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zerksies
Double Platinum Member
USA
3406 Posts |
 Posted - 12/05/2009 : 19:51:16
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| You Guys have no Idea what is like to be lefty.Just let Me explain I have been playing for a pretty long time and I am not a millionaire I do have some money to be paying for some high end gear,So today i was in best buy picking up a mini sd card for my cell phone. I check out their music department. So on the wall i see a Cheap Squire duo sonic say about $350 USD. So i plug into an amp sounds pretty good the neck feel good for a $350 guitar, something that i would consider buying to screw around with cause it so cheaply priced. But the bugger its a righty.So right where i put my mar across to pick the strings are the tone a volume controls.So i have to move my arm around it cause if i leave my arm there i get all sorts of tone a volume changes,So i have to wrap my arm around the controls to play ,which now makes the guitar now uncomfortable and unplayable.So when you get the chance and see one in a music store try out a lefty guitar and trying to play it righty. |
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paisleyfender
Bronze Member
Germany
70 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2009 : 00:40:07
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I'm left-handed, too, but I play 'normally' right-handed!
Interesting, that I just started to learn playing like all the other guitarists I did know when I started (a long time ago).
And sure it did help me a lot over the years, to get the guitars I wanted, without the need to find a lefty model of the desired Fender/Gibson/Gretsch/younameit. And on eBay, there are so much more right-handed instruments!
Of course I understand that if you play for a rather long time, it's not an option to change from left-handed playing to right-handed (you would almost have to learn again from the start), but I'm quite curious how many of you forum guys are left-handed, and how many of you play right-handed nevertheless.
I just recently came to know that I'm in quite famous company, because there are many left-handed guitarists who play right-handed: e.g. Steve Morse, Gary Moore, Mark Knopfler, just to name a few, which are some of my absolute favourites.
So there's not only Hendrix to act as a 'role model' for lefties |
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verivorax
Platinum Member
Canada
1185 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2009 : 00:45:27
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It's not so much lefty vs. righty as whether or not you can keep rhythm with your right hand.. that plus a general comfort factor makes the decision for most lefty-but-play-righty or true-lefty players.
Gibson stopped making Lefty Les Pauls for over 2 years at one point.. and most brands have dropped their lefty production to even 1/5 of what it was before.
zerk: go the warmoth or luthier route. |
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natthu
Gold Member
Australia
756 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2009 : 02:28:52
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I do count myself lucky to be a righty. I can't even imagine how annoying it must be to have such a limited selection of guitars to choose from...
My Mum is a lefty for most things (through injury - she's not a natural lefty) but she learnt guitar as a righty, which is pretty lucky for me because without her righty guitar sitting around the house when I was younger I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to learn.
Luthier guitars would be a good option like verivorax said. You could even build your own (ok so I know that's a pretty serious undertaking and not really an option for most people)...
Have you checked out ravenwest guitars on eBay? They seem to have quite a few lefties, and the prices seem good for what the quality of the gear appears to be (not that I have tried one myself).
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zerksies
Double Platinum Member
USA
3406 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2009 : 14:42:01
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well i got this guy that lives less then a mile from me. I am thinking about more and more often. he has helped me with a few fixes on a couple guitars of mine
http://www.petilloguitars.com/ |
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PaulH
Gold Member
535 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2009 : 18:03:16
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Never understood left handed guitars.
Playing the guitar is all about training your hands/fingers.
Has anyone ever seen a left-handed piano? |
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FRANZONI
Double Platinum Member
Ireland
3543 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2009 : 18:40:33
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quote:
Originally posted by paisleyfender
I'm left-handed, too, but I play 'normally' right-handed!
Interesting, that I just started to learn playing like all the other guitarists I did know when I started (a long time ago).
And sure it did help me a lot over the years, to get the guitars I wanted, without the need to find a lefty model of the desired Fender/Gibson/Gretsch/younameit. And on eBay, there are so much more right-handed instruments!
Of course I understand that if you play for a rather long time, it's not an option to change from left-handed playing to right-handed (you would almost have to learn again from the start), but I'm quite curious how many of you forum guys are left-handed, and how many of you play right-handed nevertheless.
I just recently came to know that I'm in quite famous company, because there are many left-handed guitarists who play right-handed: e.g. Steve Morse, Gary Moore, Mark Knopfler, just to name a few, which are some of my absolute favourites.
So there's not only Hendrix to act as a 'role model' for lefties
I'm left handed but play right handed as yourself and and the people you quoted..i've written before about this on the forum in a discussion wih stratosphere,when i started playing back in the 70's i already had a phobia about being left handed as you got beaten by the teachers in school if caught using your left hand to write or do anything..i remember being whacked across the knuckles with a steel engineers ruler on a regular basis by one very superstitious lady teacher from a remote part of the country who told me it was 'the mark of the devil'..how right she was....!!! ..if it did one good thing it left me (no pun intended... ) with a hatred of intolorance especially coupled with religious/medieval bullshit.....
