Left-handed guitar

BaldFriede wrote: HughesJB4 wrote: BaldFriede wrote: Just string the guitar up the other way round and turn it around, and you have a left-handed guitar. No need to buy one.   Yeah okay, it's really not as simple as that. With an acoustic guitar it is; I have done it myself.

If you don't mind never being able to play in tune this might just work fine. Unfortunately, in real life this simply doesn't work. On any guitar no two strings are actually the same length. The bridge of the instrument is placed at an angle and the saddles are filed to "fine tune" the string length. It is these small differences in the overall length of each string (due in part to the differences in diameter and tension) that allow the instrument to play in tune. The wound strings (especially the low E and A) need to be longer than the plain strings in order for the instrument to be tuned in the equal temperament manner that the precisely placed frets offer.

If you just re-string "upside down" It is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for the guitar to play in tune over the length of the fretboard. The bridge is glued in place and cannot be flipped over to work properly. As a matter of actiual fact you couldn't even get an E and G chord to both sound in tune in first position alone, much less any two chords anywhere up the neck. This is in addition to the fact that the heavy wound strings would not sit in the slots in the string nut. Re-filing the nut is a relatively simle thing to do, but it cannot change the placement and angle of the bridge saddle. An acoustic guitar (more-so than an electric due to the positioning of the braces under the top to promote a clear balanced tone) must be built specifically for left-handed players in order to play in tune, conversion doesn't work.

Edited by Trademark - August 21 2008 at 13:55

Indeed thank you Trademark, I remember I just couldn't be bothered to argue with that point raised, because it was laughable at best. (not your point Trademark, the one you replied to).
I don't mean to sound like a.. well... meanie, but I don't think people should blatantly put forward comments on things they are not really educated on.
 Because in the case of just telling a potentially left hand player to "Just string the guitar up the other way round and turn it around, and you have a left-handed guitar. No need to buy one", that can at the serious detriment to the person you are giving 'advice' to.
I don't say things like " it's not really as simple as that" because I'm a retard and don't have any clue. If something "is not really as simple as that" it should imply there is obviously greater complexities one should take to the time to research and to see what is actually correct and less likely to cause problems for ones self or others.
The problems are obviously less for an electric guitar, but again, it's much easier to save the pain of potential hassles like bridge saddles not being able to correctly intonate to compensate for the fact you now have the heavy gauge strings at the side of the guitar and buy "the right tool for the job" in the first place.^Indeed thank you Trademark, I remember I just couldn't be bothered to argue with that point raised, because it was laughable at best. (not your point Trademark, the one you replied to).
I don't mean to sound like a.. well... meanie, but I don't think people should blatantly put forward comments on things they are not really educated on.
 Because in the case of just telling a potentially left hand player to "Just string the guitar up the other way round and turn it around, and you have a left-handed guitar. No need to buy one", that can at the serious detriment to the person you are giving 'advice' to.
I don't say things like " it's not really as simple as that" because I'm a retard and don't have any clue. If something "is not really as simple as that" it should imply there is obviously greater complexities one should take to the time to research and to see what is actually correct and less likely to cause problems for ones self or others.
The problems are obviously less for an electric guitar, but again, it's much easier to save the pain of potential hassles like bridge saddles not being able to correctly intonate to compensate for the fact you now have the heavy gauge strings at the side of the guitar and buy "the right tool for the job" in the first place.

And yes, you can actually buy left handed violins, but they are not common.





Edited by HughesJB4 - August 21 2008 at 14:18

cobb2 wrote: There are a couple of downsides to being lefty- Guitars prices are usually 10% more and you will usually have to order it and two,  you can't just pick up a guitar lying around and show-off your stuff. Upside- you can leave your guitar on the stand at a gig and no-one will come and pick it up to show you how much better they can play it.

Very true.

It often happened someone grabs my guitar (without asking), placing it on  a hip, staring for a second, and after a "What...but...er..oh." puts it back.

MikeEn- Perhaps it is to do with the left and right sides of the brain, not the fact that they are left-handed that some people have enormous difficulty (left-handers) playing a right-handed guitar. You seem to be a creative person- musically, anyway, so the right side, the creative side, of your brain is fairly active. This may be why you have no difficulty playing right-handed when you are a lefty, but other (dare I say, less creative) people do. It may be conceited of me, but this is the reason I have come to think that I have no difficulty playing in the wrong hand.

I have taught classical guitar and know that most lefties cannot change hands- even when they are just beginning.

Just food for thought, or total crap- one of the two.

It is true that the left hand does more work when playing right-handed, but in that case shouldn't the right-handed people use lefty guitars? Guitar is indeed played with two hands, but their task is different, unlike with piano and some other instruments. From that reason, I'm able to play absolutely normal keyboards, but I need a left-handed guitar. There are people who have learned to play the right-handed way (Gary Moore, Robert Fripp, Steve Morse...) but most people are not capable of doing that. I think that every musician should have the right to play the way they feel natural. Even if that hasn't been possible for centuries.

Okay, neither of the hands really does more work, that was a bit clumsily said. But my point is, that when people say that the right-handed techniques should actually be natural for lefties, then the left-handed techniques should also be natural for those who are right-handed. There are many different opinions, but I think that learning to play guitar shouldn't be made more difficult for lefties than the righties.

^Lol, I didn't mean that for all techniques. Bad wording on my part.
Certainly for legato, the left hand is doing a lot of the work, but alternate picking , sweep picking etc, relies very much on both hands being '100 per cent' together to work. As much as I barely look at the right hand, anyone that has learnt to get seriously into sweep picking knows how much intense focus is needed on the right hand technique. In fact, I would say at the very least for sweep picking, more focus needs to go into the picking hand (except for exceptionally hard left hand sweep arpeggio pattens).

p0mt3 wrote: Just learn like Adam Jones from Tool did and play as if you are right-handed. It is slightly irritating to me when I see left-handed people playing the wrong way (and yes, right hand on the neck is the wrong way, folkes).   absolute nonsense...    There is no reason for it. You use both hands regardless.   being ambidextrous is even rarer than left-handed !   It's like a video game controller, or driving a car;   is driving on the left hand side of the road WRONG..?   if both sides of your body are functioning, why switch which hands do what task? It's no more difficult.   you need to study biology/physics     Plus, right-handed guitarists have MUCH more selection in style and money-saving department. Trust me, this is a good thing. If you ask me, custom left-handed guitars are rip-offs; just a bad reason to manufacture crappy versions of the same guitar, then charge more for it!

Edited by mystic fred - September 04 2008 at 02:35

http://www.geocities.com/seanmhall2003/leftpianos.html

I agree completely with this ... and it's the *same* situation on the guitar. Left handed people - please wake up and accept reality ... you need both hands for playing the guitar. Even if you're absolutely sure that your left hand is more capable of performing sophisticated tasks than your right hand ... consider the fact that on a right-handed guitar the left hand is the one which does these sophisticated tasks.

You are all forgetting the history of the guitar, when discussing why the hands are where. Plectrums are a (relatively) new invention in the wider picture. Since the lute, and probably some older medieval instruments, the right hand needed to be the most dextruos for finger plucking the strings- that's why the right hand is over the sound hole and the weaker left hand is holding the strings on the fretboard. Any discussion about modern techniques is moot- the structure of the guitar was set a long time ago.