The Steel Guitar Forum

As someone who is right-handed, knowing that playing instruments means using both hands equally, as an experiment I decided to see how long it would take me to play a left-handed guitar. I never did get the hang of it, but it's illogical, if you think about it. On pedal steel you're using both hands, both feet, both knees. So why would one way be better than another. Is it just what we've grown used to? As someone has already pointed out, no-one ever plays a left-handed piano.
I grew up in England, so learnt to drive on the left, with the steering wheel on the right. I moved to California in my early 30s, so now, 40 years later, I've been driving on the right, with the steering wheel on the left. I've driven all four combinations ...a British car on the Continent on the right-hand side of the road, and a left-hand vehicle in Britain. But thank goodness the brake, clutch and accelerator pedals are always the same way round, and the gear shift is in the middle.

Can you imagine having a left-handed piano built?

All of this makes me think of Jimi Hendrix for some reason.

Maybe you're thinking that Hendrix played a right-handed guitar without modification in left-handed fashion, but you can't do that on a pedal steel because of the, er, pedals.

double posted-covered below

I would forget the left handed thing. Playing the steel means we have to master both hands anyway and the bar hand requires the most focus out of the two....Curly Chalker and Lloyd Green are left handed players.

I would choose to not waste time practicing putt putt golf... If the dream is to eventually play 18 holes at the masters....You'll hear a lot of advice here, but buy a D10 guitar..That is the one sure bet for getting your money back if you decide its not for you.
Paul

I am a lefty who first started playing drums set up right handed. Played that way for a couple years, then started setting them up lefty. It felt so much more natural and I learned way quicker. Then I picked up a lefty electric guitar in high school. It was the only way I was gonna play as it felt so much more natural to me with my left hand doing the same type of rhythms that I did with my left hand on drums.

In my late teens, a great righty steel player Tex Adair would sit in with our band and let me pick at his guitar to try and figure it out during breaks. I felt like I was crippled trying to pluck the correct strings with any kind of control. (and I was one of those kids that was naturally inclined to learning music quickly by ear). Tex knew I was in love with the sound of pedal steel and tried modifying an old Fender he had into a lefty. After almost a year without much progress, my parents told me they would buy me a lefty steel if I could find one. I searched for about two months and was finally able to locate a lefty Shobud 10 string Pro 1. When I first tried it, I was very quickly able to make decent music and had a very easy time gauging the neck since the fret markers were just like my electric guitar.

I would go to Tex’s house and we would set up with our steels directly in front of each other (mirror image style). It made learning very quick and intuitive. Before long, I was teaching Tex new licks and tricks, but still took years of playing to get my intonation and bar control where I wanted it to be.

If you already play other instruments lefty, just find a good quality lefty steel (10 string with at least 3 pedals and 4 knee levers. Here are the builders that I know of that will make you a new lefty steel (Mullen, BMI, GFI, Simmons, Justice). And if you have the extra money, step up to a double neck. Don’t fight what feels natural to you. We need more lefty steel players!

It's not generally known that tests with other primates have shown that humans are not the only animals to be predominantly right-handed. Chimpanzees, Gorillas and Monkeys are all generally right-handed, so it must be a trait that goes right back to our distant ancestors.