Why left handed guitars?

Michael Douchette · From: Gallatin, TN (deceased)

I'd like some input from you guys that play left handed guitars. Beyond their limited production and limited resale value/market... why would anyone want to learn this way? I ask this, because I've been thinking. Bobbe related after his recent accident that he really discovered that the "music" is in the control of the left hand, not the right. One of whom we consider to be the best ever, Lloyd Green, is left handed. Did you ever stop to think that Lloyd's incredible left hand technique, his masterful vibrato and bar slants, are because he has such excellent control of his left hand? Why wouldn't more lefties want to take true advantage of their natural gift, and play a regular production right handed guitar?
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Austin Tripp · From: Nashville TN

I am left handed. I tried playing a leftie before I "really" wanted a steel guitar and it looked weird and played weird. Also I have a question regarding a leftie steel guitar this is tricky to explain,,, would the Emmons pedal setup on a leftie really be called a Day setup or vice versa? Like is the Emmons setup on a leftie the same Emmons setup on a righty? I know this is confusing. Confused

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Randy Koenen · From: Grand Forks North Dakota, USA

I'm left handed and have always play guitars right handed and my steel is right handed. You know I never thought much about it but when we had to do our solo at Jeff Newman's class, the one comment he made about my playing was my very good left hand bar technique...
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Larry Bressington · From: Nebraska

I think when you learn to play, you use both hands equally in different ways, i beleive the brain has to work the same both sides. I think we are only left/right handed when you only have to use one hand, but when it's both, the brain looses that differential proccess. How many people walk right footed or left.
I know they say one foot does stomp heavier, but we are 2 footed, i think mike Smile

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Mark Eaton · Posted 1 Mar 2009 6:33 pm

I'm a lefty and play right handed, as in the picking hand is the right hand.

I can't imagine having a steel set up and barring it with my right hand, the "uncoordinated" one.

I also can't imagine trying to fret a regular guitar with my right hand, yet the vast majority of the world's players use the uncoordinated hand to bar and fret their instruments.

I guess you can get used to anything...
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Randy Koenen · From: Grand Forks North Dakota, USA

I'm left handed and have always played guitars right handed and my steel is right handed. You know I never thought much about it but when we had to do our solo at Jeff Newman's class, the one comment he made about my playing was my very good left hand bar technique...
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A. J. Schobert · From: Cincinnati, Ohio,

I am a righty.

I can see the advantage of forcing yourself to learn
to play with the "right" hand, you can have a wider selections of steels to pick from. On another note, why do lefty steels cost more? I asked this before, they are the exact same as a right handed guitar only reverse. Why the price hike? True story, A local music shop in Cincy was selling 6 string guitars, a guy wanted a "lefty", he was told it would be extra $$, he thought about it and contacted the builder they told him this is BS, and he got his "lefty" elsewhere.

Matthew Prouty · From: Warsaw, Poland

Michael,

Great topic.

First I will say that it is truly a gift from God to be left handed. A right handed person can only fathom the ability gained from challenges that lefties overcome in life adapting to a world that is made for righties. That's a discussion in its self.

I started playing dobro years before I got a steel and I had developed my left hand chops such that I could not discount them and retrain my right hand. So I stayed playing lefty.

The resale market is really limited, but so are the top guitars. I am not sure if the resale value is follows supply and demand patterns.

I have what I consider to be "The Guitar" it's a 1977 Emmons S10 P/P. It's always for sale and I will take 5000.00 plus shipping. Find another for less and I will buy it.

At the end of the day I think that its about conformity. Do I deny that fact that I am gifted and conform to your world or do I accept my gift and embrace it, and accept that fact that I will confront many challenges along the way.

I think the foremost is that you cannot just try an instrument out. You have to buy it and see if you like it, then resell it if you do not.

m.

Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

This question does not even arise for pianists. Think about it. Nobody plays a "left handed piano". Nobody needs to. They train both hands simultaneously to play "the piano". Why should guitar, steel guitar, or anything else be any different? One might exist somewhere, but I've sure never heard of a left handed trumpet, saxophone, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, or a zillion other instruments. What is it with guitarists?
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Jim Robbins · From: Ontario, Canada

Left handed flute:
http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/LH-flutes.htm

Left handed violin:
http://www.violinslover.com/lefthandedviolins4_4.php

Left handed cellist (and actor):
http://www.wimmercello.com/charlie.html

Left handed trumpet:
http://www.netinstruments.com/trumpets/trumpet/left-handed-bach-model-37-available

Left handed piano:
http://lefthandedpiano.co.uk/about.html

I personally write with my left hand but have generally found it necessary to use both hands when playing guitar which I play 'right' handed.

As for the question, "What is it with guitarists", that's a whole different thread ...

Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

OK, Jim, I stand corrected: they exist. But I'm sure you'll agree with me that they are only a fraction of a percentage of all the instruments out there and that the vast majority of players have just learned to play the standard instrument.
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Jim Robbins · From: Ontario, Canada

How about kit drummers -- if there was ever an instrument where you'd think coordination requirements are such that handedness wouldn't matter that would be it -- but I've known a few left handed drummers who set up left handed.

