Are you left handed or Right Handed ?

[stratamania]

I play right handed but I am left handed. Just interested to see what results we may get here.

Select an option and the results will appear.

 

[Cagey]

I am right handed and play right handed. I've sometimes wondered, though, why that is. It seems like right-handed people would have more control of the neck if they used their right hand for fretting.

 

[stratamania]

I wonder too whether it's tradition how we do certain things. I use a knife and fork right handed for tradition and manners and all of that.

I have met a couple of right handed players who play left handed guitars but I think they may be rarer than lefties who play right. They said they played left handed guitars because it seemed to them they had more control with the right hand on the fretboard.

 

[Cagey]

Sounds like you're closer to ambidextrous than most people are.

 

[stratamania]

Yes I am quite ambidextrous, I use both quite well for a lot of things. I am more left handed though.

I write with my left hand, use tools predominantly with the left. But some things I do the "right handed" way as it just seems more natural.

 

[swarfrat]

Whenever this topic comes up, one of the theories that surfaces is that your picking hand actually has the higher dexterity requirement. The fretting hand is just a glorified note stopper. I tend to believe it. I like to think I'm a decent guitar player, and I'd honestly have trouble wiping my butt with my left hand.

 

[DslDwg]

I'm a leftie but play right. Not ambidextrous at all.

I remember the argument when I asked my mom to take some lessons when I was 12 y.o.

Because you don't know how to play either left or right, learning and being taught by a right handed teacher will be easier if you start by playing right.

After 30+ years the idea of playing leftie seems very awkward.

 

[swarfrat]

When my son grabs something with his left hand I cringe. I don't care what hand he writes with but I don't want to buy guitars I can't play.

 

[TBurst Std]

I am originally left handed and played right handed. Due to an injury, I had to switch to writing right handed. So I am now right/right.

 

[Surf n Music]

I am a lefty and play right. I just thought the fretting looked like the hard part so it seemed natural to use my left hand for that. Now the strumming difficult rhythms is the hard part... if only I had two left hands.

 

[stratamania]

It's an interesting topic.

Some left handed folks who play(ed) right handed also include....

Gary Moore, Duane Allman, Steve Morse, BB King.  There must be tons of others.

At one time left handed people were forced to do thing right handed for various nefarious reasons. Hopefully those times are over.

Other reasons, at one time left handed guitars were difficult to find and if you did find one it was very expensive compared to a right handed model.

Or, using the strong hand as the fretting hand.

Personally at the end of the day if everyone had a chance to try it both ways around as it were when first starting I wonder how many righties might have played left.  In other words a lot of what we might do may because of convention or tradition.

Practice with both hands whichever way around you play will get you there. But practice slow and perfect and then speed up.

 

[Slackjaw]

`I'm a lefty, but play "right".

Sounds like you're closer to ambidextrous than most people are.

Lefties are forced to be ambidextrous to a certain degree. So many things are *not* made left-handed, so we have to comply.

It's funny... I am in IT, and can go to anyone's desk and use their mouse on whatever side it happens to be. Anyone RIGHT HANDED who tries to use the computer at my desk, will contort themselves to no end, just so they can use my left-sided mouse with their right hand. And THEN they are thrown for an additional loop, since even though my mouse is on the left, I DON'T reverse the buttons. LOL

 

[Slackjaw]

Personally at the end of the day if everyone had a chance to try it both ways around as it were when first starting I wonder how many righties might have played left.  In other words a lot of what we might do may because of convention or tradition.

Some of it has little to do with convention, though. As long as I have been playing right-handed, it still feels extremely awkward to play "air guitar" that way. I can only do that in a left-handed stance. I remember when I first took it to the next level with actually "performing", playing the "wrong" way only enhanced the initial awkwardness of performing in front of a crowd. In that sense, it took some extra time for it to start feeling "natural".

Just like it feels really weird for me to hold a rifle up to my right shoulder, or try and bat the other way. Can't do it!

 

[Slackjaw]

Because you don't know how to play either left or right, learning and being taught by a right handed teacher will be easier if you start by playing right.

Actually not... if you think about it. For a left-handed student, it is easier to interpret the right-handed instructor sitting in front of you, because it's as if you are sitting in front of a mirror...

 

[Dan025]

i'm righty, play righty. but i think playing lefty would be awkward. now i'm semi ambidexterous. there are many things i do where i switch from left to right because it doesn't feel like it makes any difference for a lot of things, but i don't have a lot of natural rhythm and i find it very difficult to strum with my left hand. with my right hand the rhythm comes from the motion of my wrist not my brain. i find sweep picking impossible for this reason, though i can do many technical things this is one technique that i just can't do in time so i never use it.  and left handed strumming doesn't really work either. as coordinated as my fingers are on my left hand my wrist isn't, finding the strings and holding a rhythm seems much harder to me than it was to teach my left hand all that finger dexterity. i know that sounds weird, and maybe it's because i've been playing so long i don't remember how hard it was for my left hand to learn all this stuff in the first place but it think if i had to switch i'd have a lot more difficulty teaching my left hand rhythm and a sense for where the individual strings are than i would teaching my right hand to fret.

 

[Great Ape]

Left-handed, play right-handed...watching someone play left-handed gives me vertigo...

 

[stratamania]

Because you don't know how to play either left or right, learning and being taught by a right handed teacher will be easier if you start by playing right.

Actually not... if you think about it. For a left-handed student, it is easier to interpret the right-handed instructor sitting in front of you, because it's as if you are sitting in front of a mirror...

I suppose that depends literally on how you look at it. One person may find it a benefit another may not.

 

[stratamania]

Some great points everyone, and I think all are equally valid. Playing guitar is an interesting thing when it comes to handed-ness as both hands need to employ techniques depending on the style that are more or less complex...

There probably isn't a definitive right, left or wrong answer that applies to all.

 

[DangerousR6]

Left-handed, play right-handed...watching someone play left-handed gives me vertigo...

LOL...Or watching someone playing left handed with the guitar strung right handed, gives me that feeling like when your teetering in a chair on two legs and you almost fall over but you don't... :toothy12:

 

[Slackjaw]

Or watching someone playing left handed with the guitar strung right handed

Which I liken to a cheese cutter...