Forum Home Forum Home > Other music related lounges > Music and Musicians Exchange
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed - Backwards Guitar
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Events   Register Register  Login Login

Topic ClosedBackwards Guitar
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  12>
Author
Message Reverse Sort Order
  Topic Search Topic Search  Topic Options Topic Options
kludge View Drop Down
Forum Newbie
Forum Newbie
Avatar

Joined: August 15 2012
Status: Offline
Points: 9 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Backwards Guitar
    Posted: August 15 2012 at 22:11
Originally posted by Smurph Smurph wrote:

Kludge! What band is this? There aren't many of us that play like that!

Beth Kinderman & the Player Characters. Imagine if Lilith Fair had a prog band... it would be us. 

Listen to "Stone Game" from the Winter Is Coming album on the bandcamp link for the way she plays (she's on acoustic, I'm on electric). Or listen to the entire Fool's Trilogy track... Stone Game is the third in a trilogy of songs, and I made a point of matching the instrumentation through the entire trilogy so it sounds like a continuous piece. It started as a live track for months before recording, and I don't like to hear the individual songs out of the trilogy context. 

Another good one for her playing is "Blue Horizon", the opening track on Apocalypse Blues. She did all the guitars on that song - I was on bass. But yeah, love playing with her! We've built up a really great two-guitar thing together. She writes really complex, intricate songs, and I can't read her hands very well, so I have to really LISTEN and create complementary parts. 
Back to Top
Tapfret View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin

Joined: August 12 2007
Location: Bryant, Wa
Status: Offline
Points: 8581 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 15 2012 at 18:10
Originally posted by NotAProghead NotAProghead wrote:

Albert King comes to mind.



I smoke my pipe backwards.

Bandcamp
Back to Top
Sheavy View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Honorary Collaborator

Joined: March 28 2010
Location: Alabama
Status: Offline
Points: 2866 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 15 2012 at 05:42
I know Dick Dale does.
Back to Top
Sean Trane View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator

Prog Folk

Joined: April 29 2004
Location: Heart of Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 20240 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 15 2012 at 03:48
Josh Pollock of Daevid Allen's University of Errors also plays a unrestrung right handed guitar as a leftie
 
 
Josh Pollock is the one in the red pyjama and you get a close up of his guitar around the six-mins mark
(one of the most fun concerts I've seen too)
 
 
Same concert, Daevid was looking intensely right into the eyes of this (unknown to me) woman standing next to me, and she was litteraly melting (though it's not plainly visible on the video)... I had dropped my jacket on the floor, and bending down to pick it up, her jeans' crotch area was dark blue of wetness... When she saw I saw and knew, she put one hand on my crotch then seeing that I was interested, she took me by the hand to the ladies' room... we missed the next 15 minutes of the concert
btw: her name was NOT Caroline, and I suspect she knew Daevid didn't wear anything under that priest's robe (he showed it plainly to everyone at the end of the show, attempting to rape the little boy in the red pyjama) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Edited by Sean Trane - August 16 2012 at 01:46
let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword
Back to Top
Smurph View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: January 11 2012
Location: Columbus&NYC
Status: Offline
Points: 3167 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 15 2012 at 02:45
Kludge! What band is this? There aren't many of us that play like that!
http://pseudosentai.bandcamp.com/



wtf
Back to Top
kludge View Drop Down
Forum Newbie
Forum Newbie
Avatar

Joined: August 15 2012
Status: Offline
Points: 9 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 15 2012 at 02:43
My bandmate Beth Kinderman plays left-handed by flipping right-handed guitars over. What's even more twisted is that she's actually right-handed... she has an orthopedic problem in her left elbow that prevents her from playing traditional right-handed guitar. She's self-taught, and by the time she found out there was such thing as a left-handed guitar, she'd already written enough songs that she stuck with it. 

Between the upside-down fingerings, the oft-used capo, and the truly twisted chord changes she loves, it's amusing as heck to me to watch other guitarists try to play along with her at folkie music circles. I've been playing with her for years, and I know better than to try to read her hands. 
Back to Top
HackettFan View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: June 20 2012
Location: Oklahoma
Status: Offline
Points: 7951 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 21 2012 at 10:32
Originally posted by Negoba Negoba wrote:

I'm left handed but just play a right handed guitar the normal way.


I've always thought it was an advantage to have my dominant hand doing the fretting.



Me too. I'm left handed, but I play "right handed". The most complex coordination is required on the fret hand. The only people I have seen pick up a guitar for the first time and hold it "left handed" have been right handed in every other way.
Back to Top
Apache7 View Drop Down
Forum Newbie
Forum Newbie
Avatar

Joined: May 29 2012
Status: Offline
Points: 1 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 29 2012 at 07:53
Check it out! Here's the real skinny on Doyle Bramhall II's Backward Telecaster. First of all, he's left-handed, so he took a left-handed Telecaster body and put a RIGHT-handed neck on it (so the tuning keys are pointing down), THEN, he strings it right-handed. In otherwords, the stringing is upside-down!!! Very Strange, indeed. Well, like I always tell a blind hooker, "I gotta hand it to ya".Smile
Back to Top
Epignosis View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Honorary Collaborator

Joined: December 30 2007
Location: Raeford, NC
Status: Offline
Points: 32524 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2012 at 16:35
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

It would be a lot less confusing if we gave these things their proper name: backwards guitar is obviously Ratiug - upsidedown backwards guitar is ɹɐʇınƃ and upsidedown Guitar is פnıʇɐɹ. Smile


I was just about to Google "Ratiug," too.  Embarrassed
https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays
Back to Top
Dean View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout

Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 08 2012 at 09:26
It would be a lot less confusing if we gave these things their proper name: backwards guitar is obviously Ratiug - upsidedown backwards guitar is ɹɐʇınƃ and upsidedown Guitar is פnıʇɐɹ. Smile
What?
Back to Top
Negoba View Drop Down
Prog Reviewer
Prog Reviewer
Avatar

Joined: July 24 2008
Location: Big Muddy
Status: Offline
Points: 5208 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 12 2012 at 19:24
Originally posted by Smurph Smurph wrote:

Originally posted by Negoba Negoba wrote:

I'm left handed but just play a right handed guitar the normal way.

