I don't mean to sound critical here, and I mean this in the best way possible, but you sound like a real

There are left-handed guitarists and bassists who play right-handed instruments upside down, so the low and high strings are reversed. Albert King the famous blues guy and Jimmy Haslip of The Yellowjackets fame are examples. Most likely a sign of being self-taught.

It's not too uncommon to have left-handed drummers play right-handed kits but play the ride or hat with their left hand. Lenny White for example...

Of course, feet are integral to swimming!

True but chords are really hard when you do this. Albert King does not play very many chords. And bass is largely single notes as well.

I guess the big advantage for these lefties to make their "adjustment" this way is that they don't need to have a special instrument to sit in and play. "Can I borrow your guitar, flip it upside down and sit in to play one song?" Sure, no problem.

"Can I borrow your guitar, flip it upside down, take off all the strings, reverse their order, and sit in to play one song?" ummmm...

I remember a local jam where several left handed drummers were 'regulars'.
They were all restricted to the third set. They would move the kit around, let all the lefties have their turn and then put it back. If you were a lefty who wanted play with your friend in the other (earlier or later) sets, tough luck.

I used to give drum lessons and unless the student had already been playing lefty for years, I would convert them all to a right handed kit for this very reason. Righty kits are everywhere. The 'house kit' at any jam/party/club/battle of the bands is a righty kit. Lefty drum kits may not be as rare as Lefty Pianos, but they certainly are rare, making opportunities to make some spontaneous music harder to come by for those who have committed to a 'reversed' instrument.

I'm not a guitarist, but I'd think those who play a flipped instrument had the ingenuity to figure that out that they'd manage that somehow, not to say every conceivable chord inversion/position can be replicated.

I do know that Jimmy Haslip (a bass player) does play chords. A reversed fretboard would offer the exact same amount of chordal positions as a normal one, though there's little help (instructional/educational regarding fingerings and techniques) to navigate that territory. But, if one is self-taught, they either figure it out or not.

Conventional techniques or fingerings aren't necessarily helpful. I had a friend in high school who like Jimmy Haslip was left-handed but played a right-handed bass flipped. He couldn't read music, and he learned music by playing along with the radio. He also had perfect pitch and could play back anything back after hearing it a few times. When he thumped the bass instead of striking with the thumb and pulling with his finger, he'd thump with his four fingers and pull with his thumb. That's how Jimmy Haslip does it as well, as did the late Waymon Tisdale, the former NBA and OK Sooner star who became a smooth jazz artist.

When I was playing soccer in school I found out I'm right handed and left footed. Can be different for different people sometimes.

Then there's Joe Zawinul who's played on a reverse (inverted) keyboard, with an interesting anecdote on how he composed the melody for Black Market. (and plays it live when performing it!) He says it's good for the mind, but I don't know - it seems it'll be equally a mindfuuk.



https://accordeurdepianoparis.com/ho...rt-joezawinul/

I like alternate tunings on guitar for that reason, forces you come up with new ideas. That's pretty clever to apply it to a keyboard!

American Hero?

I am in fact left handed :D

I think in a sense it's all moot. One can learn how to play any way they choose to.

Sports (throwing, hitting, shooting, or kicking, etc) or handwriting, yeah it probably matters, but for musical instruments it shouldn't be an issue, because generally, most all instruments require both hands - they're equally important. I mean, there's no such thing as a left-handed flute, clarinet or saxophone or a left-handed piano. One just learns to play the instrument, and one deals with it. For piano though, literature seems to indicate that it's a right-handed world as generally there's less asked of the left hand vs the right from a dexterity/technical standpoint.

I don't know a single trumpet player who plays left-handed, though I'm sure there are many left-handed trumpet players. Though that's with fingers; maybe it's different with fingers as opposed to arms/hands.

Here's Simon Philips telling a story about how he got into open-handed playing even though he's right-handed. Something he says is so true, that when you're young you can learn anything, but when older it's another story.

My buddy is a lefty who plays a righty kit. Really cool openhanded style. Plays a righty guitar upside down too.

Do you cut out exactly one beat or one bar of the click track you record. Because if you cut out only one bar, even though the timing may fluctuate inside the bar, you will still end up with a steady beat, the same as the metronome. I think the technique like this will only work if you try to record the click track for the whole song.

Certainly this kind of 'adjusting' can produce interesting aesthetic variations.

But so can making the "full adjustment" to simply playing righty. For example my lefty drum students start out with a "strong left hand"! Which is something most of the righties struggle to develop. Many truly advanced drummers eventually end up being able to lead with either hand, ride with either hand, etc. I pushed my lefty students to a righty kit, not only to save them from a lifetime of inconvenience but also to set them on a path that would eventually converge with other drummers anyway.

There must be "something" about the specialization of each hand on guitar, but I don't know what it could be. I am not much of a guitarist, but I mess around and it always struck me that fingering scales and making chord shapes was the "hard part" about guitar playing. So why don't righties use their "stronger" hand to finger the chords?

And consider guitarists who do fingerpicking or complex bluegrass flatpicking which requires very demanding dexterity from both hands.

One beat.

One beat, one bar
Let's get together and feel all right...

Al Comet from the Young Gods - originally a gtr. player - would map his sampler‘s keyboard so that bass and rhytmic samples and loops were under his right hand, and melodic samples under his left.

