Why Are Some Lefties Playing Guitars Right-handedly?

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A while back, I found out that Robert Fripp is a left-handed musician who used to play his guitar left-handedly but later on switched to playing it right-handedly. I thought Robert Fripp did that because he wanted his left brain hemisphere or his right hand to do the picking and strumming of the guitar.

According to the old and supposedly debunked science, the left brain is more logical and mathematical than the right.

It seems Robert Fripp is not the only left-handed guitar player who are playing their guitars right-handedly, but for different reason(s), maybe

It's possible lefties go buy right-handed guitars and just don't know the guitar is made for right-handed people and they just start playing it? Maybe they are not aware of the old science and are not trying to make use of that science like Robert Fripp seem to be (I'm just guessing that that is why Robert Fripp made the switch).

I could just Google "why are some lefties playing their guitars right-handedly?" and I probably will later but I thought "Hey, maybe there are lefties in KVR who are playing their guitars right-handedly, why not ask them first".

Any ways here is some "facts" about some left-handed musicians that I found out by doing "research" on a similar topic:

Albarn, Damon - Plays guitar right-handed
Allman, Duane - Plays guitar right-handed
Allman, Gregg - Plays guitar right-handed
Blackmore, Ritchie - Plays guitar right-handed
Byrne, David - Plays guitar right-handed
Cobain, Kurt - Played guitar left-handed, but otherwise right-handed
Cockburn, Bruce - Plays guitar right-handed
Corgan, Billy - Plays guitar right-handed
Costello, Elvis - Plays guitar right-handed
Fripp, Robert - Plays guitar right-handed
Gallagher, Noel - Plays guitar right-handed
Hendrix, Jimi - Wrote and ate with right hand
King, Albert - Played guitar right-handed
King, B.B. - Plays guitar right-handed
Knopfler, Mark - Plays guitar right-handed
Lowe, Nick - Plays guitar right-handed
Morse, Steve - Plays guitar right-handed
Simon, Paul - Plays guitar right-handed

So again the question is ""why are some lefties playing guitars right-handedly?".

I haven't slept for almost two days, I'm going to try to get some, sleep I mean. And do more Googling later. Okay thanks, bye.
ah böwakawa poussé poussé

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I remember Audio Damage Chris choose to play guitar right-handed as a left-handed person simply because it would be easier to pick up a guitar at a party to impress the girls :hihi:

I think you are overthinking all this stuff way too hard.
Last edited by Delta Sign on Sat Jul 21, 2018 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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why do birds suddenly appear , every time , you are near ?...
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Being left handed myself (at least in certain tasks) but having been taught to write with the right hand sionce very early age (according to what my mother told me), my opinion is that many left handed people learn through their life to be kind of ambidextrous.

I know for a fact that a friend of mine and colleague from the first school who was left-handed (and was punished severely to learn to write with the right hand - it was like that back then) learned to write with the right hand but never unlearned to write with the left hand, to the point he became able to write with both hands SIMULTANEOUSLY.

I can sort of write with the left hand too, but in the way Leonardo da Vinci did (from right to left, mirrored). My son, which is also left-handed, writes with the left hand, but he has problems with his handwriting because handwriting is not thought to left-handed - it is difficult to write with the left hand from left to right because your hand hides what you are writing, and it slowers writing too. That's why many left-handed people adopt really strange positions to write (like for example writing with the paper upside down).

Anyway, that's what I think. We can learn everything, especially if taught at a young age, and a left-handed is able to learn to write or do anything else with the right hand (as I did, and my fellow did) as well as right-handed people are able to learn to do things with the left hand too, if so they want.

Football players, for example, are encouraged since the beginning to learn to kick with both feet. And the best (like CR7) can do it. Maybe guitarists also learn to play with the right hand because it will make their life easier too. It's not like they play virtuoso pieces anyway.
Last edited by fmr on Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fernando (FMR)

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It's much easier to find right-handed guitars.

On Fender-style guitars, the slant of the bridge pickup and string lengths to tuners gives a better balance: bass strings are brighter and treble strings are mellower. Face it: Leo got it wrong. OK, it's a matter of taste. Jimi could've played any guitar he wanted, but generally chose righty Strats; you have to consider the possibility that he knew what he was doing.

Conservative traditions, especially religious, think left-handedness is evil -- and I'm not making this up; ask McCartney's guitarist, Hamish something-or-other.
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my classical guitar instructor in college suggested that since i am left handed, i should play right handed. i said "i prefer not to" like Bartleby, but now i can't believe most right-handed players don't play left-handed. what is wrong with them?
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The topic is interesting. Delta Sign mentioned one reason, easier to find majority-kind-of instrument, that is rather common one.

