Lefties playing righty?

Bradley Harper · From: United Kingdom

Hi all,

Just wondering if anybody is aware of any pro players playing righty, but being lefty naturally?

Never thought about it much before, but I’m trying to find out whether it’s a disadvantage of sorts at the highest level.

I’ve been playing 10 years like this, so I’d never try learning lefty now but wondering if I should have done!

Brad

Ricky Davis · From: Bertram, Texas USA

Yes: "Lloyd Green" is a full on Lefty in everything; but always played steel guitar "Right-Handed"; as he said the main hand that makes all the sound/texture/dynamics/intonation...etc is the "Bar-Hand" and that is the LEFT hand; so he stayed picking Right handed to hold bar with his "LEFT" hand for ever.
Ricky
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Bobby Hearn · From: Henrietta, Tx

I’ve been doing it for 18 years, couldn’t imagine playing a left handed guitar, but I started out on 6 string as a kid and tried to play it left handed then but was quickly corrected. I believe Lloyd Green is a lefty and I don’t think it hurt him.

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

I am strongly right-handed and I cannot imagine trying to pick with my left hand. So I would never insist that someone 'should' turn things around and go against their brain's wiring.
But yes, there are no doubt a lot more pro players who are converted lefties than players who play lefty.

A good reason to not play a left-handed instrument is that as a steel tech, you will be cursed at for days if you bring me your lefty steel for repair. Surprised

I swear, I even have to use masking tape to mark the tuners before I restring the guitar, I get so turned around and out of whack with a left-handed instrument.

But seriously, there are no 'shoulds' but there are things to think long & hard about, either way.

Dave Hopping · From: Aurora, Colorado

I'm strongly LH but have always played RH. I tried once to play six-string left-handed. Didn't work at all, and I've never even thought about LH steel.

Is there even such a thing as a left-handed piano? Winking

John Swain · From: Winchester, Va

I believe Curly Chalker was left handed. In retail I always advised beginners to learn right handed. Instruments are easier to obtain and they don't make left handed pianos !

Brett Day · From: Pickens, SC

There's a man who played steel with the band Ricochet when they first started out named Monte Good, and he plays a left handed Derby steel. He left the band now called Ricochet to play steel with John Michael Montgomery-this was before Teddy Carr joined Ricochet. Monte can be seen in several of John Michael Montgomery's videos, including his "Be My Baby Tonight" video, where he is seen playing a left handed Emmons guitar, "Cowboy Love" is a live video in which John Michael Montgomery featured his road band, and Monte was playing a left handed Derby guitar, and in mid 1999, Monte appeared with the Derby again in John Michael Montgomery's video "Hello L-O-V-E", which was the first single released on his "Home To You" record.

Joe A. Roberts · From: Seoul, South Korea

I play armpit guitar left handed but I play steel right handed.
As a fellow lefty who has heard the “left handed piano” line since I started playing, I sympathize and ultimately you need to decide for yourself.

But the physical skillset for steel guitar is completely different, and left handed instrument availability is a way bigger issue for steel guitar than normal guitar.

As John said, Curly Chalker was left handed and that didn’t stop him from having some of the fastest, cleanest right hand picking techniques of all time.

But if you want to try playing left handed, don’t let anyone dissuade you, but be prepared to wait awhile for a second hand steel, or custom order one (often with a couple hundred surcharge for lefty)

Per Berner · From: Skovde, Sweden

If you would sit down behind a pedal steel never having played a stringed instrument before, I'm sure a left handed or a riight handed instrument would be equally confusing, no matter which of your hands is dominant. And once you've learned one way or the other, changing over would be very difficult. I'm sort of ambidextrous in many ways (like writing legibly or using an office calculator with my left hand), but playing guitar "backwards"? Never!

Joe A. Roberts · From: Seoul, South Korea

Another point is individual ambidexterity seems almost impossible to quantify and obviously varies vastly from person to person.

They say lefties are more ambidextrous than righties usually, I don’t know whether that is by nature or by nurture in a world made for righties.

The only way to find out if playing lefty is something better for you would be to try it!

Mark Eaton · Posted 11 Nov 2024 10:46 am

I do almost everything lefty, and it's too long to remember now, but I started out as a kid in the sixties taking a few years of lap steel lessons at a Bay Area music studio and toward the end some pedal steel. I don't recall being offered a choice - finger picks on the right hand and bar in the left.

A good friend of Lloyd Green was legendary dobro player and a fine pedal steel player as well, Mike Auldridge. Mike was also a lefty who played right handed.