I've always thought it was an advantage to have my dominant hand doing the fretting.

That's how my old guitar player was. He actually thought he was playing left handed by doing that when he first started. And he told me it isnt easier. You will probably have to practice string skipping alternate picking styles a lot more to gain better control of your right hand.

I've been playing for 25 years now, and at this point it's hard to know. I think it helped at first. It's a different set of skills than writing and you have to have coordination no matter which way you play.

Left handed people have to do so many things both ways anyway...



No comments from the peanut gallery.


Edited by Negoba - April 12 2012 at 19:25
You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
Back to Top
ClemofNazareth View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Prog Folk Researcher

Joined: August 17 2005
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 4659 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 12 2012 at 19:17

I'm left-handed and tried playing a right-handed guitar normally and inverted, although I never tried restringing it.  I ended up buying a left-handed guitar and never looked back...


"Peace is the only battle worth waging."

Albert Camus
Back to Top
Smurph View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: January 11 2012
Location: Columbus&NYC
Status: Offline
Points: 3167 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 12 2012 at 15:56
Originally posted by Negoba Negoba wrote:

I'm left handed but just play a right handed guitar the normal way.

I've always thought it was an advantage to have my dominant hand doing the fretting.

That's how my old guitar player was. He actually thought he was playing left handed by doing that when he first started. And he told me it isnt easier. You will probably have to practice string skipping alternate picking styles a lot more to gain better control of your right hand.
Back to Top
Negoba View Drop Down
Prog Reviewer
Prog Reviewer
Avatar

Joined: July 24 2008
Location: Big Muddy
Status: Offline
Points: 5208 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 12 2012 at 14:13

I'm left handed but just play a right handed guitar the normal way.

I've always thought it was an advantage to have my dominant hand doing the fretting.

You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
Back to Top
clarke2001 View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Honorary Collaborator

Joined: June 14 2006
Location: Croatia
Status: Offline
Points: 4160 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 12 2012 at 12:47
I'm left handed. I can play right-handed guitar upside-down when necessary. However, I can strum it -but there's no way I will play arpeggio.

Also, it's really easy to hurt yourself; top string is thin and sharp.

The chords are fun. They're actually easier most of the time.
Percussion, sir!
Back to Top
Smurph View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: January 11 2012
Location: Columbus&NYC
Status: Offline
Points: 3167 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 15 2012 at 00:55
Dan Swano? Really? Seems like I have a bunch of guitar parts to learn. Crimson by Edge of Sanity doesn't seem that difficult.
 
Thanks for all the help guys.
 
http://vimeo.com/21261733
In case anyone cares, this is me playing backwards. Kinda crap recording but whatever, also the band is called Pseudo/Sentai now.


Edited by Smurph - March 15 2012 at 01:11
Back to Top
colorofmoney91 View Drop Down
Prog Reviewer
Prog Reviewer


Joined: March 16 2008
Location: Biosphere
Status: Offline
Points: 22774 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 14 2012 at 21:13
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...

Whereas, as Alan correctly asserts, Doyle Bramhall II plays a normally strung right-handed guitar upside down:
 
 
Other backwards guitar players include Dick Dale and Dan Swano (Edge of Sanity, Katatonia etc)

Cool

I had no idea Dan Swano played that way. That's neat to know.
Hanashukketsu
Back to Top
PabstRibbon View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: November 26 2009
Location: Québec
Status: Offline
Points: 925 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 14 2012 at 19:24
Jimmy Haslip play backward too 




Edited by PabstRibbon - March 14 2012 at 20:33
Back to Top
Dean View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout

Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 14 2012 at 18:47
Originally posted by Slartibartfast Slartibartfast wrote:

Why the hell should the bassier strings be at the top anyway? Tongue

I've actually never tried it with opposite hands before, just did, didn't work for me.

But anyway, backwards isn't the right word I think.  It's opposite-handed.  When you change the string order I think it should be called opposite handed mirrored stringed or something.
Some left-handers play a right-hand guitar right-handed, some right-handed Hendrix tribute acts play a left-handed guitar flipped over and restrung for right-handed playing to get the same poor intonation that Hendrix's guitars had, and some right-handed players play left-handed. Bob Geldof is right-handed but plays right-handed guitar, flipped over and not restrung (ie backwards or opposite handed mirrored stringed if you insist).
What?
Back to Top
Slartibartfast View Drop Down
Collaborator
Collaborator
Avatar
Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam

Joined: April 29 2006
Location: Atlantais
Status: Offline
Points: 29630 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 14 2012 at 18:35
Why the hell should the bassier strings be at the top anyway? Tongue

I've actually never tried it with opposite hands before, just did, didn't work for me.

But anyway, backwards isn't the right word I think.  It's opposite-handed.  When you change the string order I think it should be called opposite handed mirrored stringed or something.


Edited by Slartibartfast - March 14 2012 at 18:40
Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  12>

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down



This page was generated in 0.121 seconds.
Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.