An other possible explanation concerns especially "old times" : I know that previously the education system in some schools, tried to root out the "wrong-handed" habit, by forcing left-handed children write, eat etc. with their right hand. Many originally left-handed were "thought" to be right-handed in the earlier days.

Third reason, a rather common one, is that many of us are "both-handed", we use both of our hands equally (or almost equally) well. Especially, if your parents have put you to the piano lessons very young (4+ years), and you have seriously played piano longer time, the both sides of your brains are trained to coordnate your hands much better than a average person.
E. g. I'm right-handed, but use my left hand in many occasions (no, not only in those situations :wink:), e.g. the computer mouse, I may sometimes write in my left hand, or throw dart, etc.

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my classical guitar instructor in college suggested that since i am left handed, i should play right handed. i said "i prefer not to" like Bartleby, but now i can't believe most right-handed players don't play left-handed. what is wrong with them?
my newest sounds:
https://soundcloud.com/the-das-kaput

Cakewalk by BandLab, Komplete 13, Maschine 2 (MKI & Jam), Fathom Synth, Guitars, Jam Origin MIDI Guitar, EXH Superego+ etc

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When I started playing guitar 1985 there were either very expensive guitars like Gibson and Fender and bad cheap guitars. Gibson and Fenders costed about 1 121$ 963 euro in todays value so that was about the double price back then, if not more. Which teenager could afford that amount of money? Left handed guitars were very rare also and too expensive. So I had no choice than to learn play right handed. It took me six months to train the brain. I've since that met other left handed guitarists who's story was the same about the prices and almost non-existed left handed guitars and took them too six months to train the brain.

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You’re really overthinking this topic.

As a kid, I first played my mom’s right-handed guitar, and eventually started lessons with that same guitar. There was never any discussion about my hand dominance. We just started lessons.

As a teenager, when I had saved up a bit of money and wanted to buy an electric guitar, I walked into our local shop and literally said “What is your cheapest electric guitar? I’ll take one!” Of course it was right handed and it wasn’t like the salespeople stopped and asked me if I was left handed.

I played those two guitars off and on for about twenty years before finally beginning to actually take the instrument seriously. When it finally came time to buy myself a good electric, do you think I bought a left handed model after twenty years of playing right handed? Of course not!
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I bought my first guitar from my brother, a righty Aria 12 string in 1974, and I don't think it ever occured to me to try to play it left-handed. I also shoot right-handed in hockey, bat right-handed in baseball, and, I assume, would shoot a rifle right-handed if I'd ever used one. If I were to shoot a pistol, I'd be more comfortable with my left. I write with my left, pitched in baseball with my left, but for most other things (except one that I can think of) I use my right. I use a mouse with my right.

I'm just mixed up, I guess. I don't even think it was an issue of there not being many left-handed guitar options 44 years ago. I am glad that I learned right-handed, though. Made borrowing others' guitars less problematic.
“The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.”
-Henry A. Wallace

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Bombadil wrote:I bought my first guitar from my brother, a righty Aria 12 string in 1974, and I don't think it ever occured to me to try to play it left-handed. I also shoot right-handed in hockey, bat right-handed in baseball, and, I assume, would shoot a rifle right-handed if I'd ever used one. If I were to shoot a pistol, I'd be more comfortable with my left. I write with my left, pitched in baseball with my left, but for most other things (except one that I can think of) I use my right. I use a mouse with my right.

I'm just mixed up, I guess. I don't even think it was an issue of there not being many left-handed guitar options 44 years ago. I am glad that I learned right-handed, though. Made borrowing others' guitars less problematic.
Sounds about the same as me. I write left handed, bowl in cricket and throw with the left, but if I play table tennis, use scissors, or the mouse then it's the right, as is the geetar and drumming.

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Gary Moore had very strong and controlled vibrato. I saw a video of him playing darts left handed, even though he played guitar right handed.

Many people were forced to use their right hand by catholic ''priests''. Jesus is seated at the right hand of The Father. The left hand is sometimes considered evil. The right hand, good.
Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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I always think there's advantages and disadvantages. I play a lot of odd chord inversions and can change between them easily with the left hand being more accurate. I can not however for the life of me (despite having tried a few times to learn) do any kind of fingerpicking with the right - stuck with plectrums forever.

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Older lefties play right-handed because left handed guitars used to be very rare and expensive... but I can't imagine why a right-handed person would choose to play a left-handed guitar. I'm left handed (and play left-handed), and it sucks.

I recently wanted a new guitar. We have 2 instrument stores in my small city, there were probably 300 electric guitars between the 2 stores, one had zero left-handed guitars in stock, the other had 2... and it's always been like this. They're more expensive, and there's a disproportionately (compared to left handed population) low amount to choose from.

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