OT: Left or Right...

[blabj]

Im just doing this out of sheer curiosity...
I'm left-handed.
Question to all "lefties", have you had any trouble finding a nice guitar that you wont? And do you look in magazines at all the nice guitars, then only to find something like:
Left-Handers?: No

Meh.

[Arno van der Heijden]

It depends on the question..

I'm lefthanded at EVERYTHING.... except for guitar playing  

[RDV]

I actually use both hands, it doubles your fun! :twisted:

Regards

RDV

[blabj]

hehe, I take it your talking about typing   :wink:  :shock:
:lol:

[Marcos - Munky]

I'm right-handed, but I like to learn to play like a left-handed too, because I like how this look a lot. And learn to play with both hands like Satriani .

[petemoore]

It would be interesting to have addendums indicating whether the person typeing it is left or right handed.

[GuitarLord5000]

Im right handed.  But I was actually getting pretty flustered the other day when looking through Musicians Friend magazine.  They were closing out some of their merchandise, some of which was REALLY nice, and I happened on a guitar that I really liked.  It went for something like 400 dollars.  The left handed version was going for 120 bucks cheaper!  MAN, I was really wishing I was left handed for like 30 seconds.  Then I came to my senses and realized that lefties get screwed most of the time....ESPECIALLY when it comes to guitars.

[brett]

As a rightie I'm always thinking about buying a leftie guitar and doing it Hendrix-style.  

So for you lefties, is there a problem with doing a reverse-Hendrix and playing a rightie guitar?

(ok, so it's not so practical to play at the 22nd fret, but heck that's just showing off anyway, isn't it?)

[Rory]

I'm like Arno.  Lefty at EVERYTHING except guitar playing.  My dad is a lefty too, but he plays left handed guitar.  I tried telling him not to, but he doesn't listen...

[Ansil]

i can play both i was raised right handed but i am more comfortable playing right handed but i do everything wth both hands equally well i actually right better with my left.. but i dont' lol

[gtrmac]

I'm a lefty but I play guitar right handed. I took violin lessons whan I was a kid and the teacher never bothered to ask if I was left handed. When I switched to guitar after a few years it seemed natural to continue as a righty.

It sure saved me a lot of trouble when it came to buying guitars!

[petemoore]

Right hander.
 I use a left handed hammer though.
 Pretty amazing that JH, plays guitar with the Fat wound string on the bottom...just plain wacky...great topic for discussion among guitar players.
 Probably just another reason why there can only be one, at the Very least.

[GuitarLord5000]

Pretty amazing that JH, plays guitar with the Fat wound string on the bottom...just plain wacky...great topic for discussion among guitar players.
 Probably just another reason why there can only be one, at the Very least.

If you're referring to Jimi Hendrix, looking at the woodstock video, he had the fat wound string on the top.  All he did was play a right handed guitar left handed.  He didn't play with the strings upside down.

[petemoore]

OK

[brett]

Hi.
Two stories I've heard.  Maybe true, maybe not.
1.  Mozart could play the piano backwards, upside down.  (he would lie, back-down, on the seat with his head under the keyboard, and go for it).  Amazingly difficult trick.
2.  Jimi could play a standard rightie guitar pretty good (ie even with the heavy strings at the bottom).  Very difficult trick, almost as good as 1, above.

[Sic]

Someone said something rather funny a few days ago... not sure where i heard it


"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous"

Gotta love that intelectual humor... i kept telling people at work the joke... had 2 out of 2 people ask me what ambidextrous means... i gave up after 2.


(ambidextrous means able to use both hands/arms equally as well)

[smoguzbenjamin]

Right. I can't open a door with my left without it feeling wierd.... :mrgreen: I listen to Pink Floyd CDs with my right arm too :mrgreen: lol

[troubledtom]

right.......
  - tom

[Mark Hammer]

The general research wisdom about handedness is that if you pick any task that *could* be done in either a distinctly left-handed or right-handed manner, you will find about 10% of the population report doing it in the left-handed manner.

HOWEVER, when you switch from task to task, it is not always the same 10%.  For instance, I hold my knife with my left and my fork with my right.  Always have, always will.  Apparently, this is uncommon.  I consider myself to be VERY right-handed.  I imagine there are plenty of self-assessed southpaws who use their cutlery completely opposite to the way I do and most right-handers do.

In general, research confirms that just about any and every southpaw will do a number of things "the right handed way" without noticing it or even working hard at it, simply because of the way the world is.  For instance, imagine you go to open a door that has the doorhandle on your left side facing you.  Which way is easier to open it, reaching across with your right hand and pulling, or reaching straight with your left hand and pulling?  Here, for many avowed lefties, pulling with the right hand simply "works" better because you move the door (and arm) out of your way more effectively.  Similarly, there are no real choices in how you play the piano; left hand does the bass lines and that's it.  

What makes someone a lefty or rightie is that they do MORE things with one limb than the other...when they have a choice to do so.

Having said that, people who study handedness also make a distinction between types of handedness in writing: the so-called inverted and non-inverted lefthander.  It doesn't surprise me at all that there are left-handed people who play guitar:

- completely in the right-handed manner
- by rotating the right-handed guitar 180 degrees (little E on top, big E on the bottom)
- by creating a mirror-image guitar (left-handed, big E on top, little on bottom)
- in the "inverted right-hand" manner (right-handed posture, big E on bottom, little E on top)

I asked a question a few years ago on Ampage about how people worked their Wah pedals.  Since, for the majority of righties, speech tends to be strongly left-hemisphere, one would predict that righties would tend to prefer working the wah with their right foot to express quasi-speech (left hemisphere is where right-body skills are stored/processed).  Since lefties tend to have speech a little more evenly distributed about the brain (i.e., not as strongly lateralized to one side as in the case of righties), and since there tends not to be as much foot preference as there is hand preference (how much of the world is designed around using one foot vs the other anyways?), I didn't think many self-described lefties would use their left foot, but more lefties than righties would.

I didn't reallly get enough replies to draw any conclusions.

[Ansil]

Similarly, there are no real choices in how you play the piano; left hand does the bass lines and that's it. .

not trying to take it out of context there mark.. but there have been left handed pianos over the years, ie however they didnt' take off, but i did see one many years ago when a local organ/piano / guiatr / music store went under.. i almost bought it but i am  not left handed even if the price was a 100 bucks..