...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.

*for the chords and things, not chords things. That makes no sense

For the guitar it feels more natural to me to play the 'wrong' way round. You just restring it once. It's not a big thing. All the chord shapes are the same. If you face your teacher it's a mirror image. For guitar there's no reason why you can't play it either way. If you're a violinist or cellist etc in an orchestra it is better if everyone plays the same way round so they are all bowing the same and don't bump elbows.

There are plenty of things that left handers have to do right handed, please allow us to adapt the few things that we can!

I am left handed and played the piano as a kid. I found it easy, as I could concentrate on the fiddly right hand stuff, and let my muscle-memory deal with the left hand without much conscious effort. I was then given the opportunity to learn the cello. It was a disaster. It just felt "wrong". Same with guitars and other stringed instruments. I do however, use 2-handed sports sticks/bats right handed (hockey, cricket, softball etc..), but single handed ones purely in my left (tennis, rounders etc..) For items which are 2-handed, it really is just stringed instruments which I can't do "correctly".

The most dexterous people ironically are left handed.

In a right handed world, you quite simply have to be.

As a result, most left handed people use countless right bias products daily, can normally write backwards as well as forwards just as easily, and write with both hands at the same time.

Give a right hander any left handed implement and they will normally throw it down in seconds with a snort of derision about how they can't be expected to work with that!

Welcome to our fucking world mate!

They don't.

As a beginner it often feels like the fretting hand is doing the more complicated stuff. But as you get more advanced the picking/strumming hand often ends up doing the more complex work. Especially if you play classical and Spanish styles, which are what the guitar originated with.

Some left-handers get on better with a left-handed instrument, others with a standard one. (And a few people who are normally right-handed play lefty guitars!) Advantage of learning on a standard instrument is it's easier to borrow guitars off other people but that's about it. If I remember rightly DM's guitar teacher plays left-handed instruments.

Chord fingering is the same, just mirror imaged. Best to use standard chord charts, they're printed vertically so you have to do some mental translation whatever handedness you play. TAB will be unaffected.

A fair few guitarists play a right-handed guitar upside down and that really does change stuff because now all your chord shapes are upside-down. But if you're dedicated it's not going to stop you sounding great.

There's is the violinist Reinhard Goebel (founder of Musica Antiqua of Cologne) who developed a form of repetitive stress syndrome in his left hand and taught himself to play the violin the other way round.

www.wqxr.org/story/left-handedness-leaves-its-fingerprints-all-over-classical-music/

They don't need to, but it works for some players. It is relatively straightforward to adjust a guitar for left-handed playing hence why it is more common that other instruments (where it can be prohibitively expensive). There are some truly great guitarists who have played left-handed.

If you look at professional musicians, many have quirky set-ups that don't seem to make sense, but it works for them and is usually a response to them encountering a difficulty with their playing earlier on.

I used to play guitar left handed. Simply because i just couldnt do it right handed. It was like brushing your teeth or writing with your none dominant hand. I just learned my cords backwards and got on with it. My mate also plays left handed ive never put any thought into it.

"For guitar there's no reason why you can't play it either way."

Well, there is, simply because one way will feel more natural to a beginner than another. Sure, most people could learn to write with their less dominant hand but why would you? Once you get beyond "just strumming" the strumming/picking hand will have as complex and often more complex work to do than the fretting hand.

Restringing and turning guitars the wrong way round doesn't work on every instrument due to cutaways/control placement etc, so lefties need left handed guitars.

@Moonmelodies

Paul McCartney is a bass player.

Yes, a left handed bass guitar player who plays left handed.

Some lefty guitarists will string it for a lefty, so the strings are in the normal order top to bottom. Some, like Hendrix, will just play 'upside down'.

Interesting. I can personally imagine that classical guitar is easier playing the 'right' way for however handed you are. Although fairly sure Paul Mc C wasn't playing classical when he met John as a teen. I guess if it just needs to be re-stringed once , it's not so inconvenient.

"the right hand just strums up and down"

I think you have been watching the wrong sort of guitarists!

