Any lefties that play righty

I eat, write, and throw a frisbee left handed. I can throw a football and use a tennis racket with either, and baseball, shooting, all right.

I play guitar right handed. But I suck at guitar. Which actually says more about my focus and drive to learn than it does about my handedness.
 
GomezAddams said:
I'm left handed, and when I first picked up a guitar it felt better holding it left handed. I decided to learn right handed, though, because I figured I've have a much better selection of guitars to choose from, and I'd be able to play other people's guitars. I also figured that with my dominate hand doing the hard work, it would be easier.

Over the years, I've come to the conclusion that how your pick interfaces with the string is a very large component of your overall "tone" and that a lefty playing right handed will never master the extremely subtle nuances in that interaction.

Then again Waddy Wachtell is a lefty who plays right, and he's a monster player, so what do I know?
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I have a very good friend who is a lefty that learned to play righty and once he became more advanced he always complained that his picking hand couldn't keep up. He was into more metal riff driven stuff where that was compounded. He might pick up a guitar a couple times a year now.

I've met at least 4 lefties who play lefty and can also play a right handed guitar upside down just from being around so many of them.
 
A former bandmate of mine is left handed. Played leftie guitar, and with us played bass (right handed bass flipped over so the strings were upside down).
And he plays drums right handed. Still not quite sure how that brain works. :messedup:

Myself I was born left handed, but learned to use my right hand at a very early age so I'm fairly ambidextrous. Definitely an advantage on the drums.
 
I'm a lefty, but I play guitar right handed because I learned how to play on guitars that I borrowed from other people (who were right handed). I am sort of ambidextrous though. I throw, bat, golf, bowl with my right hand (anything that requires strength and force) and I write, eat, cut with scissors with my left hand (anything that requires fine movements). I sometimes wonder if my picking technique would have been better if I had learned to play left handed.
 
I had a teacher in Jr. High that had the class do that Vulcan greeting thing with your fingers. Some people could only do it with one hand (me included) and some with both hands.

The teacher then explained that shows you what 'hand' you should be. If you can make the Vulcan V with your left hand but not your right, you are right-handed (like me).

I have no idea if he is correct about that or was just blowing smoke, but my right hand fingers do not operate very independently. I doubt I could ever get the right-hand fingers to work as well as the fingers on my left hand (fretting hand) to be able to play the guitar very well as a lefty.


Might this not be the case, in reverse, for some lefties?
 
Jbird said:
I had a teacher in Jr. High that had the class do that Vulcan greeting thing with your fingers. Some people could only do it with one hand (me included) and some with both hands.

The teacher then explained that shows you what 'hand' you should be. If you can make the Vulcan V with your left hand but not your right, you are right-handed (like me).

I have no idea if he is correct about that or was just blowing smoke, but my right hand fingers do not operate very independently. I doubt I could ever get the right-hand fingers to work as well as the fingers on my left hand (fretting hand) to be able to play the guitar very well as a lefty.


Might this not be the case, in reverse, for some lefties?
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makes no sense. I am right handed and can do the vulcan thing only with my right hand. That makes me left handed? No.
 
Jbird said:
I had a teacher in Jr. High that had the class do that Vulcan greeting thing with your fingers. Some people could only do it with one hand (me included) and some with both hands.

The teacher then explained that shows you what 'hand' you should be. If you can make the Vulcan V with your left hand but not your right, you are right-handed (like me).

I have no idea if he is correct about that or was just blowing smoke, but my right hand fingers do not operate very independently. I doubt I could ever get the right-hand fingers to work as well as the fingers on my left hand (fretting hand) to be able to play the guitar very well as a lefty.


Might this not be the case, in reverse, for some lefties?
Click to expand...

The Vulcan Salute is based on the Jewish priestly blessing. Nimoy only used one hand. The rabbi does it with two hands over his head.
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
The Vulcan Salute is based on the Jewish priestly blessing. Nimoy only used one hand. The rabbi does it with two hands over his head.
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imgres.jpg


I did not know that.
 
I do that blessing better with my left hand though I am a righty, but I guess that playing righty (=the left hand gets more stretch practice) have something to to with it (I don't remember how many times I tried it before I started playing).
 
Jbird said:
I had a teacher in Jr. High that had the class do that Vulcan greeting thing with your fingers. Some people could only do it with one hand (me included) and some with both hands.

The teacher then explained that shows you what 'hand' you should be. If you can make the Vulcan V with your left hand but not your right, you are right-handed (like me).

I have no idea if he is correct about that or was just blowing smoke, but my right hand fingers do not operate very independently. I doubt I could ever get the right-hand fingers to work as well as the fingers on my left hand (fretting hand) to be able to play the guitar very well as a lefty.


Might this not be the case, in reverse, for some lefties?
Click to expand...

I can do the Vulcan V either hand and I do a lot of things right handed (many out of simple necessity because the machines work better right handed) but I'll be damned if I can finger pick with my right. I can fret like a mofo but there's not as much finesse with the right hand. It's a trade-off I guess and dictates a lot of my style. If I played left, I could likely do more complicated picking over basic chord forms. Now, I play fairly basic right hand but move around a lot with the left.
Maybe I need to learn lefty.
 
I'm a lefty that was taught to play as a righty. The main downside is that my rh has always lacked stamina & speed. No matter how much I've practiced ( & I've been playing for 30 years ) , my rh always felt sluggish. I ran up against a massive wall, technically, I no matter how hard I practiced, I just could never pick as fast as everyone else. Being a lefty that played righty seemed like a huge advantage at first, but limitations gradually began to show over the years. These limitations did, however help me to find my own approach. I found confidence in other things. Things that are more important to me than pure alternate picking speed. I've mostly grown out of metal (where that fast alternate picking sound is important) anyways.
 
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I'm a lefty who plays right, and I've been playing professionally for over 15 years, so obviously it hasn't hindered me. I've never once felt a handicap playing righty. My picking hand is just as strong as my fretting hand, with lots of practice for both. The advantages are quite numerous: every guitar is available right handed, you can borrow other people's gear to play easily, all educational material is presented right handed, etc, etc.
 
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