Guitar Forums

what motivates a person to play left handed ( guitar )
if he's left handed then he's got a head start on a ' right handed guitar '..
.....left hand doing the hardest part and all that

theres no such thing as a left handed piano , a left handed harp , a left handed synthesiser
the list is as many instruments as you can think of

i recon hendrix when stoned out of his mind picked up a guitar.. got it the wrong way
round ....started playing ...came out with a load of hallucinated rubbish - which for some
reason peole latched on to , and thought they could emulate it
if hendrix had not been around i dont think 'left handed guitars' would exist

lots of fabulous guitarists are left handed but play a conventional guitar
i suggest it was a marketing gimmick

polyal

It is an interesting point you make here!

It certainly could be a marketing gimmick but I do have my doubts!

Are there people that can play both left and right handed guitars I wonder?

is this bloke left or right
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rutyA12z ... =1&index=9

polyal wrote:what motivates a person to play left handed ( guitar )
if he's left handed then he's got a head start on a ' right handed guitar '..
.....left hand doing the hardest part and all that

theres no such thing as a left handed piano , a left handed harp , a left handed synthesiser
the list is as many instruments as you can think of

i recon hendrix when stoned out of his mind picked up a guitar.. got it the wrong way
round ....started playing ...came out with a load of hallucinated rubbish - which for some
reason peole latched on to , and thought they could emulate it
if hendrix had not been around i dont think 'left handed guitars' would exist

lots of fabulous guitarists are left handed but play a conventional guitar
i suggest it was a marketing gimmick

polyal

hallucinated rubbish? wow.. you sir need an edumacation

like you said, if hendrix wasnt around there wouldnt be what you talking about, if hendrix wasnt around much of what you talk about guitars wouldnt be around.. id bet that whatever new fangled hip music today wouldnt be around if it wasnt for him and he would spank your favourite guitar players butt with him upside down axe.. take a listen and take a lesson in a person who plays with his soul

rant over

do you really think so....thats your opinion......what i wrote is my opinion ..if it wasnt for jimmi we
probablly wouldnt be taking about left handed guitars.. anyway enough about the pro and cons of jimmi

SO:
why are people ( left handed people )picking up guitars and playing them upside down.why doesnt a right handed person pick up a ' left handed ' guitar and play that upside down
anybody got a logical answer?

Isn't a left-handed guitar upside down just a right-handed guitar?

mikeyBoab wrote:Isn't a left-handed guitar upside down just a right-handed guitar?

a left handed guitar played right handed would have the bass strings at the bottom.
a person i know who plays in a band ...plays a right handed guitar left handed as is ( bass strings at the
bottom )i think a lots of people do this!..perhaps someone on this forum does

if hendrix say, was never video'd and could only be heard would we have far less lefties
is he one of the reasons?
what do left hand guitarists say?

why is someone on youtube advertising lessons for left handed guitarists?

How can you play with the bass strings at the bottom!?! I can't even picture it! An upside-down power chord? Just wrong!

theres a few examples on you tube but cant see any heavy metal examples
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA_KYM0j ... re=related

interesting point: never seen a normal guitar player ( right handed ?) playing a left handed guitar upside down

Hmm, that is an interesting point.

What about a left-handed guitarist playing in an insane asylum in the southern hemisphere?

or what about a left handed person playing a normal guitar - and thats the full circle
and thats how it should be!!

or .....was the guitar invented by a left handed person and all right handed people should be
fingering the fretboard with there right hands......and be called 'righties,

It's one of those "tree falling in the wood" questions.

There is no easy answer . . .

