Lefties Playing Right Handed

[29er]

The thumb pick thread going on brought up another question: How many left handed players play right handed? I am in this category and I'm sure there are many, many more. The back story is at the age of 10, my uncle gave me his Silvertone flat top after he gave up trying to learn the instrument. I'm guessing he, like most folks did not give a thought that there were right & left handed instruments. He just gave his left handed nephew his right handed guitar & said "Give it a go and see what happens" I am very happy this is what occurred because now I do not have to search for left handed guitars.

Years later I always wondered about the righty/lefty thing because to my way of thinking, my dominant hand was on the fret board where all the cool stuff was going on My thinking evolved when, in my 40's I decided to learn finger style. What followed next was a 10 year on again, off again struggle to get my stupid right hand to do what I needed it to do!

Anyhow, that's the short version of my journey but I'm guessing I'm not alone.

[Mandobart]

This is another frequent topic that sometimes goes south(paw) in a hurry.

There are militant lefties who start to argue we must play left handed instruments and the other side who vow you can never find a good lefty guitar so just learn the "right" way.

I'm left handed. I do most sports, write, shoot and eat lefty. I switch up when using hand and power tools.

I play stringed instruments right handed. I started on violin and its how I was taught. I think there would be a few one-eyed fiddlers if they mixed it up in the string section. Anyway using my left hand on the fingerboard felt natural so it's carried over to guitar, mandolin, mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello, bass....

It works for me but if a player wants to play left handed it doesn't hurt anyone else. Unless you poke them in the eye with a wrong-way bow.

[RRuskin]

I'm left-handed but play a right-handed guitar. Holding it the other way around just didn't feel right to me. My brother, also a leftie, couldn't get comfortable with a guitar unless he turned it around. Whatever works for the individual player.

[Bob Womack]

I'm a lefty playing righty. I'm pretty profoundly lefty but have had to adapt. I shoot (at marksman level) lefty. I kick off left-footed and punt right-footed. I mouse with my right hand. I throw with my left and catch with my right like a lefty. I switch hit in baseball. You get the idea.

Bob

[Silly Moustache]

I'm a leftie who plays righty. it really never occurred to me to try differently.

I onvce tried to teach my wife who is also a lefty - she had to have a left handed guitar (I bought a cheap but nice one and converted it myself. She gave up quickly.

Incidently we realised that the very weird Burmese/Savannah cross cat that we have now worked for for a year is also left pawed - literally - he comes and goes through the cat flap using his left paw, and pushes stuff of tables - left pawed. (He does play, but not guitar) he prefers playing online ;

[jayhawk]

I am a lefty playing righty. I am actually pretty ambidextrous it is just that I naturally gravitate to my left hand.

I actually prefer playing 'left handed' on a 'right handed' instrument. It puts my left (dominate) hand on the fretting end of the guitar and my right hand just strumming or plucking strings.

I actually feel sorry for the dominate right handers trying to do the fretting, stretches, hammer ons, hammer offs with a non dominate hand.

Jack

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by 29er

The thumb pick thread going on brought up another question: How many left handed players play right handed?

Hi 29er

I've spent fifty-eight years as a left-handed person playing conventional guitars (and pianos, and brass etc for closer to 65 years).

My Bachelors degree is in Music Education, and I've taught intermediate and advanced fingerstyle for the past 40 years.

By far the majority of people who are left handed play their musical instruments conventionally. A greater percentage of left handed folks play instruments than are in the general populace.

In forty years of teaching I have taught 2 very capable left-handed people with reverse engineered (saddle reversed and properly intonated) instruments.

They were a delight, and we never even discussed their left-ness. Sitting across from them, their hands were mirroring with mine. Very easy for them to see and do.

[The Bard Rocks]

Ditto for me - and one of my guitarist friends. Not expecting to find a jam session at a family wedding in Canada, he came unprepared. So they offered to bring an extra one for him. It turns out every single one attending all played left-handed. Despite being left-handed like the others, he was unable to play. What's the chance of that happening?

[BryanWI]

By coincidence, I am also a lefty who picked up my brother’s old right handed Silvertone guitar when I was fifteen. I got hooked on it learning on my own, and it was very painful to play, because of super high action. The right handed set up seemed natural to me. That was 46 years ago. In college I moved on to a nice Yamaha that was much easier to play, and gradually stepped up to a couple nice Martins. I still love the feel and smell of the guitars. It’s great to have a passion in life!

[MrDB]

My experience mirrors a lot of others here. I am left handed but play righty. Way back in the day left handed guitars were exceptionally rare and my parents bought me a right handed guitar to learn on.

I throw left, bat left, shoot left, golf left. I write right handed (poorly) as there was a great experiment in the 50's to make everyone write right handed. So starting to play right handed didn't seem too out of place for me.

[JohnW63]

My first instructor had me learn some slow songs with fingerpicking. I learned to use a flat pick some time later. Even now, playing jazz tunes that my current instructor has be working on, some 40 odd years later, I most often use my fingers and not a pick. I guess everyone has a path they take to get to the same place.