The Steel Guitar Forum

I am one as well, but play a standard steel setup. The same goes for my mandolin and mandola. I figured you need to teach both hands so why not just use a standard instrument.

Count me in. Any one handed activity I do left handed, any two handed activity I do right handed...Steel, baseball (bat right, throw left), golf. Eating..either way. Writing...poor in any hand.

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Allen Harry
Zum SD10
Nashville 1000

Paul,
Wonder how has the other 3 or 4 Lefty LDGs ?
I emailed some pictures of mine, don't know if they made it through. I would love to see some pictures of other lefties.
Lefty

I'll post some pix soon<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Paul Papanek on 20 July 2005 at 07:49 AM.]</p></FONT>

Here's my baby, though I'll be forever embarrassed by the quality of these. I'll take new ones soon.

I'm a lefty too, however I can't "play" very good no matter what hand I try to use.

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Beautiful steel! I have a lefty Williams D10 and a 78 Emmons S10.. I'll try and post a pic or two..

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Bob Grado, Williams D10 (lefty), Peavey 1000,
Profex ll.

This is an interesting thread. I've always felt we lefties should demand equal 'rights' . However, altho' I write, eat, pitch, bowl, etc. left-handed, I play steel right-handed...couldn't see why it would be an issue since we have to use our right hand, our left hand, our right knee, our left knee, our right foot, and our left foot to play the instrument. I often raise the question of 'have you ever seen a left-handed piano player?' and was shocked to learn that some pianos have been manufactured where the bass notes are on the right side and the treble on the left. ...lefty

<SMALL>Any one handed activity I do left handed, any two handed activity I do right handed...</SMALL>

Thanks, Allen. I always wondered how to explain my "handed" profile.
This works very well for me, and I would think for many others, too.

I too am left handed and everything I do, I do left handed. Have the only 2 left handed Fulawka's Eddy Fulawka has ever built as well as a custom made 1985 left handed Martin D-35. Eddy even made me a left footed pedal for my steels.

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Rebel™
ICQ 614585
http://users.interlinks.net/rebel/steel/steel.html

Way to go Graham, hope you're putting lots of time on those Fulawkas. Nice guitars and thanks for letting me try them out a few years ago. I have a lefthanded Endecott, 3x4 keyless, and other lefthanded instruments, the harmonicas are righthanded , but I'm irreversibly lefthanded. BobG, if you ever sell the D10 Williams, let me know, if I'm not too brain-dead to learn the C6th.

I am a lefty. I play a left-handed Pedalmaster that Roy Thomas built for me a few years ago. This is to tell a bit about my history as a lefty player and thoughts on the subject of lefty playing.

My parents bought me my first guitar when I was about 10 years old. It was a right-handed model and I began taking lessons from a high school student in our town who was a dedicated classical guitarist and a fine teacher. For about a month, I tried to play right-handed, but I just couldn't do it. Finally, I was allowed to reverse the strings. By the end of my next lesson, I could do everything my teacher had been trying to teach me to do for a month. My point here is that the genetic traits of some of us are strongly toward left-handedness, while others of us are more ambidextrous by genetic make-up.

I had the privilege of attending Belmont College in Nashville, and during those years I bought an electric bass, naturally a lefty model, to play in a promotional group for the college, "The Reasons."

Along in there somewhere I bought a Rabro from Harry Jackson (Shot's son) that I guess was an import he sold in the Sho-Bud store briefly during the 70s. As you would expect, I reversed the strings. Also around that time, Harry built me what was a pre-Maverick student model E9 pedal steel. It was left-handed. The most fun I had with that guitar was going up to the third floor of Sho-Bud and watching Harry build it. What a piece of music history that store and factory was! That student model steel did not have rollers on the nut, which of course made for string breakage and tuning problems. I didn't last long with it, and I must have traded it some other musical toy I "needed" at the time. That was the end of my steel playing for many years, although I still have and play the Rabro.

I disagree with those who compare piano to steel for analogy purposes in the discussion of left-handedness. Traditional stringed instruments require two hands to strike a single note -- there is a picking hand and a fretting hand. In my view, this difference is very important versus the piano, on which a single finger sounds one note.

I took piano lessons prior to getting my first guitar and I was (and remain) unaware of any "handedness" characteristic of the instrument. However, even as a little boy, when I was confronted with picking and fretting, my nature immediately pushed me toward a left-handed set-up.

When I bought my Pedalmaster at about age 50, although I read and heard the discussion, the decision for me had essentially been made decades earlier. Was the decision made at age 20, when I bought my first slide instuments from the Sho-Bud store? Or was it made age 10, when I reversed the strings on my first guitar? Or was it made in the womb? I can't say when the decision is made for others, but I believe for me it was made in the womb.

I do nearly everything left-handed, left-footed, and left-eyed. I am even left-eared, in that I have lost some of the hearing in my right ear. One notable exception to all of this: Although I play next to no golf, I grip the club very naturally in a right-handed fashion. Who'd a thunk it?

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Lefty Pedalmaster D-10 8x5, Nashville 400

I would have to agree with Mac that there is some mystical inate tendency for people to favor one hand or the other. I would not describe myself as a total left-hander because I swing the golf clubs right-handed and throw right-handed, but otherwise work from the left side. I've been known to flip my harmonica upside down just to feel the effect of going right to left.
In the world of stringed instruments it is a pain because everything cost more and is less available than right-handed.
However....back in the day you got to talk to a lot of girls when they wanted to see you play like McCartney or Hendrix. Now if only Myron, Pete, or Rusty has played left-handed I'd still be beating the girls off me instead of the rust.

Bob

I'm one of the mixed-up lefties that plays, bats and surfs right-handed. I write -- poorly -- with my left hand and hold my hashi -- chopsticks -- and fork with my left.

Years ago, my left-handed doctor brother --aka what a pain in the butt -L- -- sent me a book on being a lefty. In a nutshell, the author says that there are very few people who are 100% lefty, but for mixed-up people like me, there is strong evidence than it comes from some sort of brain damage before birth. The brain goes about rewiring itself, so that when we pop out of the toaster we can function. Interesting if true...but hey, he's the doctor... -L- it's a family joke boys... :- )