A Southpaw recommendation

Lefties unite! There's a great book I just discovered on amazon and I got it in the mail today. What a joy to have found this book. I wish I had found it when I was learning to play the guitar as a southpaw.

The book is called Lef Hand Chords for Guitar Mandolin Ukulele & Banjo and it has essential chord fingering charts for major, minor and 7th chords, keys, barre chords, arpeggio scales and more. This is a must have for any lefty.

http://www.amazon.com/Chords-Guitar-Mandolin-Ukulele-Banjo/dp/1468158163/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363129751&sr=8-1&keywords=left+hand+chords

southpawmark said:

...this is a must have for any lefty.

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Or at least for those without mirrors...

Sorry, but I couldn't resist. I'm sure it's actually quite a boon for "leftists"

John

Bill1 said:

I am left handed and strum with my right hand. The book looks great, but when I look at it I can't tell the difference to the right handed version, the chords look the same, even though I know they are different. It looks like a great book.
I can make the chords with my right hand and strum with the left, but I am too lazy to put the effort in to develop the muscles in my fingers and arms so I can do it better than I do when strumming with my right hand. My first music teacher started me strumming right handed and now I am too lazy to try to change, I could be playing like Hendrix if not for the teacher, this is a lesson to music teachers. He only taught me how to sight read and play a few tunes and I am still doing music stuff after 30 years, so I have decided not to track him down and sue.

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That's interesting - I bet you're "borderline ambidextrous." For most people playing the "wrong" hand the issue isn't making the shapes with the fretting hand, it's that the non-dominant side is usually pretty rhythmically challenged. If you can strum well with the "off" hand I bet you could be an awesome drummer...

John

John, your comments made me laugh. He He He. When I look in the mirror though, everything is backwards.

Last I looked there is no marking on my drumstick to indicate if it a left or a right. that means I can play the same rhythm with either hand. I have watched our daughter do a difficult section in the right hand and then go do it with the left one
on her practices and performances on piano. There are people who only paint with one hand. I worked a summer as a house painter. My boss told me to place the ladder so I could paint from the left as well as the right. It cut the time to go down and up just to move the ladder in half.

When anyone has a mind set of "I can't do (whatever)", it is a true statement in their own mind. When we change how we think, the change of action has a far greater chance of occuring than if it is prefaced with "I can't" An attitude of "I HAVE YET TO BE ABLE TO_____" indicates a different mind set,and increases the odds of a different behavior happening.

Crafted, I hear you speaking with the same prejudice, and ignorance that most righties speak when talking about us. You assume we can just "will ourselves" to use the other hand. Do I need to send you back to school to teach you about basic electric impulses? Do you need a lesson in right-brain vs. left-brain understanding? Lefties use the left hand because something in our genetic makeup has wired us this way. True lefties will use the left hand for most things. Your daughter is clearly ambidextrous like my cousin. I was amazed watching her write as a child. She could go back and forth with either hand and write beautifully. As an adult she favors the left hand for writing but she bats right handed. I bat, catch, play guitar, play uke, play chinese xiao and every other instrument that can be setup for a lefty as a lefty. I can't just "switch off" the portion of my brain telling me to use my right hand. They tried that in schools years ago and would bind the left hand of children. I used to work with an older woman who told me she had trouble with basic mathematical calculations because her left hand had been bound when she was a child and it screwed up her wiring. Please don't assume we can just change hands. Most of us cannot and we don't have to. Next time you see Paul McCartney feel free to tell him he "must" use his right hand. He'll probably laugh. I understand that he has several left-handed instruments in his house. Many were custom made especially for him but most were just standard order. I'm thankful that most guitar makers recognize lefties do require a different setup. We, who are learning or play the uke, can easily restring most uke's and it's setup perfectly for us. Please, go speak to a biologist before you decide it's easy for us to just switch hands. I think your biologist, with a basic understanding of human physiology, will probably laugh at you and tell you why this isn't possible. Oh, but before you do that I want you to try an experiment for me. Go try and do several things left handed that you normally do right. Not just one thing. That's a cop out. Try several things. You'll probably find that there are a few things you may already do with your left hand that you never thought of and some things, like opening a bottle of wine, or cutting with scissors feels more comfortable and natural in your right hand.

Why do lefty vs. righty threads always start to turn nasty? Who cares what hand someone uses? Why is it important? Cant we just celebrate what we have in common as opposed to dog each other on our differences? Ive seen a million lefty vs righty threads here they always turn out badly.

oldetymey said:

Why do lefty vs. righty threads always start to turn nasty? Who cares what hand someone uses? Why is it important? Cant we just celebrate what we have in common as opposed to dog each other on our differences? Ive seen a million lefty vs righty threads here they always turn out badly.

