...to ask why left-handed guitarists need to play left-handed?

[Splodge1506]

Been skim-reading the thread about people who hold their knives like pens, and there’s quite a lot of mention of left-handed people who have to hold their knives in their LH and forks in RH. It reminded me again that I’ve always been puzzled why left-handed guitarists (like, famously, Paul McCartney) need to hold their guitars the “wrong” way round, with the very inconvenient consequences to stringing/chord shapes. It must make it all so difficult.

I played quite a lot as a teenager and it seems to me that both hands require the same level of dexterity (I’m right-handed). My left-handed friend played “normally”.

So, can anyone enlighten me? Not being provocative, just genuinely curious.

BTW I realise that the use of "dexterity" is quite ironical in the context!

Because my left hand works better than my right? It’s stronger and the fingers are more nimble.

Why would a right handed person play tennis with their right hand?

Try brushing your teeth with your non dominant hand. It feels like that playing guitar with your non dominant hand.

Not exactly rocket science.

And inconvenient to who?

Paul McCartney is a bass player.

DS is left handed. He started out with a left handed electric but ultimately ended up with some very expensive right handers and he now plays right handed. He plays golf right handed as well.

Whatever works for the individual I guess.

For the same reason people write with their dominant hands?

Other than the usual problem lefties face of less choice/paying more for an identical instrument there is no inherient inconvienience involved.

Because they are left handed

Why do you think they need to do things left handed instead of just training themselves to be right handed?

I'm left handed & can play both the guitar & the violin both ways but I find it naturally easier the 'wrong' way.

Heismyopendoor As I say, I'm not trying to be provocative. When you are learning to play the guitar, nothing feels natural. All of it feels very difficult and odd, what you do with your right hand (when you're right-handed) and what you do with your left. You don''t brush your teeth or play tennis with both hands.

The reason it's inconvenient is that (AFAIK) you have to change all the strings round and can't copy the chord shapes from the vast majority of people.

What Heismyopendoor said.

That some people find using their 'other' hand relatively easy means nothing - most left-handers cannot easily play guitar/tennis/etc with their right hand.

Try using scissors with your left hand if you're right-handed, by the way. It might give you an inkling.

As a left-handed person, I'm a bit stunned that the OP even asked this question.

You don''t brush your teeth or play tennis with both hands.

Just to add - or write with both hands, obviously. It's very obvious why a left-handed person writes left-handed.

@Heismyopendoor

Because my left hand works better than my right? It’s stronger and the fingers are more nimble.

Why would a right handed person play tennis with their right hand?

Try brushing your teeth with your non dominant hand. It feels like that playing guitar with your non dominant hand.

Not exactly rocket science.

And inconvenient to who?

1000%

I can play right handed but it’s much more difficult (and not anywhere near as good).

It’s like most things, you can do them with your non dominant hand but it’s much harder and you have less dexterity.

There’s no way I could do some of the complicated patterns of fingerpicking only songs I like with my right hand.

Not sure I understand your question, surely a left handed guitar is stringed the opposite way to a right handed guitar so the chord shapes are the same?

I'm a professional string player and teacher and in the hundreds of people I've met and taught over the decades, not one has ever had to have the whole of their instrument returned and turned round because they're left handed. And plenty of them have been left handed. In string playing, your right hand just does the bowing but your left hand does all the intricate fingering. The same is true of the guitar, the right hand just strums up and down but the left does all the intricate work and needs to be stronger. I also play the guitar and know about twenty bajillion guitar players none of whom have a left handed guitar and plenty of whom who are left handed.

I think they must have been told early on /decided that they must have to have a left handed instrument and then learnt that way. Once you've learnt how to play one way you can't change back. If I swap hands and try and bow with my left had and finger with my right, I'm like a total beginner. All the muscle memory is in my hands.

I've had plenty of students /parents start off lessons going "but so and so is Lh do we need a Lh violin?" and I say no, they learn with no problems at all. But like I say, the LH work is much harder and more intricate than the right so they're probably better at it anyway!

I used to wonder this too.

After getting a bit better at playing, it occurred to me that my left hand (non dominant, I'm right handed) was just pressing buttons but my right hand was adding the sense, feeling and finesse (I, too use the latter word lightly).

JollyAndBright that's interesting to hear - good to hear from people who actually play. But don't you do equally complicated things with the hand you're using for the frets? Even in terms of strength, it takes a lot of strength to play bar chords with a non-dominant hand, for example.

tywysoges I'm not sure; I've tried to get my head round picturing this! Are they?

Unless you're doing complex fingerpicking stuff, you generally need to make more precise movements with your fretting hand than your picking/strumming hand.

"the right hand just strums up and down"

Yeah... no.

Anywaythewindisblowing This makes sense to me, and interesting to hear it from someone with your background.

I don't now about guitars, but I couldn't understand what the difference was with left-handed scissors until I bought some for DD. I didn't realise it wasn't the handle that was different it was the blades that are the other way around. I still don't really understand it, but if I try and use her scissors to cut something, it's really really hard. So, maybe try playing a left-handed guitar and you will be able to understand the difference. It's not always just about hands, it's about the mind and perspective too maybe.

I’m left handed and played the guitar normally, as I had group lessons and the teacher wouldn’t teach me left handed as it was too awkward in a group. Given both hands need to do a fair amount of work I don’t think it really matters

If you’re playing a right hand instrument upside down, the shapes would be different, but I can’t see why a guitar stringed E to e but on the other side would have different shapes iyswim.

@Anywaythewindisblowing

I'm a professional string player and teacher and in the hundreds of people I've met and taught over the decades, not one has ever had to have the whole of their instrument returned and turned round because they're left handed. And plenty of them have been left handed. In string playing, your right hand just does the bowing but your left hand does all the intricate fingering. The same is true of the guitar, the right hand just strums up and down but the left does all the intricate work and needs to be stronger. I also play the guitar and know about twenty bajillion guitar players none of whom have a left handed guitar and plenty of whom who are left handed.

I think they must have been told early on /decided that they must have to have a left handed instrument and then learnt that way. Once you've learnt how to play one way you can't change back. If I swap hands and try and bow with my left had and finger with my right, I'm like a total beginner. All the muscle memory is in my hands.

I've had plenty of students /parents start off lessons going "but so and so is Lh do we need a Lh violin?" and I say no, they learn with no problems at all. But like I say, the LH work is much harder and more intricate than the right so they're probably better at it anyway!

As a (once upon a time reasonablish) violinist, this is what's always puzzled me about the guitar - I can't see why it comes in left and right handed versions when no other string instruments bother. (I sort of get the argument about finger picking but I'm not entirely convinced - harpists use both hands, as do pianists, and need equal nimbleness in both).

It's not really analogous to left handed scissors which simply don't work the other way round.

@BoingBoingyBoing lol it does though! Yeah there's some complex finger picking sometimes and other rhythms etc (I do play and teach the guitar myself) but generally speaking you need the strength in your left hand for the chords things. The left hand is the harder part. However, as I say, if you have learnt left handed from the start you will always find it much harder to do it the other way around.

I'm a leftie but play the guitar in the 'normal' way. It seems obvious that my stronger and more nimble hand is the one to deal with the fretboard.

I'm a lefty - trying to play the other way would be like trying to write with my right hand- I could probably teach myself but it would be very difficult and never as natural as my left hand.
Chord shapes are the same- if you're taught by a right hander it's a mirror image so quite easy. it's really not an issue!