The Steel Guitar Forum

This is a spin off from another thread.
Who's a lefty out there and how do you play?

Ok, I'll start. I'm left handed in everything that I do, but I play right handed. I learned that way and it's never been a problem, always felt natural to me.

Things made for righthanded people are many times botheresome for us. Having things custom made... a left handed steel for example, is a major inconvenience. Then, try to sell it!

I've been asking Home Depot to carry left handed hammers for the longest time!

<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by HowardR on 02 December 2002 at 07:43 AM.]</p></FONT>

I'm left handed and play steel right handed. You use both hands anyway, so why play steel as a lefty? I did work with a guy one time who was so left handed that if you would have cut off his right hand he would not have missed it. But it's your guitar and you can play it anyway you want! Go for it and have fun!

------------------
Jim Vogan Emmons Sd10
G.D. Walker Stereo Steel Combo
Bakelite Ric
Hilton volume pedal

I'm left handed but play guitar in the conventional way. My old guitar teacher said that the bar hand is the one that "makes the music" and if you're left handed you want to control the bar with this hand. When you are left handed, you are also "left bodied".
Your left leg is used on the foot pedals, which in my opinion, is more important than the right leg for the volume pedal.
Erv

Howard

So it was you asking for those hammers,well
they have them and they are looking for the guy that ordered them,are you a shill?

I got my dogs from down south they have 4 paw's total 8 paws,,,knee levers included,they lift the levers often. reminds me of another story,,,never mind I just told myself a dirty joke and Im working on that now.

I'm another lefty playing right handed. Where it hurts me the most is trying to do any fast picking, especially arpeggio/rolls, but I sure can move that bar fast when I need to.

I too am left-handed and play (if you can call it that) right-handed. I still remember my first "armpit" guitar lesson as a kid, visions of Paul McCartney dancing in my head, when my teacher advised that, no, I would be playing it the right way - a good thing in retrospect

Of course we left-handers are the only ones in our right mind...

------------------
Greg Simmons
Custodian of the Official Sho~Bud Pedal Steel Guitar Website


<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Greg Simmons on 02 December 2002 at 09:16 AM.]</p></FONT>

Herb
I take my hat off to you. I dont wear a hat,but my friend do what is best for you and
be happy and enjoy however you play.

As long as its a FENDER. Good Luck.

i'm a lefty, and i play poorly. i suspect it's unrelated to the fact that i hold it backwards (ie, traditional right-hand style). i strum my acoustic six-string "up-side down" (ie, left-handed) with regular right-hand tuning. makes no sense. but i figured learning pedal and lap would be so foreign, i'd just have to rely on my organ playing abilities and not think about left and right.

Michael,.....I always felt that I too could pick faster with my left hand just because I'm used to doing everything with that hand. I guess I'll never really know because I never put picks on that hand and it's too late to unlearn the very little I know just for my curiosity.

Jerry Douglas doesn't seem to suffer any dificiency in either hand.

BTW, I went to Cal State Northridge many years ago...I graduated suma cum finally.

Jody,...... I think I better leave this one alone....too much material here and not enough moderators (only kidding Brad)<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by HowardR on 02 December 2002 at 11:03 AM.]</p></FONT>

Lefty Lib-Right On!
After 20 yrs. of playing drums lefty, and all the set-up problems that caused- I wasn't going to make that mistake again; plus learning Lloyd Green was lefty was all I needed! The real problem has turned out to be feet- the main reason I'm No Pedding is I can't do volume right-footy. My left arm has always looked like a fiddler crab, but the fingerpicking workout is starting to balance me out. I also heard a wacky theory that developing the opposite side of your brain late in life will combat things like Alzheimers...?

All of us south-paws should be greatful for what we were given. As mentioned in the previous post, the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, so that makes us the only ones in our right mind.

I am a south-paw but, I play "at" the steel and pedal steel guitar, piano, plectrum banjo, and regular six string guitar, all in the conventional "right-hand" manner. It has never seemed like a problem to me to learn the instruments that way.

Jim

I could probably better describe myself as "multidexterous," rather than truly ambidexterous: many things I can do equally well with either hand, but for others, such as writing or playing guitar, I have a strong left or right orientation. When I learned to play conventional guitar as a teenager, I learned left-handed. When I took up lap steel as an adult, however, I decided that it would definitely be as a right-handed player, not only so I could use any instrument available, but particularly because the instrument seemed to singularly unfriendly to
lefties (think, for example, of the Rickenbacher bakelites, with their molded nuts and bridges - what can a left-handed player possibly do with such aninstrument?).
Playing right-handed did NOT come easily, and it took at least a year before I felt really comfortable doing so (the left hand was more difficult than the right, to my surprise). After that, it felt perfectly natural. I thought about relearning conventional guitar but found it impossible; once those chords were imprinted for the left hand to play, there was no way my brain was going to recognize any other way of doing things. Seems kinda weird to play one instrument left handed and another right, but that's all I can manage.

By the way, in response to those in the previous thread who suggested that anyone who
is left-oriented should simply learn to play right-handed, I remember hearing a researcher say that while most people can do so, there's something like ten or fifteen percent of the population who are so heavily oriented one way that to relearn a complex skill such as playing an instrument in the reverse position is essentially impossible.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Ian McLatchie on 02 December 2002 at 01:56 PM.]</p></FONT>

Bless you Herb my son.
Mohammed Carver
Father Carver
Rabbi Carver
Pastor Carver
and;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Hi from the POPE..his message?,,Hey Herb,,,whats happenin baby?? whatever floats your boat baby and count me in,I can get rid of this robe in two seconds and whooopeee Goldberg..San Antone. Herb You really know how to hurt a guy.Ouch.
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jody Carver on 02 December 2002 at 03:36 PM.]</p></FONT>

Gazhuntheidt ya'll

Howard, I too went to CSUN. Got my bachelor's and master's degrees in music composition. Classical guitar was my instrument, right-handed of course, and never could get the arpeggio studies up to the speed of the right-handers. I didn't know Jerry Douglas was left handed. That explains the speed in his bar hand with the hammers and pulloffs.

I don't know if Jerry Douglas is left handed or right handed. His speed and accuracy with both hands is uncanny.

Add me to the list of "total lefties" who play guitar and steel the standard way.

------------------
<font size=-1>My Site - Instruction | Doug's Free Tab | Steels and Accessories</font>

Thanks for the head's up, Herb....sounds like a "don't miss" concert. I'm going to try to make it Thurs night as that's what I've got left for this week.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by HowardR on 03 December 2002 at 09:29 PM.]</p></FONT>

I'm lefthanded but I'm learning and playing righthanded.

Main reason I'm posting is because I plan to teach my daughter to play. She's two now and she will almost certainly need to play lefthanded, because her right hand is missing several fingers--just holding the bar with the right will be a challenge.

If you need to play lefthanded you can on steel, and if you need to play with a handicap the steel is probably one of the more adaptable instruments there is.

------------------
Andy Newcomb <small>a beginner on the steel guitar</small>
<small>Williams Keyless S-10, Rickenbacher Model 59</small>

herb, I did not grow up in college I dropped out of Brown in 1975 and again in 1981--during the second try I was a music major taking pipe organ lessons and playing a Farfisa in a band called the Vice Grips. Tried to email you a fuller history but the mail bounced...

I'm interested in where you remember my name from, let me know if you figure this out. This guy has the same name but isn't me.

Andy
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by anewcomb on 04 December 2002 at 12:31 PM.]</p></FONT>