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I usually just lurk regarding the lefty-righty stuff. In spirit I agree with you - aloha spirit as much as possible.

I'm primarily left-handed, though I think I might actually fall into the mixed-handed category as defined here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness. Did that come about young, having one parent of right- and one of left-handedness perhaps? Who knows.

People who are "profoundly" left-handed find much of the "standard" practices in the majority right-handed world to be cumbersome, painful, or just plain difficult.

Who cares? Those who are profoundly left-handed, when they cannot make use of or easily understand things that are in the societal dominant right-handed formats.

The reason lefties care is because:

Music instruction was geared to right handedness...

Needlework instructions for the longest time were only for right handed people - and using a mirror is not always helpful, sadly...

among many other instructions and implements (I can't use a "normal" ladle that pours with a right hand spout, butter knives feel wrong) etc...

What we have in common is a love for music & playing a very cool instrument. We all need the proper tools to enable ANY handedness so we can enjoy and excel.

So, an awareness that some people are profoundly left-handed DOES matter or those tools wouldn't exist for that population. That's why the book that southpawmark posted is very useful for those who are profoundly lefty and want the tools to work with that righties take for granted in vast quantity.

Macmuse said:

I usually just lurk regarding the lefty-righty stuff. In spirit I agree with you - aloha spirit as much as possible.

I'm primarily left-handed, though I think I might actually fall into the mixed-handed category as defined here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness. Did that come about young, having one parent of right- and one of left-handedness perhaps? Who knows.

People who are "profoundly" left-handed find much of the "standard" practices in the majority right-handed world to be cumbersome, painful, or just plain difficult.

Who cares? Those who are profoundly left-handed, when they cannot make use of or easily understand things that are in the societal dominant right-handed formats.

The reason lefties care is because:

Music instruction was geared to right handedness...

Needlework instructions for the longest time were only for right handed people only - and using a mirror is not always helpful, sadly...

among many other instructions and implements (I can't use a "normal" ladle that pours with a right hand spout, butter knives feel wrong) etc...

What we have in common is a love for music & playing a very cool instrument. We all need the proper tools to enable ANY handedness so we can enjoy and excel.

So, an awareness that some people are profoundly left-handed DOES matter or those tools wouldn't exist for that population. That's why the book that southpawmark posted is very useful for those who are profoundly lefty and want the tools to work with that righties take for granted in vast quantity.

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I am left handed. I play left handed. Ive never had an issue transposing right handed oriented chord books for my use, but I think the original posted book is pretty neat. I just dont dig all the lefty vs. righty junk. Im profoundly left handed as you say. Its not a handicap. Ive never had an issue functioning in the world. The only time I get flak for lefthandedness is in uke playing. Why does it matter what hand someone uses to do what? Is it not technically correct? Big deal. The solution as I see it is for righties to quit treating lefties as 2nd class musicians that are flyin in the face of some grand technical tradition of playing and lefties to quit acting like life is just impossible because they are lefties in a righty world. Then just play and have fun. Could I with time and practice play righty? Sure I could but why? Lefty is more comfortable. And it isnt hurting a damn thing. So why have the argument?
Do we really need another thread taking a negative turn in here. Lets just talk about playing. Which is as you point out something we can all agree is great. . Right?

oldetymey said:

Lets just talk about playing. Which is as you point out something we can all agree is great. . Right?

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Right. I'm sorry if you think my providing some background explanation is being negative or argumentative. Not the intent. I didn't say impossible, but some things are uncomfortable when they don't need to be.

Without some form of feedback people in general won't know what can be troublesome to some of us is all I'm saying - a step toward general understanding and just accepting all musicianship along with good tools for all handedness out there.

Oh, and I play right-handed... because I learned guitar that way and it wasn't less comfortable than when I tried left-handed (I restrung it but the pick guard didn't to much good that direction) . It was harder to find left-handed instruments or music when my folks started me in music.

Macmuse said:

Right. I'm sorry if you think my providing some background explanation is being negative or argumentative. Not the intent. I didn't say impossible, but some things are uncomfortable when they don't need to be.

Without some form of feedback people in general won't know what can be troublesome to some of us is all I'm saying - a step toward general understanding and just accepting all musicianship along with good tools for all handedness out there.

Oh, and I play right-handed... because I learned guitar that way and it wasn't less comfortable than when I tried left-handed (I restrung it but the pick guard didn't to much good that direction) . It was harder to find left-handed instruments or music when my folks started me in music.

