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Old 02-16-2024, 11:54 AM
Charlie Bernstein Charlie Bernstein is offline
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Join Date: May 2023
Location: Augusta, Maine, USA
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I'm a lefty who plays righty. There are good reasons for doing it that way, but there's at least one good reason for getting him a lefty guitar.

I was at a guitar training session a few years ago run by guitarists' guitarist Bennett Hammond. At the time, I'd been playing guitar for about fifty years.

There was a simple Travis-picking phrase he tried to show me. I was embarrassed because I couldn't get the hang of it. I said, "Sorry, I have a stupid right hand."

He said, "Wait. You're a lefty?"

I came clean, and he went into a full-blown rant about teachers who make their lefty students play righty. Sure, we're good at left-hand noodling and fast chord changes, but anything like Travis picking or Delta blues is virtually unmasterable.

Did you ever see the movie The King's Speech? British King George VI had a debilitating stutter because he'd been forced into right-handeness as a child. Basically, my right hand has a debilitating stutter.

Thanks to Hammond's rant, I spent the entire pandemic years just working on my right-hand technique. It's credible now. But it'll never be incredible.
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