right or left

neil stait

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My right hand is on the fretboard my left is strumming

I play left handed .... yes?
 
Yes. Do you have it strung so you can play left handed?
 
Yes. I'm right handed, but when I first started picking up guitars that way felt more natural to me, but I do it right handed now.
 
Yes

I have a Kala Tenor that was strung for me left handed

Bang goes that excuse then for being pants....

The trouble is finding music sheets with the music and letters and the left handed fret finger positions along side them
 
I've played guitar left handed for 18 years, uke left handed for 4 years and have recently begun learning the mandolin... you guessed it, left handed. I've never needed specific left handed sheet music (sheet music and tabs are neither left or right handed, for that matter) or chord diagrams - it's pretty simple to just remember which string is which. There's an awful lot of nonsense out there about how if you're left handed it'd be easier for you to play right handed (if that was actually the case, why don't right handed people play left handed?) or that you'll need magic left handed chord diagrams - it's enough to psyche anyone out I think! If you're learning from scratch then just learn it, it doesn't make a difference if it's LH or RH on the chord diagrams once you've got it in your mind how they work.
 
For all you southpaws, which includes me, I started on the banjo. I didn't go the Lefthanded banjo route, too expensive for an instrument I was uncertain if I would stay with. Sounds like a lot of you are playing Libba "Cotton Picking Style", ie upside down and backwards. That wasn't an option for me because it is too difficult to get help from other musicians. And that's the way I prefer to learn music.

A question for all players: I have acquired a lifetime of damage to my left hand; enough so to be an impediment to playing uke or any other stringed instrument. I'm new to Uke so I have little in the way of bad habits. I have a beater baritone uke I could convert to lefthanded uke. I estimate 4 hours work for a luthier to do the job. Maybe $200 job. And I could learn to play lefthanded.

The disadvantages: I have to retrain my hands. I have to undergo torture by callus building and ???
The advantages: I know a lot of chord shapes, I have a solid grounding in some techniques and know how to play by ear. I gain the advantages of playing with my dominant hand and a speed advantage due to left brain/right brain integration.

What do you advise?
 
Yes

I have a Kala Tenor that was strung for me left handed

The trouble is finding music sheets with the music and letters and the left handed fret finger positions along side them

Glad it is strung up right for you. And I bet that is confusing, trying to flip all those tabs and chord figures.
 
reply deleted.
 
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I've played guitar left handed for 18 years, uke left handed for 4 years and have recently begun learning the mandolin... you guessed it, left handed. I've never needed specific left handed sheet music (sheet music and tabs are neither left or right handed, for that matter) or chord diagrams - it's pretty simple to just remember which string is which. There's an awful lot of nonsense out there about how if you're left handed it'd be easier for you to play right handed (if that was actually the case, why don't right handed people play left handed?) or that you'll need magic left handed chord diagrams - it's enough to psyche anyone out I think! If you're learning from scratch then just learn it, it doesn't make a difference if it's LH or RH on the chord diagrams once you've got it in your mind how they work.

your words, sir, should be carved to stone! :) i am playing lefty myself, and i never got the confusion people make about flipped sheets etc. it's all about how one learns to read it - may be an 50% extra effort for the first day or two, but what's that compared to the decades of my uke career to come :cool:, but no worries afterwards :)
(all above of course assuming that i have my strings re-strung in the appropriate order - just like the righty player has - so, my G being highest (location-wise speaking))
 
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No, because now a C chord, instead of being 0003, becomes 3000, etc.

Well, not no, because, if chord "0003" is defined as:

- play open string G
- play open string C
- play open string E
- play 3rd fret on string A

it remains still the same, despite player being lefty, righty, er whatever-ty. We are basically both right, depending on what is ours way of the sheet/chord reading :)

the quote that you have responded to, cites uke is strung left-handed - so i assume string G being top one - clsoes to player when holding uke etc.

Sheets/tabs are the same, always just realize, independently on what hand you play, which string is the leftmost on the chord diagram, topmost on the tab, etc., and which string that corresponds to on you instrument. You learn it once, it sticks to you, and requires IMO no extra effort after it absorbs to your fingers :)

(And lefty may have it even easier to learn fretboard stuff from videos, because you can just mirror fingers form the screen, and don't have to "flip" anything like the righties have to... :p)
 
Does anyone know if chord tabs are printed right to left in Hebrew or Arabic? Both the languages are written and read right to left. and the graphics need only be mirrored for printing.

Why is it that only lefthanders are in their right minds?
 
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