can you play left handed?

[JimmyW]

Michael "Angelo" Batio can ! he can also play right handed......sorry yall probly arleady knew this....but imagen playing like that left or right handed

[bartman]

i can play left handed really well when i stand in front of a mirror

[Chris Brooks]

I can't play left handed but I like playing left-handed guitars from time to time just to re-evaulate the little patterns we all fall into and just to get some differrent intervallic ideas. If I come up with anything good I record it that work it out on a right handed guitar.

[mecca777]

I can work things out and play them (with great discomfort) on a left-handed guitar. As Chris said, it's not a bad idea when you want to come up with musical ideas, because it forces you to abandon all of your "comfortable" licks that you've burned into your muscle memory and play from first principles again. However, I couldn't just pick up a left-handed guitar and start jamming. And chords are a lot harder than single-note licks, I've found, because all of your fingers automatically go to the wrong place at the same time.

Edited to add: The reason I first started messing about with a left-handed guitar was a conversation I had with a college friend. Somebody he knew (not a musician) had just had an accident at work and had lost the middle, ring and little fingers on their left hand. We were talking about how we would cope if something like that happened, and we were really disturbed by it. A few days later, I borrowed a LH Squier from a different friend, and worked out a few chords and riffs on it, just to reassure myself that I could learn to play left-handed if I ever had to. Paranoid, I know.

[Ced777]

Yes I can play left-handed.... maybe because I'm a left-handed player!!

LOL sorry...

Ced777

[bpd111]

I'm actually left-handed. When I bought my first guitar I asked the guy at the store. He said that I should learn to play right-handed. So I did. I can't play lefty now, but if I could I'd be faster! Maybe I should switch.

[JimmyW]

well im left handed and cant play either way lol

[GuitarWizard]

I am an absolute FIRM believer that the hand you write with, should also be your picking hand on the guitar.

I am right handed, but I am a very ambidexterious righty......but I could not imagine my left hand doing the picking.... and I don't see how a lefty picks with the right hand.

I can play a left hand guitar somewhat......but the "somewhat" part may surprise you... I can do fast hammer on/pull off legato, and patterns fairly clean with my right fretting hand (when playing a left handed guitar) , but my left (picking hand is lost and confused).

Luckily all my guitars are for the right handed me.

But if you write left handed, and you play right handed, and you have been "stuck" in the intermediate level for awhile.... strongly consider getting a left handed guitar where your dominant hand does the picking.

If you see the Joe Walsh "Star Licks Video"(Walsh is a righty player) , he tells GIT instructor Tom Kolb "Everyone thinks this hand is so special (holds up his left hand) , hell, anyone can do this fretting part" "Right here is what determines whether you can actually play or not (holds up his right "picking hand").

I agree 100%.

[bpd111]

That's me, write with my left hand and pick with my right. But I get more messed up from there:

- I throw and bat righty
- I shoot pistols righty
- I shoot long-guns lefty

I actually had trouble when I was a kid. Because I wrote lefty, my dad kept buying me lefty baseball gloves. I finally figured out that I should be throwing righty.

I can't imagine picking with my left hand.

[JimmyW]

Originally Posted by bpd111

That's me, write with my left hand and pick with my right. But I get more messed up from there:

- I throw and bat righty
- I shoot pistols righty
- I shoot long-guns lefty

I actually had trouble when I was a kid. Because I wrote lefty, my dad kept buying me lefty baseball gloves. I finally figured out that I should be throwing righty.

I can't imagine picking with my left hand.

thats just like me...i cant even use scissors with my left hand...but i draw(a whole lot) with my left hand ....... but its like thats all its good for....i once restrung my guitar lefty but i cant play as it is and that just made it even harder

[Devo]

Both hands same time

http://homepage.eircom.net/~jemsite/Steves%20Stairs.mp3

Run at half way up to the end of this is played almost entirely with picking hand reaching over and left hand hiting two or three high notes

http://homepage.eircom.net/~jemsite/baxatempo1.mp3