I've heard of left-handers taking a normal guitar and restringing it to play lefty, but I just watched a video of Air Supply's "I'm All Out Of Love" (I should point out that I normally would have changed the channel) and I noticed that the lead singer, left-handed, plays a right-handed guitar UPSIDE-DOWN, not restrung, i.e. with the bass strings at the bottom and the high G, B, E (and pickguard) at the top! He must have learnt to play like that and done it all his life. The picking looked easy enough but the chords were standard open position ones turned upside down! How weird. I bet he has no problems with intonation though! I'm sure there are others I've read about who have done this or similar, but it's the first time I've seen it with my own eyes!
That's just like Clapton's guitarist's- exept he plays a lefthanded guitar with the strings upside-down. I think it's cool, but probably very diffricult unless u've been playin like that all your life!
"No pain No gain!"- The Scorpions
If I remember correctly, Sir Bob Geldof - a lefty by nature - learned to play on a guitar strung for a right-handed guitarist, but played it left-handed, i.e upside down...
The strangest technique I've seen though has to be Jeff Healy...plays the guitar on his laptop...if you've got a copy of the Patrick Swayze film, Roadhouse, check it out on there....!!!
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
I met a guitarist a few weeks ago, he learn't that exact same way but the funny part is he now buys left handed guitars so that everything else is the right way up but restrings them upside down!
Talking about Jeff Healy, I see him live about 12 years ago not only is he an amazing guitarist but also very comical, he makes fun of his own blindness like bumping into his chair and taking pictures of the audience with the camera pointing the wrong way etc.. :)
A lot of licks he does are almost impossible to do holding the guitar normally because he can stretch an almost entire half neck with ease.
Btw Vic.. I don't think he actually plays it on his laptop! :D
Lee
That's just like Clapton's guitarist's- exept he plays a lefthanded guitar with the strings upside-down. I think it's cool, but probably very diffricult unless u've been playin like that all your life!
Doyle Bramhall II :wink:
#4491....
Quite correct, Lee...what I should have said was "he places the guitar on his lap, like a lap steel"
A laptop is what I'm typing on at the moment!!!
:oops: :oops: :oops:
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Albert King, the great blues guitarist also played this way as well. It is probably why they have such a unique sound.
I also saw Jeff Healy about 12 - 14 years ago. He played the Commodore Ballroom (Famous for it's bouncing dancefloor), in Vancouver. He was amazing to watch. It was around the time he made that film. Ironically he has pretty much retired from the Music scene after that, and now runs a bar in Toronto (don't know if he plays there as well).
I think he got tired of the Recording Industry itself.
Surf Guitar God Diick Dale is another upsidedown player.
(sic on the "Diick," as the site auto-censor converts to correct spelling to "Richard" -- and he ain't no Richard)
-=tension & release=-
Other than Eric Gales, I thought I was the only one who played this way...I learned from a friend, tried it right handed, felt uncomfortable, so I started learning everything upside down. After a couple years playing, a party one night, someone was like "wow, etc." Point being, I never knew it was wrong, never cared, by that time my technique had excelled to the point there was no going back...After 20 something years it has never prevented me from anything, studied Classical in College 5 years, and hammer out all of the techniques, etc. Anyway, I am wowed by this myself after looking this band up for my mother...If curious, scope me out here: http://www.myspace.com/j.rockstar/music/songs
ROCK!!! ~johnny~