I still don't really understand it, but if I try and use her scissors to cut something, it's really really hard

It's because left handed scissors have the bottom blade positioned on the right, so left handers can see exactly where they are cutting. Right handed scissors are the opposite so right handed people can see the bottom blade, (which is positioned on the left). Having struggled with right handed scissors for many years with the assumption that I was just not very good at using scissors, a left handed pair has been a real game changer. I'm annoyed at myself that I struggled for so many years to use something that simply wasn't designed for me to use.

Because Handedness is a sliding scale. Most people aren’t 100% left or right handed and often do things with their ‘other hand’. I’m very left handed - I hold a knife, kick a ball, hold a racquet, use scissors etc, all using my left hand. My DD writes with her left hand but does almost everything else right handed.

Why don't right handed people play left handed?
The left hand plays a different role from the right when you play pretty much any instrument. It might be more obvious if you look at a piano keyboard, the right hand plays the refrain while the left plays harmony.

I think you have been watching the wrong sort of guitarists!

Why don't right handed people play left handed?
The left hand plays a different role from the right when you play pretty much any instrument. It might be more obvious if you look at a piano keyboard, the right hand plays the refrain while the left plays harmony.

I agree that (in my extremely limited experience of playing the piano) this seems to be the case, it just doesn't seem so much so with the guitar. In fact, given the jokey references above to the RH just strumming up and down, when you're learning the very basics, what you're doing with your LH (assuming a standard guitar and method) is actually more complex, so it's far from intuitive if you're right-handed.

It strikes me that this is really a question more about the nature of guitar-playing than handedness per se - hence why the replies so far range from the huffy "Why would you even need to ask?" - to "They don't"!

Some people play guitar/bass the same way round - after all, you use both hands to play. DP reckons that he probably had an advantage in that sense because his most accurate and strong hand was therefore able to run over the fret board more freely.

Some other people were determined that they wouldn't be able to do it and never tried, some did but found it difficult. Others I know play with a standard guitar flipped over.

Quite reasonably, somebody said to me 'if I see you play lefthanded, I'll try playing righthanded' once. So I did - I wasn't instantly great at it, as I was mentally flipping shapes, but it wasn't impossible.

I think people have varying degrees of ability to cope with using a non dominant hand at first, there's a lot of socialisation regarding what left and right handers can do and, to be honest, if somebody wants to play lefthanded, with all the additional inconvenience and expense that entails, it's up to them, really.

I wasn't instantly great at it, as I was mentally flipping shapes, but it wasn't impossible.
That's also interesting, as I'm quite sure I'd never be able to do that (whether or not I had previously played). I suspect I lack mental agility more than other people lack ambidexterity!

For a lot of us it just feels more natural and comfortable.

I crochet left handed. When I’m following diagrammed patterns I have to read them backwards and that can get confusing if it’s very complicated. (I crochet clockwise, right handers crochet anti clockwise)
But it’s worth for the ease of using my dominant hand.

@Thelnebriati

Why don't right handed people play left handed? The left hand plays a different role from the right when you play pretty much any instrument. It might be more obvious if you look at a piano keyboard, the right hand plays the refrain while the left plays harmony.

Only with the really easy stuff!

When you are learning to play the guitar, nothing feels natural.

It does. Strumming with the left hand feels completely natural. To have to play right handed wouldn't feel comfortable at all.

I crochet left handed. When I’m following diagrammed patterns I have to read them backwards and that can get confusing if it’s very complicated. (I crochet clockwise, right handers crochet anti clockwise) But it’s worth for the ease of using my dominant hand.

That sounds so complicated to me - I'm not very advanced at crochet, but I can imagine doing it left-handed more easily than trying to change all the patterns in my head! Maybe it really is to do with mental agility then.

(Slightly OT but when I did learn to crochet, I realised that it came much more easily to me to crochet as if I were knitting, to wind the yarn round the hook with my finger before pulling through, rather than use the hook to pick it up. I know it isn't the "right" way but it seems to achieve the same result.)

Strumming with the left hand feels completely natural.

I can only say that none of it felt natural to me, and I was doing it the usual way as a right-hander.

All the LH in my family eat with their knives and forks the usual way around because that is what they were taught 🤷🏽‍♀️

Anything that involves using both hands rather than primarily only one doesn't need a LH version.

Plenty of things do need a LH version though, yes to scissors. DD was amazed when I got her a LH ruler that it did make a few things a little easier not that it had occurred to her that she was drawing lines in maths backwards up until the point!