Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein
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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Hi Charlie,
I loved 'The King's Speech'. Seen it at least 3-4 times.
I've written with my left hand since first picking up a pencil, so in that regard I'm a lefty, but I play guitar right handed from the first time I picked up a friend's guitar.
Nobody said anything about what hand I wrote with.
I also taught myself how to fingerpick while cutting class at Berklee School of Music in the fall of 1969. Soon after that I started teaching fingerpicking, open tuning and bottleneck styles, and I've done that ever since.
My right hand is very, very coordinated. The left one does pretty well, too.
I've taught several left hand students, and even taught a righty; a guy who had blown off the fingertips of his left hand, and he wanted to learn how to play lefty. I fashioned a set of fingerpicks for his stumps, and we proceeded slowly, but we made progress.
I've also taught students who I recognized to be dyslexic, so we'd sit side by side in front of a mirror.
Whatever it takes.
So you were not forced into playing right handed, correct?
It's not like nuns smashed your hands with a ruler for writing lefty, correct?
My wife went to Catholic school in Colombia, so I've heard the stories, but I digress.....
A good teacher can teach anybody if they're willing to take the situation for what it is: A student who has a particular concept of things that might be getting their way.
If a kid plays air guitar left handed, that there is THE strongest indicator of how they see themselves playing, and it should be acknowledged, right off the bat, but if they play air guitar right handed, their writing skills have no bearing on the issue.
Best of luck in your fingerpicking progression!
Howard Emerson