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No sorry I didnt mean it that way at all. I didnt think you were being negative. I probably shouldnt have quoted you sorry for that. I was just making the point that I was speakin from experience and in my own experience its just not a big enough deal to even bother discussing (yes I get the irony of posting on a subject I just said wAsnt worth discussing). Since the discussion seems to always take an inflammatory turn and feelings end up hurt. Theres so much we have in common here as you say. Love of the uke, of music, performing, etc etc. why stir up another hornets nest pitting one side against another. As I said I think the original post was fine but its bound to go a bad direction

oldetymey said:

...just not a big enough deal to even bother discussing (yes I get the irony of posting on a subject I just said wAsnt worth discussing).

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Okay, lol... that's the conversation that just happened here with my fellow left-handed uke player (who also plays right-handed).

At any rate, past history colors all of our perspectives on these kinds of things. My dad was of the generation that had their hand tied and convinced a teacher (one room school house) to stop that if he could write more legibly than the right-handers - which he did. Neither he nor I can read some things my right-handed mom scribbles. heh.

Hey all, last thing I want is to create an either/or post. I was sharing a book. We lefties have a challenge living in a right-handed world but we've always made out ok with what we had. In this new internet age more things are turning up for lefties to make our job easier. I have a full array of kitchen tools: left ladle, wok tool, etc. If we can just get righties to accept that we do things differently and not judge us for it we'll be fine. Then we can celebrate the music we share. That was the point of my post. To share a great book that I believe will help other lefties and one post completely changed the discussion.

That one post would have sent us back fifty to one-hundred years. I replied because I needed to reply. I'm that guy who came up a few generations after they stopped tying hands but some of those old dinosaur instructors still existed. My mum made several trips to the school to fight on my behalf. When a grade school teacher tried to get me to use my right hand for righting my mum went directly to the Principal. When a middle school teacher accused me of cheating because I was using my left hand, my mom went to the Principal. I won't apologize for being sensitive to this issue. I'm just thankful we have tools developed to make our lives easier and I am just attempting to share those with my fellow lefties. Sorry if some righties are offended by our very existence.

Does any company make a left handed cut-away?

hoosierhiver said:

Does any company make a left handed cut-away?

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Wow, I never thought to even look for one since I play right-handed. That might be kinda cool!

southpawmark said:

I'm just thankful we have tools developed to make our lives easier and I am just attempting to share those with my fellow lefties.

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With you on this one for certain! And I don't think it's taking offense really, it's not having enough info to grasp the annoyances we have faced. They are all basically design issues from a certain perspective and not surprising that they suit 80-90% of the population quite well.

When I studied in Germany in college I was about to sign a guest book at a museum where an elderly docent was sitting. She immediately asked me where I was from. I replied in German that I was an American college student studying in her country. Her reply was "We would never let our children use "that" hand to write. What a permissive society you must be from". A lot of it is generational and I don't think nearly as many of the issues/barriers exist as in the past, thankfully.

here is my maui music lefty cutaway

Hoosier, I have several. A Sergio Zepeda cutaway on order, a Cole Clark on hold and a Dean Performer SE Cutaway. Martin and Taylor both make lefty guitars. Sergio Zepeda, who's a Nicaraguan luthier, is lefty friendly. The guy who is his North American representative is a lefty and has a video of his playing southpaw. Maton Guitars, which is also an Australian company like Cole Clark, is very southpaw friendly. They're a little more pricey then Cole Clark but they make some mighty sweet-sounding guitars.

Macmuse, yes, that woman from from a different generation. In her time you probably wouldn't have been able to use your left hand but now there is no problem. Scientist warn of the damage you can inflict on a person by suppressing their natural instinct. Even today I got an apology from a guy on youtube that made a video about picking an acoustic guitar. They made some rather offensive comments about lefties and I was shocked that anyone was tell me that I "should learn how to play the right way". One of the two guys replied back to me and was apologetic. He went as far as to tell me that both of them were lefties but the guy in the cowboy hat learned to play righty because that was what was available. It's funny but the guy who played right mentioned that he's an "ok" guitar player. He could be amazing if he was playing with the correct hand! Just my thought but I discovered I am a much better guitar player and will probably be a better uke player because I allow the creative side of my brain to be free. That's the side of the brain that is attracted to music.

Well, that's why feedback and providing information is good to help people understand. After all this time with so many different instruments I really feel like I'm in the mixed-hand category (for more than just music reasons). There are some things that my left is clearly dominant but, I don't feel musically hindered for fretting left, strumming right. It just works for me.