Do Southpaws have it better?

Tim Sheinman · From: Brighton, UK

I am a lefty who plays right handed. I have often wondered, given the amount of fine left handed players, if perhaps we have it a little easier than our right handed brethren. My logic is that fine finger control is associated with the dominant hand. The area of the steel requiring the most fine finger control is the bar. Practise and applications trumps all natural advantages eventually, but do lefties have an advantage where it most counts on the steel? What do you think?

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

bar easy
picking difficult

Tim Sheinman · From: Brighton, UK

Baloney, Slants, slides, vocal effects, grace notes, not to mention simply intonation. If you think the bar is easy then either you are blessed by God or don't understand the bar. Is this a discussion?

James Wolf · From: Georgia

I have often wondered the same of golf

Jamie Mitchell · From: Nashville, TN

right hand makes the gravy...
so no, I don't think so.
I'm also a lefty playing righty, fwiw

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

What Earnest says. People who don't play violin or guitar think the left hand looks more complicated than the right, which just seems to go up and down. But it's the tone production that's under the control of the dominant limb.

And yes, I am blessed - with 50 years of playing the trombone. So sliding into place precisely is second nature, as is vibrato etc. I never used finger picks before playing steel, and boy they're HARD!
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Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Also, James, I can think of at least one cricketer who bowls right handed and bats left; and from the World Series I recall a Giants batter who could swing both ways (so to speak). So where the dominant hand goes on a bat or club can depend on the circumstances. Some soccer players are genuinely two-footed while for others no amount of practice can achieve it. Handedness may be variable, and Tim may be more ambidextrous than he thinks.
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Bob Blair · From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

If Earnest Bovine doesn't understand the bar I don't think there is hope for any of us!

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

Lane Gray · From: Topeka, KS

I'm with Earnest. Detail work gets done with the dominant hand, grunt work goes to the off-hand. There's a reason EVERY SINGLE string instrument is normally excited with the right and fretted with the left.
The right hand does more than just flail at the strings.
And notice the technique threads here: a LOT more on speed and blocking than on intonation/hammer-on/slants.
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John De Maille · From: On a Mountain in Upstate Halcottsville, N.Y.

I'm a natural leftie and do most stuff using my left hand, but, I've adapted to the right handed world. I play steel, six string guitar, banjo and mandolin the right handed way. I also shoot right handed. And, for some strange reason, I'm right eye dominant. I believe that, lefties have it better than righties because we live in a right handed world and have to adapt to the other half. Whereas, the righties are stuck with only half of an ability. I've known right handed people, who, can't do a thing correctly with their left hand, where, lefties can do it with both hands.

chris ivey · From: california (deceased)

the right hand caresses the instrument to it's most pleasurable output.

Mark Hariman · From: Melbourne, Australia

I'm a lefty playing righty, and recently started picking up PSG. What I do with both hands are difficult, though I must say that my right hand has gotten used to doing picking, thanks to the 15+ years of playing guitar. If anything, I'm just not quite used to using finger picks and thumbpicks yet.

Larry Carlson · From: My Computer

Being left handed I have no idea how it would compare in difficulty if I was right handed.
However: I have noticed that left handed players are without exception much better looking.
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Rick Barnhart · From: Arizona, USA

Jack Aldrich · From: Washington, USA

I'm a "leftover" - lefty who plays right handed. When I was a teenager, I played ukulele strung right handed but played left handed. I've played piano since I was 10, so I'm more dexterous (Latin for Right, btw) than most with my right hand. However, I've had a lot of trouble with my right hand. Currently, I'm struggling with harmonics on non-pedal steel, and I'm definitely slower at speed picking than most righties. Play on, anyhow!
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Mark Eaton · Posted 5 Jan 2015 11:22 am

The only thing I do right handed in this world is play stringed instruments. I am a lefty at everything else: writing, drawing, eating with a fork, cutting a piece of steak, baseball, golf, tennis, throwing a football, shooting a basketball (though my high school coach drilled me into being able to do layups right handed to have another weapon in the arsenal), casting a fishing rod etc..