Untested theory: the lack of 'left handed' instruments in the classical world probably has to do with rigid pedagogy, in the same way that left handedness used to be discouraged in elementary schools; & where there are relatively informal ways of learning music it's probably not uncommon for lefties to flip the instruments around where it's practical.

But I agree that most instruments require so much learning in both hands that handedness becomes irrelevant & with string instruments it seems to me if anything the greater fine muscle control is required in the left hand.

Nick Reed · From: Russellville, KY USA

Mark Eaton · Posted 1 Mar 2009 10:34 pm

Tor Arve Baroy · From: Norway

A friend of mine who is a well known classical guitarist started out playing guitar the "regular way" even though he is left handed. He was a great guitarist, got went to music conservatory for 3 or 4 years, Then after well over 15 years of playing...he bought a left-handed guitar.
He claims that he definetly became a much better guitarplayer from this. The brain seemed to match the hands better as he said.

So for him there was a purpose!

John P. Phillips · From: Folkston, Ga. U.S.A., R.I.P.

Here's an even weirder twist to
this conversation.
Since most instruments were invented
by right-handed people,
what if it were reversed and instruments
were invented by lefties ?
Would learning lefty be more prevailant then ?
Since there would be more
lefty instruments
and lefty
and would be the standard.
OBTW, I've always said that I was
right handed and everyone else was
wrong handed ! Laughing

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David Nugent · From: Gum Spring, Va.

I noticed on the "Pedalmaster" web site that Roy Thomas has began selling "GFI" guitars in addition to his own because the demand for his left handed instruments has become so great.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Bill McRoberts · From: Janesville, Wisconsin USA

John Billings · From: Ohio, USA

AJ, the price hike would probably be for machining leftie endplates. And where ya gonna find a set of left-handed legs? Smile

John Fox · From: Quantico and Crozet, Virginia, USA

Dear fellow Forumites,

I'm a lefty in some, but not all, areas. I started lefty six-string in the 60's after trying righty for a couple of weeks. Righty just didn't work then, but I've apparently grown new wiring, so now I can manage almost tolerably as a righty on steel guitar. Others are strictly dominant in one hand, but I think you call my way "ambi-clumsy." My "footedness" also depends on the game.

No one mentioned, so I will, a nearly symmetrical instrument, the harp. The hands can do equal work, but usually the left mostly takes the bass, while the right hand must reverse its high-low orientation/sense from the piano model. Of course, harpists choose which side to stick their neck out, and they have pedals on one side only, as far as I know.

This all goes to show that we have choices and gifts that vary. I like to play bottleneck style on a six-string, but I started pedal steel righty. The arguments that more good righty stuff was available and that I could share my gear won me over. Likewise with violin and most others.

When I'm playing my best, kind of in the zone, I forget about details such as handedness, and the music just lifts me out of those concerns. I wish that for you all.

Thanks for a good thread. Smile

John

Matthew Prouty · From: Warsaw, Poland

The extra cost of a left handed guitar are the end plates and the 10 bottles of aspirin the builder had to take while building the guitar.

I like to offer my guitar for people (six stringers) to try. They sit down at it and it takes them about 30 seconds to realize its left handed. I just laugh and say "See I told you it was really difficult to play!"

m.

Nic du Toit · From: Milnerton, Cape, South Africa

Who was it that determined the steel guitar (the "right-handed' one) to be 'right-handed, to start with?
Or, are we just assuming this to be a fact? (A pedal steel is a Pedal Steel, is a pedal Steel)
I am a so-called 'lefty', but playing 'right-handed' instruments right-handed, has never bothered me.
Isn't it just amazing what dexterity the top players, like Buddy, Paul Franklin, Doug Jernigan have in both hands? Oh yeah, their brains must be different to ours!!??
Learning to play an instrument will be a new challenge to your brain, and the subsequent muscle memory has to be acquired from scratch, anyway.
Just my take on this subject. Very Happy

Alan Miller · From: , England, UK.

Fascinating thread, before reading some of these replies I would have thought that the picking hand would need to be the one with the most dexterity and the naturally preferred one .
I recently tried to play a left handed pedal steel and found it almost impossible to imagine ever being able to pick accurately with my left hand, whereas the bar control with the right hand was reasonably good after only a few minutes.

I may just go back to my friend with the left handed steel and persevere for the hell of it just to see if I can get picking with my left hand,then my right hand would be more naturally controlling the bar ....Mmmm thought provoking thread.

Maybe all you players who are naturally left handed are in fact more ambidextrous
than right handers.

Brian Kurlychek · From: Maine, USA

Being new to the instrument, and being a righty, I can't imagine my left hand doing the picking or my right hand holding the bar. If that were the standard, maybe I could have gotten used to it, but now it is too late.
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