Though I can certainly relate to reversing and using my left hand for picking, at this point in my life using my less "coordinated" right hand for the bar, or on standard guitar fretting something like an F Major barre chord at the first fret - that's a bridge too far.

Lloyd and Mike, along with Mark Knopfler on guitar are among my all time favorite musicians. All three are natural lefties playing right handed, and I swear I can hear their more coordinated left hand in barring and fretting that is different than many other great players. There is a quality or characteristic that's difficult to put into words.
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Roddy Ring · From: Alexandria, Virginia, USA

Many years ago, and probably 7 to 10 years after I started playing bass, guitar, banjo and others, it occurred to me that I was might have it backwards and probably should be playing "left-handed" because i was asking my right hand to do the easier of two jobs for most any stringed instrument when playing right-handed.
I never tested that theory because I was too far down the road to restart as a lefty. I'll take the stories of Lloyd Green, Mike Auldridge and Mark Knopfler as evidence that I might well have been correct. But given the slim choices of "left-handed" instruments, steel or otherwise, I don't regret my choice to remain right-handed.
Roddy

Susan Alcorn · From: Baltimore, MD, USA

I am also left-handed, but play right handed.
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Samuel Phillippe · From: Douglas Michigan, USA

Being naturaly left handed I never gave it a thought when I picjed up my first guiitar at 13.....been playing right handed all these years and tried lefty once...couldn't even play a chord.

Play it the way you feel comfortable, but I would suggest right handed because it is easier to find instruments and accesories.

Face it....us lefties are more talented than righties because we do more right handed stuff than they do left handed......LOL

Sam

Paddy Long · From: Christchurch, New Zealand

My buddy Tomi Graso in Sydney Australia, plays a D10 Emmons Le Grande Lefty, which Emmons custom built for him.
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Skip Edwards · From: LA,CA

I'm left handed, playing right handed.

Ron Funk · From: Ballwin, Missouri

I'm pretty sure Lynn Owsley is left handed.

One time at lunch he told me that as a kid, he tried playing a 'right handed steel backwards' with very limited success.

And then a friend of his told him that there were more 'right handed steels' made than 'left handed steels' so Lynn switched.

The rest is history.

Doug Beaumier · From: Northampton, MA

I too am left handed, but I play guitar and steel guitar right handed.
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Bradley Harper · From: United Kingdom

Hi again everyone,

If I’m honest, I hadn’t realised what esteemed company I was in. I thought it’d be extremely rare.

I too started out on 6 string and have always played righty. I definitely think I’d struggle going lefty now.

I think I play to a fairly reasonable standard, but one of my weaknesses is that I can obsess over what I ‘should’ do, as opposed to what feels/ sounds better. By that I mean, playing righty feels normal to me and I’m relatively proficient, but there’s part of me thinking perhaps the ceiling of my ability might have been a little higher had I learned lefty originally.

On a side note, I’m not sure if there are any tennis fans here, but I believe Rafael Nadal was actively taught to play lefty as it’s considered quite an advantage.

Brooks Montgomery · From: Idaho, USA

It’s funny, in the fly-fishing world, of which I’ve retired, there is this axiom of the old guard that says if you’re right handed, then you should cast with your right hand, switch the rod to your left hand, and then reel with your right, your so-called strong hand. The old revered angling companies such as Hardy in England (been around since 1870) made all their reels right-hand retrieve for the majority of anglers that were right handed.

This is of course baloney, and my response has always been in those fishing circles, “if you only have one hand that is coordinated, then no one would be able to play the guitar!”

It’s muscle memory pure and simple . I’m left-handed, left-eyed, left-footed. I cast left, reel right.
Always played all guitars right handed.
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Steve Cattermole · From: California, USA

I'm another lefty playing right handed. Thought about playing lefty ,then I decided to follow Lloyd

John De Maille · From: On a Mountain in Upstate Halcottsville, N.Y.

I, too, am left handed. Nobody ever tried to correct me when I was young, so, I grew up a natural lefty. Most everything I do, I do lefthanded. But, living in a riggthanded world I learned to adapt quickly. So, I guess you could say I'm ambidextorous. However, I play steel, guitar and shoot righthanded. That's how I learned. Muscle memory is heavy on the left, but, almost just as good on the right.

Damien Odell · From: Springwood, New South Wales, Australia

Tomi Graso from Sydney plays a LH Emmons and is a superb player. He can sit behind a RH guitar and play it better than most also.

Richard Sinkler · From: aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana

Brooks Montgomery · From: Idaho, USA

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