Do Southpaws have it better?

[timdjango]

In a recent post on the forum regarding learning left handed, a lot of players have advised learning right handed. I am a lefty who plays right and I have often wonder if the Southpaws among us get a better deal on steel than righties. My logic is that bar work, to me, is the area which requires the most precise finger control and mind-body coordination. I personally feel that, across all guitar culture, right hand work is a touch overrated, compared to the left. Obviously practise and application trumps all natural advantages eventually, but what do people think about this?

Tim

[Tony Russell Davis]

Tim, I've always advised lefties to try right handed (any instrument) and only convert if that's REALLY impossible. Anybody ever seen a leftie piano? Or harp/french horn etc. etc. - you get the message. Lefty guitars cost more, sell for less and you can't just turn up a a shop and try one. As you say, it's the left hand that does most of the tricky work anyway.

[WineRider]

Very true Tony, but some good pickers have been lefties, with some playing left handed with the strings set for a rightie. How do they work out chords?
Tim, I personally have trouble with for mind-body coordination with both hands!!! does that put me in a different cat?
Reckon the answer is simple, play which ever way suits you and your style and be true to yourself.

Maurice

[Will C]

A good thread, Tim - and one I've often wondered about myself. As a lefty, living in a right-handed world, I have had to adapt. I have always shot rifle right-handed for example, although that has to do with my right eye being my master eye. But I have always played any instrument right handed, reasoning that the greater strength and dexterity should be in the fretting hand, so it suits me to play righty-style.

Mind you, that means that the speed, co-ordination and flair required with the picking hand comes off second best with a lefty. I'd be the first to admit my right hand technique is lacking in many respects. So it's a moot point, although the point about the resale-ability of lefty guitars etc generally is a powerful one.

[ossettjohn]

From my own personal experience I have to disagree. I am a leftie and play everything else left handed apart from PSG. I play guitar, banjo and mandolin left handed and am absolutely hopeless the other way round. For many years I simply reversed the strings on a right handed guitar and wondered why the intonation was off. All my guitars are now left hand built. FYI Martin do NOT charge extra for left handed models, the main reason for my buying a left handed Martin 12 string. Managing to buy a proper left handed instrument was a revelation to me. I could now play up the neck and still sound in tune. Playing PSG was a real struggle at first, but it has become easier with time and, I think, has improved my left handed playing of other instruments.

We lefties did not ask to be different, so why should we suffer discrimination? BTW, a french horn is actually played left handed, so a bad example there, although I take the point about the piano.

If playing "the wrong way round" is better then why aren't the majority of right handed players playing left handed?

[davegallagher]

Good thread for us southpaws anyway....I'm a lefty guitar player who learned steel right handed. I think the right hand picking and blocking is the most important part of steel playing. My right hand technique has always been a weak point. It's a bit better now but for years it was poor. Incidentally I learned a lot from a Joe Wright instruction DVD on right hand technique, practiced his exercises a lot and got better....but here's the weird thing....I can play all those exercises just as well with my left hand without having ever practiced them left handed....so the brain of a lefty is a wonderful place. However, I have absolutely no control over the bar with my right hand.

I'd much rather be right handed. I can't sit at the steel with a guitar strapped over my shoulder. It has to be one or the other. I recently saw Derek Thurlby swapping between his tele and steel in the same song and it was effortless and superb.

[Jif]

I'm right handed so can only imagine what it must be like for left handers. I think though that if you want to play you will find a way to do it. For example would Django Reinhardt have developed the style he ended up with if two of his fingers on his left hand were not partially paralysed.

Think it's hard playing left handed, try left footed

[dessa]

I am a left hooker and have to thank my Dad for giving me a right handed Uke as a youngster.!

[slimbo]

Lloyd Green is left handed, but he plays right handed, have you seen the way his right hand sit's well up on the strings, but what a sound.