The last time I did anything that fast was driving though a school zone during recess.

g

There's some famous guitarist, it might have been Paul McCartney but I'm not sure, who talked about it being more trouble to try to feel the strumming and picking rhythm in the non-dominant hand than the fret board technique.

I personally am left-handed and I play guitar righty because I can't wrap my head around trying to use my right hand on the fretboard the way I do my left, so my case seems to align more with your theory.

Dude also plays piano and guitar at the same time, where I've seen him (when doing so primarily plays the guitar w/ the left hand) switch to his right hand to tap the fretboard while he switches to his left hand on the piano.

Maybe it's the timing. The picking/strumming hand actually initiates the sound, so if it is dominant, maybe it is more accurate for time. Which would also bring this back on track to the thread topic.

Joe Zawinul, Molly Tuttle, Stanley Jordan - maybe we should be looking at more "regular" folks to get clues about handedness.


When you were just starting out, were you aware of the option of left-handed instruments? Did you consider getting one? Did you ever give it a try and not like it?


Totally aside from all the cultural baggage, it's odd that some lefties play righty, some play lefty, some do some weird hybrid, but almost all righties play righty. No one ever saw me struggling with my pitifully clumsy left hand trying to make chords and suggested to me: "then why don't you get a left-handed guitar?"

I suspect equal parts incompatibility and no reason or need to do so. Maybe akin to an American wanting a car with the driver on the right side, or a Brit wanting the driver on the left side. I think I could learn to use the stickshift with my left hand but would feel unnatural at first I imagine.

The trombone is a right-handed instrument (with the slide to be used by the right hand). There are very rare (very very rare) instances where some players play a bone constructed backwards - the noted trombonist and arranger Slide Hampton is the only one I know of, but I know he's not the only one to do so.

There's a fascinating instrument, the Holton Superbone that is a combo trombone with both valves and a slide. Traditionally a valve trombone has the valves for the right hand, but for the superbone it's for the left hand. The first noted player of it was Maynard Ferguson, IIRC might have had a hand in its development.

Duane Allman was a lefty who played right handed - he had tremendous sustained bends and a light, circular picking technique. A unique sound.

I can see how this kind of thing would certainly apply to a beginner, but considering the training gap between a musician and a non-musician, I would expect it to totally disappear after a few years. It must be something in the brain, not just in the hands.

When you look at some of the "open-hand" type drummers, Billy Cobham, Simon Phillips, Ginger Baker, they really seem to have transcended 'handedness' - at least as far as I can tell by watching and listening. Maybe if you asked them they would admit to some slight preferences.

I always thought Cobham’s technique allowed him better access to his hi hat as it could be set lower and easier to get with his left hand. It just made sense me, but I never could get the hang of it, myself.

As it pertains to playing an instrument it's symbiotic - 'muscle memory' is what's achieved through practice.

Maybe or maybe not a coincidence, beyond their respective virtuosities, they seem to share a similar quality as being open-minded musicians, not necessarily pigeonholed into a specific style or genre.

You can add Dennis Chambers and David Garibaldi to that list, to add some funk masters.

Regarding the 'handedness' thing, generally, a good strategy would be to work on your weakness, something that's often applied to sports; i.e. work on your off hand in basketball, work on your backhand in tennis...after a while they more or less become equal. It's no different than any other facet of one's craft, you work at anything deficient to make it better as a whole.

I assume Kenny Drew Jr worked very hard on his left hand:

US Post Office vans have the driver on the right because they have to reach out to people's mailboxes.

Sure, but any new skill feels unnatural at first. The strange thing is that it seems to be enough to promote these specializations. I wonder if lefties seeking lefty instruments indicates that there are underlying 'reasons' for each hand specializing, or are such things just arbitrary accidents of history?

Handedness in the animal kingdom is supposedly about 'fine-motor tasks', but when you are playing a musical instrument- isn't it ALL 'fine-motor tasks'? Aren't great demands of precision and accuracy being placed on both hands? So why should a lefty be motivated to get a lefty guitar? Keyboard players don't care. (Joe Zawinul had one keyboard set up lefty and he used it on one song.)


I did a couple of albums called "Poemjazz" with Robert Pinsky and Laurence Hobgood. This was one of the pieces they performed:


The Other Hand

The lesser twin,

The one whose
accomplishments

And privileges are
unshowy: getting
to touch

The tattoo on my
right shoulder.

Wearing the mitt.

I feel its familiar
weight and textures

As the adroit one
rests against it for a
moment.

They twine fingers.

Lefty, continues to
experience
considerable

Difficulty
expressing himself
clearly

And correctly in
writing.

Comparison with
his brother
prevents him

From putting forth
his best effort.

Yet this halt one
too has felt a
breast, thigh,

Clasped an ankle or
most intimate

Of all, the fingers
of a hand.

And possibly his
trembling touch,

As less merely
adept and
confident,

Is subtly the more
welcome of the
two.

In the Elysian
Fields, where every
defect

Will be
compensated and
the last

Will be first, this
one will lead
skillfully

While the other
will assist.
And as my shadow
stalks that
underworld

The right hand too
will rejoice--
released

From its long
burden of
expectation:

The yoke of
dexterity finally
laid to rest.

I think 3 saxes is much tougher... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIqLJmlQQNM Roland Kirk

...agree. Though what I find more impressive is when he plays two at once, but contrapuntally! While also circular breathing!



He might have been the most freakish of freakish musical talents bar none.

Some great posts this morning, Stanley Jordan was the perfect eye-opener today, really impressive.