What was the question?

what motivates a person to play left handed ( guitar )
if he's left handed then he's got a head start on a ' right handed guitar '..
.....left hand doing the hardest part and all that
theres no such thing as a left handed piano , a left handed harp , a left handed synthesiser
the list is as many instruments as you can think of
i recon hendrix, when stoned out of his mind picked up a guitar.. got it the wrong way
round ....started playing ...came out with a load of innovative riffs and progressions - which
peole latched on to , then started to emulate
if hendrix had not been around i dont think 'left handed guitarists' would be playing left handed guitars
but playing normal guitars just as good
lots of fabulous guitarists are left handed playing conventional guitars
i suggest it was a marketing gimmick

The way I see it, all of the picking and struming should be done by your dominant hand (my opinion). There are many nuances of play on the picking side aswell, more over, the picking side is mostly where your feel of the rithem is applied. Having said that, I believe that your dominant hand would be the best tool for letting out what you have inside. Ofcoarse we have to use the left and right in unison (usually) so you can look at it either way. These days, to do something some one hasn't done on the fret board would be a colossal feat (thanks to people like Jimmy) so for me the fret side is more technical. WHEN you apply these techniques should be based on how you feel and what better avenue for flow than your dominant hand. Besides, why not give your skinny arm a workout on the frets!
Rock On!

I doubt it's just a gimmick. After all, there are actually left handed people in the world. Jimi basically made the instrument companies start making left handed guitars because they didn't make left handers when he started out, so he made his own from a right handed guitar.
Why on earth someone would want a left handed piano is beyond me.

Delboy

What about a left-handed harmonica?

Epic wrongness.

who said ' when my dad bought me my first guitar i didn't know how to play it ..so i reversed the strings and played it the other way round '.......and does it make any sense?

not to me it doesnt

polyal

polyal wrote:who said ' when my dad bought me my first guitar i didn't know how to play it ..so i reversed the strings and played it the other way round '.......

John F Kennedy

no

http://www.thecanteen.com/mccartney1.html
When he got home with the £15 guitar, he "couldn't figure out at all how to play it. "I didn't realize it was because I was left-handed, and it wasn't until I saw a picture of Slim Whitman, who was also left-handed, and I saw that I had the guitar the wrong-way round." Once he re-strung the guitar "upside-down,......etc

sir paul mccartney

does that mean every left handed guitarist has and plays a ' left handed guitar '

how many left handed guitarists are playing 'normal guitars' on this forum??

just he likes playing with his left hands

bantian602 wrote:just he likes playing with his left hands

how many left hands has he got?

if you are sitting and pick up a guitar with your LEFT HAND..(assuming
you have never played one before ) the natural
place to put it is across you left thigh..( the normal place for a normal
guitar ) WHY TURN IT ARSE ABOUT FACE

when a beginner picks up a guitar for the first time neither hand as a clue what to do from
the outset so why the ' other way round ' preference ?

does a left handed guitarist have a left handed mouse to control his sequencer?

what other UI's have an option for left handed ?

mikeyBoab wrote:Hmm, that is an interesting point.

What about a left-handed guitarist playing in an insane asylum in the southern hemisphere?

..I'm sure there are one or two around, playing ABBA perhaps?

I think any guitar teacher- and I've been teaching guitar since dinosours roamed the Earth- who starts a left-handed kid off playing left-handed needs his or her arse kicked, and kicked hard. No only do TABS have to be reversed, but all chord grids as well, to say nothing of the average extra 20% a LH guitar costs, the loss of choice in models and the loss of the extra strength in the left hand as pointed out above- and all this extra work for, in most cases, decades of playing.
A quick web search will reveal a raft of great left-handed guitarists who play right way round.

good points about the tabs and chord grids etc....but whats the motivation that
causes somebody to start left handed ( before he even thinks about guitar lessons )
have you got any left handed pupils?
there shouldn't be left handed guitarists..what started it?

polyal wrote:good points about the tabs and chord grids etc....but whats the motivation that
causes somebody to start left handed ( before he even thinks about guitar lessons )
have you got any left handed pupils?
there shouldn't be left handed guitarists..what started it?

I have left-handed pupils, but they all play right-handed, polyal, aside from the occasional person in their 50's who has always played backwards. There are left-handed banjos and mandolins, so perhaps it's something that grew out of country and western in the 40's and 50's?
Either way, it's a gimmick, and a curse to budding guitarists.