handedness (left or right)

A friend of mine used to play the guitar and he played lefty style. He had to get rid of the guitar for one reason or another. Well his parents bought him a guitar for Christmas, but it was a right handed style guitar, so he's learning to play upside down....which is strange to me, I figured it would be easier to have a luthier re-setup it up for him.

Either way, now he can't play any other way than upside down!

Well im left handed and I play right handed and it works well for me.

I'm a lefty who plays "right handed". My fretting hand is my strong hand and the one over which I have the most control. My picking hand is my weak hand. Some things are easier because of this and some harder. I definitely find that my strumming and picking needed / still need more work and emphasis than my fretting.

how do right handers feel about having their "weaker" hand doing all of the work when they play.

As a right hander, I wondered that myself when I was a beginner, until I turned my guitar upside down and tried to play left handed. I could manage to hold a couple of easy (upside down) chords with my right hand, but strumming them with my left hand was a disaster. I found, to my surprise, that it's actually my right hand that normally does the hardest work when playing. The amount of control and precision required to hit the right strings to get just the right volume, tone, timing and feel is greater than targetting and holding down notes on the fretboard in sequence. I realised then "Ah, that's why we hold the guitar the way we do."
So I'm always impressed when I meet left handers who play right handed and have trained their non-dominant hand to do that highly demanding job.

thats probably why im such a bad rhythm player then :lol:

I play guitar left handed and I think its fun that-a-way.

good post.
being an artist, especially when I was a potter, I could use either hand easily. working with clay I really didn't need my eyes at all. throwing cups and bowls on the wheel, eyes closed, music blasting, hands sensing everything. those were the days.
my strong hand is the right. I definitely understand your meaning, Allman, as our strong side is physically stronger and more developed than the other side.
playing guitar, either hand gains strength. maybe there is an advantage to having used both hands in my craft. my left hand has no trouble making and holding a barre F chord. well, I have trouble now because I am old and growing puny.
it would be impossible for me to switch hands to play guitar. couldn't do it.

I'm a righty, but with a pretty strong left hand - always open bottles, etc, with my left hand, for example. I can write left-handed, neatly, but oh-so-slowly....

I tried playing a guitar strung for a lefty one time. It took me about 30 seconds to make a chord shape - C, if I remember correctly - with my left hand - and I absolutely could not strum, or pick, with my right hand.

Funny, but something my grandad (a lefty) once pointed out to me - no matter what the sport, the most exciting players to watch are always left handed. Jimmy White (snooker) - Ryan Giggs dribbling, or John Arne Riise shooting (football) - John McEnroe or Rod Laver (Tennis) - Gary Sobers, Clive Lloyd or Wasim Akram (Cricket) - and if we're talking about guitarists, the guy who's #1 on most people's lists was a lefty....Jimi Hendrix. As is our own David Hodge, who's taught so much to so many.

(Those are just a few of my favourites - fill your own in as applicable!)

So you lefties can be proud of being crowd pleasers - people will pay good money to see you!

:D :D :D

Vic

I'm a leftie who palys right handed. Oddly, I can finger pick really easily but struggle more with using a pick. Maybe because I started with just using fingers, maybe because I'm "playing the wrong way around", I don't know, it just doesn''t feel totally comfortable (compared with other guitar tasks). Reckon I could relearn guitar the "left-handed way" if I had to. Reckon I'd give learning to write right-handed a try first if it came down to that though. :roll: :lol:

As for playing upside down....I can only say Otis Rush and Albert King. 8)

Hmmmmmmmmm, my son did his psychology thesis on handedness - maybe time to look it out and read it again.

I'm right handed. When i started playing guitar I thought it was ridiculous for me to fret with my left hand. I figured the fret work was the most demanding, but it is in fact the picking hand that does the most work.(someone else mentioned this)...You can kind of guide your fret hand because youre looking at it; plus you gain strength and dexterity. With the picking hand you have no visual of what is going on. It's very much a fine motor skill. Picking with my left hand is literally impossible.

Hmm do you look at your fretting hand ?

I almost always look down, like I've got my eye on my picking hand, but I'm just looking at the floor O_O.

I look at my fretting hand when I solo if I'm going to move around the fretboard to visualize where I am going if I am staying somewhere, I'll just let it rip xD and look down, and kinda imagine my fingers going where I want them to go and how I want it to sound, works for me.

I think the right hand does the hardest work, like controlling volume knobs and picking, and muting, floyd rose stuff, yeah pretty important.

In reality, of course, we all get to do things with both hands and cope pretty well.

I'm left handed when it comes to writing so I'm firmly in the left handed camp. I throw a ball left handed, swing a tennis racket and a baseball bat left handed but a cricket bat right handed (go figure), I have left handed scissors in the kitchen and a left handed ruler for drawing straight lines. I use a knife and fork right handed (knife in the right hand), but when I'm cooking I slice up a carrot using the knife in my left hand.

I can drive left and right hand drive cars with manual gearshift. Luckily the pedals are still in the correct position so it's only a question of dealing with the stick.

And now for the scary bit - PC keyboards, PC mice, phones and calculators are only made in right handed versions. And when was the last time you saw a left handed piano? You won't. Likewise, mens shirts only come in right handed button configuration, but womens are left handed. Ditto strides.

Apparently, there are left handed pencils too. Apparently, I have one. The list is endless

And I play guitar right handed.

A :-)

Likewise, mens shirts only come in right handed button configuration, but womens are left handed.
A :-)The reason that women's buttons are reversed is that when buttons were introduced to Britain as functional parts of clothing (they had long been nothing but decorative), they were only to be found on expensive clothes (buttons were, like many such things, very expensive) and were only available to well-to-do people. As such women all had maids to fasten their clothes for them, they reversed the buttons on women's clobber, as most maids were right handed. So, really, both men's and women's clothing has been designed for right handers.