a "fresh start" of sorts and learn on an instrument that was suited to my, um, handedness. I'm now considering picking up a cheap lefty guitar and doing the "ambidextrous guitarist and bassist" thing properly. That way I could (theoretically) pick up any bass or guitar and be able to use it. Which would be pretty sweet.

That is also my idea. I want to be able to play equally good left and right handed