I sympatise Zerks but i can't say i know what it's like on the guitar front as i've never had that problem on any inclination to switch to being lefty with guitar...if it makes you feel any better every other thing i do is left handed and footed orintated and that has caused me some problems over the years especially with some industrial tools when i used to work as a pipefitter...to answer Paul H's question..no,maybe the person who invented the piano was left handed...!!...but you would be amazed how many everyday objects like a sissors for example,is hard for a left handed person to use due to it's design...being left handed isn't only to do with dexterity,it is also about how your brain is co-orinating with your motor skills..i find writing to be hard to keep neat especially joint up writing,as left handed people 'push' the pen rather than pull it across the page..why do we in the western world write on a page from left to right...? in the arabic world it's the opposite...could it be in the west it's a left over from medieval times where left handedness was a badge of suspicion of a association with Lucifer........ |
Edited by - FRANZONI on 12/06/2009 18:41:57 |
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jack
Platinum Member
USA
1418 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2009 : 18:49:31
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| I don't know your pain from personal experience, but I have heard a lot of the issues you guys face on other forums. Lefthanded pickups, lefthanded pots, left handed tuning heads...I didn't even realize these things actually existed, or needed to exist, until about a year ago... |
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Joske Turbo
Silver Member
Belgium
412 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2009 : 20:12:43
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quote:
Originally posted by FRANZONI
quote:
Originally posted by paisleyfender
I'm left-handed, too, but I play 'normally' right-handed!
Interesting, that I just started to learn playing like all the other guitarists I did know when I started (a long time ago).
And sure it did help me a lot over the years, to get the guitars I wanted, without the need to find a lefty model of the desired Fender/Gibson/Gretsch/younameit. And on eBay, there are so much more right-handed instruments!
Of course I understand that if you play for a rather long time, it's not an option to change from left-handed playing to right-handed (you would almost have to learn again from the start), but I'm quite curious how many of you forum guys are left-handed, and how many of you play right-handed nevertheless.
I just recently came to know that I'm in quite famous company, because there are many left-handed guitarists who play right-handed: e.g. Steve Morse, Gary Moore, Mark Knopfler, just to name a few, which are some of my absolute favourites.
So there's not only Hendrix to act as a 'role model' for lefties
I'm left handed but play right handed as yourself and and the people you quoted..i've written before about this on the forum in a discussion wih stratosphere,when i started playing back in the 70's i already had a phobia about being left handed as you got beaten by the teachers in school if caught using your left hand to write or do anything..i remember being whacked across the knuckles with a steel engineers ruler on a regular basis by one very superstitious lady teacher from a remote part of the country who told me it was 'the mark of the devil'..how right she was....!!!..if it did one good thing it left me (no pun intended...) with a hatred of intolorance especially coupled with religious/medieval bullshit.....
I sympatise Zerks but i can't say i know what it's like on the guitar front as i've never had that problem on any inclination to switch to being lefty with guitar...if it makes you feel any better every other thing i do is left handed and footed orintated and that has caused me some problems over the years especially with some industrial tools when i used to work as a pipefitter...to answer Paul H's question..no,maybe the person who invented the piano was left handed...!!...but you would be amazed how many everyday objects like a sissors for example,is hard for a left handed person to use due to it's design...being left handed isn't only to do with dexterity,it is also about how your brain is co-orinating with your motor skills..i find writing to be hard to keep neat especially joint up writing,as left handed people 'push' the pen rather than pull it across the page..why do we in the western world write on a page from left to right...? in the arabic world it's the opposite...could it be in the west it's a left over from medieval times where left handedness was a badge of suspicion of a association with Lucifer........
Completely the same here. I'm also a born lefty who plays the guitar right-handed. Lucky enough, in my time I am allowed to write with my left hand in school. If I started left handed with the guitar, I would have the same problems like you, zerksies. They seem VERY annoying. |
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zerksies
Double Platinum Member
USA
3406 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2009 : 20:57:06
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| I have been playing 26 years there is not switching now |
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StratoSphere
Double Platinum Member
Canada
2232 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2009 : 04:20:32
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I FEEL YOUR PAIN BROTHER!! although there are some perks to being lefty.
im right handed at EVERYTHING. (except guitar of course.)when i started playing guitar, i had no one to show me how to hold it properly and thats the way i naturally picked it up. when you are learning a brand new talent(guitar, shooting, drumming, welding, anything really,) normally right AND left handed feel just as foreign to each other. i think if i were to have played righty from the start, i would be at the exact same level as i am now as a lefty.
although i do hold the phone to my left ear AND am a left handed drummer...
thankfully my teachers didnt beat me up like they did at Frazoni's school |
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strat714
Silver Member
USA
156 Posts |
Posted - 12/23/2009 : 16:56:59
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| I have a friend who can play BOTH lefty and righty. A mutant! |
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zerksies
Double Platinum Member
USA
3406 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2009 : 16:32:29
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| That is just sick |
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visserman
Platinum Member
1072 Posts |
Posted - 12/30/2009 : 20:43:26
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If you have a few guitars and you happen to right handed, just string one of them for left handed and try. My own experience is that it will feel strange in the beginning, but it can be great for creativity.
I believe it is possible to anyone to play either lefthanded or righthanded, but yes, it will take a lot of time and willpower.
Franz. great posts, whenever I read anything here your posts often seem to be long and coherent. Keep it up man!! |
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Goran
Double Platinum Member
Sweden
2203 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2009 : 13:10:18
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My daughter Julia is lefthanded, but I stringed a Squier Strat upside down for her, and it works just fine.
It looks like she is playing Hendrix tunes...
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Edited by - Dr. Bob on 12/31/2009 13:41:14 |
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zerksies
Double Platinum Member
USA
3406 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2009 : 14:46:48
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| That is sweet. Nice to see the young ones picking up the guitar |
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YOU Have No Idea
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