Re: Lefty or Righty?
Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 9:00 am
This one is too interesting to pass up. I, too, am a natural lefty playing righty, but I have the additional feature of having both hands deformed by Dupuytren's Contracture. I've had surgery on both hands, and I nearly lost my left hand before doing so. Since my left hand surgery at the end of 2004, I have become more righty than lefty. When I started playing 2-1/2 years ago, I chose to go righty because I played righty as a child. The little finger of my left hand wouldn't move, but an expert at Guitar Center assured me I didn't need the little finger to play guitar........
Dennis' point of picking with the dominant hand, and Neil's point of the left handed advantage both jump out at me. Besides the left hand dexterity advantage of a lefty, there is also a strength advantage. In my first year, the left hand strength was almost a problem because of string and fret wear. My fingertips were just shredded every single day. Even now, I constantly fight over-pressing with the fingers of my left hand. Picking gets much more interesting. I had no trouble using a flatpick as a beginner, and I avoided fingerpicking for over a year. I eventually migrated into it on Neil's advice (thank you Neil!), but I can't think of fingerpicking in the normal way, meaning separating the use of the right thumb and the right fingers. Piano players read and play separate clefts for the left and right hands; guitar players play bass lines with the thumb and melodies with the fingers (Travis picking). I can't do that with my right hand. I need to put the thumb and the fingers in the same cleft to play them. I think it's more a matter of the way the brain works than it is a dexterity issue. I think of it as mono and stereo. I can only process a mono signal with my right hand. The funny thing is, I can turn the guitar over to lefty, and easily play the left thumb independent of the left fingers. So I think it's this - a natural righty is wired for stereo to the right hand, but only mono to the left; and the reverse for a lefty.
I considered briefly playing lefty, but decided against it. I can fingerpick right handed; I just need to treat my thumb as another finger. Even if I were starting from scratch again, I still think I would go righty.
Dennis' point of picking with the dominant hand, and Neil's point of the left handed advantage both jump out at me. Besides the left hand dexterity advantage of a lefty, there is also a strength advantage. In my first year, the left hand strength was almost a problem because of string and fret wear. My fingertips were just shredded every single day. Even now, I constantly fight over-pressing with the fingers of my left hand. Picking gets much more interesting. I had no trouble using a flatpick as a beginner, and I avoided fingerpicking for over a year. I eventually migrated into it on Neil's advice (thank you Neil!), but I can't think of fingerpicking in the normal way, meaning separating the use of the right thumb and the right fingers. Piano players read and play separate clefts for the left and right hands; guitar players play bass lines with the thumb and melodies with the fingers (Travis picking). I can't do that with my right hand. I need to put the thumb and the fingers in the same cleft to play them. I think it's more a matter of the way the brain works than it is a dexterity issue. I think of it as mono and stereo. I can only process a mono signal with my right hand. The funny thing is, I can turn the guitar over to lefty, and easily play the left thumb independent of the left fingers. So I think it's this - a natural righty is wired for stereo to the right hand, but only mono to the left; and the reverse for a lefty.
I considered briefly playing lefty, but decided against it. I can fingerpick right handed; I just need to treat my thumb as another finger. Even if I were starting from scratch again, I still think I would go righty.