I started taking lessons on lap steel as about a nine year old 50 years ago (yikes!). That is too long ago for me to remember, but it wouldn't surprise me if initially I tried to play it left handed, but the teacher "corrected" me and turned the guitar in the other direction.

The nun in my first grade class Catholic school also tried to get me to write using my right hand (apparently being a lefty was the sign of the devil) until my dad went down there and raised hell with the Monsignor in charge and threatened to pull me and my two older brothers out of the school.

If I re-strung a steel, dobro or a standard guitar to try to play as a lefty, I don't think I could pull it off. I could get fairly comfortable with the picking/strumming part down with my left hand in likely fairly short order, but the idea, at this point in my life, of barring or fretting with my "uncoordinated" right hand seems almost impossible. I honestly can't imagine how righties do the barring and fretting with their left hand. I remember when I first saw Jimi Hendrix thinking how cool it was that he's a fellow left hander, but the idea of fretting with my right hand to be like Jimi was a daunting task.

Two of among my favorite musicians in the world (and of course there are of others) who are lefties that play right handed: Lloyd Green and Mark Knopfler.
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Brint Hannay · From: Maryland, USA

I am a lefty who plays both guitar and steel right-handed.

I feel that being left-handed is an advantage on the guitar. Both hands have to do complex things on guitar, but the dexterity (sinisterity?) required for what the fretting hand does outweighs what the right hand does.

On steel I feel the reverse is true. Granted, I really never use bar slants, but even if I did I still think the right hand challenges substantially outweigh the bar hand's task in need for dexterity.

Marty Forrer · From: New Zealand

Tim Sheinman · From: Brighton, UK

Here is my feelings on what has been said and based on doing a little reading. Firstly, studies (Oldfield, Christman) suggest there is no significant difference in performance between left handed and right handed performers, including on piano. My feeling is that Steel is such a complex instrument, requiring considerable application, that small natural advantages are largely unimportant.

However, this is largely a country and Americana music forum and in my opinion, the fast picking and relatively simple harmonic movement associated with the genre leads to an obvious preponderance towards the right hand. Thus it is no surprise that right hand is harder than left, within the genre. However, one may only need to look to players in other areas such as Robert Randolph, Sez Adamson, Susan Alcorn and BJ Cole to see different readings of left-hand playing and the complexity involved. Thus one can see relative hand complexity as strongly rooted in the type of music being played.

Thirdly, the left hand, in modern style playing, is greatly alleviated by the increased use of pedals, compared to early players. While pedals are what make the steel what it is, I also wonder about the degree to which this has affected left hand control among players, in the same way as modern balls have affected basic handling skills among sportsmen, such as in rugby (Brit thing). Anyway, all very interesting. On another note, I really was not insulting Earnest personally, I don't know him, but I wanted to get a discussion going in some depth and didn't want to end it there, no offense intended.

Tim

Robert Parent · From: Gillette, WY

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

Mark Eaton · Posted 5 Jan 2015 1:54 pm

As Tim wrote above in regards to some modern pedal steel playing where the bar basically stays on the strings most of the time and it moves up and down the neck like a rounded steel capo, with some vibrato at times for effect, I can see where a person's "non-coordinated" hand with sufficient practice can get the job done, and one's playing will benefit from their coordinated hand doing the picking.

But if it's true that most of us only use about 10% of our brain, then with discipline one should be able to get used to almost anything. Like the examples of people with serious disabilities of their arms and hands that can play guitar with their feet.
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Tony Smart · From: Harlow. Essex. England

"can play guitar with their feet"

Mark, my Grandfather's party piece years ago was to play a tune on the piano with his nose.

Is nothing sacred?

Jerry Berger · From: Nampa, Idaho USA

I am also a natural leftie and do most stuff using my left hand. When I started taking lap steel lessons in 1955 I was seven years old. I do not recall having any difficulty back then learning how to play this magnificent instrument.

As far as left handed players being better looking, I can attest to that. Here is a pic of my twin brother and me at the age of ten and as you can see, I am much better looking than him. I'm on the left. Laughing

1958

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