mcarp555

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1397666761' post='2426276'] So you'll be happy when all us 'righties' lobby Gaskell Guitars in an attempt to force them to offer right handed guitars? [/quote] Jon Hall did a review of a Gaskell guitar on YT, and someone posted a comment that they were bummed they couldn't buy a righty version of the guitar in question. The following response was "Now you know how WE feel". Maybe it would be a good thing to wear the shoe on the other foot for awhile.

[quote name='throwoff' timestamp='1397665465' post='2426260'] I am afraid discrimination is not the term to use in this situation You obviously feel very passionately about this and will likely not believe a word of what I say but no amount of emailing companies and kicking up a fuss will change the way the world is. Oh and for future reference, please don't call me out for 'BS' in public like this. [/quote] First, my apologies to you for the clumsy way I handed the initial post. I was not singling out [i]your[/i] comments as BS, but using it as a springboard to the BS the guitar companies hand out. I meant no disrespect to you personally. Second, it very much is discrimination, and I'm not going to apologize for that word. It is what is, and if it makes people uncomfortable, tough. Third, yes, I do feel passionately about the fact that my money is apparently not good enough with various guitar manufacturers, but other people don't have this problem. It would get under the skin of anyone.

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1397641299' post='2425872'] No, I don't think we're on the same wavelength here. It's not writing to the manufacturers that would help in this case, whether or not the manufacturers themselves are lefty-friendly - they currently can't afford to do much for us (see all the discussion above). It's us who need to help ourselves. As a hypothetical example: if the only available lefty bass I can get my hands on is black, provided the rest of it is to my liking, I'll buy that bass rather than turning a red/sunburst/green righty upside down or, if I'm a beginner, learn to play righty altogether. Multiply that slightly less-than-ideal purchase by every left-handed bassist or would-be bassist, and you immediately double the size of the market, because all lefties would be playing lefty instruments. Demand would eventually trickle through to manufacturers, and red/sunburst/green lefty basses would eventually start appearing. [/quote] Even if every left-handed guitarist/bassist switched to actually playing LH, that would not make the slightest dent in what the manufacturers do. How could it? How would they know? The more people who write and say, "I'm left-handed, and you don't make enough available choices" - that would get their attention. Obviously the more who do it, the bigger the noise we make. But just changing or refusing to play upside down isn't enough. [quote name='skej21' timestamp='1397642158' post='2425892'] I must admit I am MASSIVELY outnumbered by my colleagues at work in terms of being a righty. All of them apart from me are left-handed and all of them have achieved a minimum of grade 8 and above on their main instrument playing right-handed and are mostly proficient on a number of other instruments too. Lefties are just as entitled to choose to play right-handed as you are to choose not to. Most of the guys I work with don't understand the concept of being a leftie on guitar/bass etc. One of them actually believes it makes more sense to be left-handed and play a "right-handed" instrument as the dexterity required for playing the notes on the neck comes from your left hand, exploiting his natural left hand dexterity. He does play drums left-handed though. As for the 'i dont buy it because its not EXACTLY right/its only available in black' argument... I've bought a number of basses in finishes i dont like and had them refinished, or changed pickups, or hardware, or pickguards etc etc etc. I have a lot of customers (mainly right-handed players) that do exactly the same thing and often bring it back to show us their modifications. Refusing to buy something because it doesnt meet your EXACT specifications is a stupid idea whether youre right or left handed. Thats what custom builds are for and it's just making the situation worse for lefties. Whilst I agree that we should strive to improve choice for left-handed players, they set the bar so high in terms of expectations that suppliers and stores will always struggle to meet them. [/quote] The "you use your dexterous hand for fingering" argument can be demolished by saying, "Then why don't you use your right hand for fingering?" It's the strumming hand that really determines which way you go. [quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1397642329' post='2425897'] I'm not clear about this point. Are you saying that shops only tend to stock black lefties or that black is the only colour the manufacturers use? I can understand someone not wanting a black bass, but I can't understand why the colour would put them off trying one. After all, the colour doesn't affect tone or playability does it? If they like it, then surely they could order it in the colour they want? [/quote] Let's take an example: Fender currently offers the American Standard Jazz bass in [i]12[/i] finishes right-handed, and [i]4 [/i]left-handed. Why? Why can't I have the same selection as a right-handed person? For that matter, why should I have to buy a bass, then strip it down and refinish it in the same colour a right-handed person can get off the peg? Or should I just be grateful I can buy an American Standard left-handed at all? I'm screwed if I want a 5-string. Or a Hot Rod. Or A Fretless. Or a Deluxe Active. And so on. I'm not trying to change the world, I just want parity. If Fender can't make these basses for me, why should they make them for anyone? Surely they don't sell enough of each variation of a Jazz bass to make that much money. Perhaps it would be better if they made just one Jazz bass, available in a set number of colors, and in LH and RH versions. Well, then, the righty players would want some more variations. You know what, perhaps I would too. I'm denied the same options solely based on my dexterity. You can go on and on about the economics and this and that, but ultimately, it's not fair, and it should be. When women couldn't go to college, or blacks weren't allowed to play football, everyone just shrugged their shoulders and said, "That's just the way it is; Sorry." it all seems very similar. Eventually, every obstacle was overcome and things changed. For the better. All I want is parity with my right-handed brethren. You can argue, you can naysay, but when the time comes, it will happen. And the first step is to raise awareness. Maybe someone will read this crazy exchange and agree with me. I'm not giving up on the idea just because some people don't think change will happen, and maybe don't want it. Sometimes I feel like John Hall trying to sell a used Rickenbacker.

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1397639359' post='2425845'] I think the work needs to start with lefties themselves - we need to learn not to be bullied into becoming substandard righty musicians. [/quote] True, and that's the nub of what I'm saying. Contact the makers and make your voice heard. [quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1397639359' post='2425845'] In the meantime, I think we'll need to put up with less choice in models and buy what's available. It's going to be a long process and take patience and resilience. [/quote] The situation does get better all the time - there's no doubt about that. But it's a matter of keeping the heat on. We cannot afford to be complacent.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1397639066' post='2425839'] What, exactly, is it that you're asking to change? Music shops to stock up with equal numbers of left and right guitars/basses, even if it risks financial suicide for them? [/quote] What I want to change is the attitude - the idea that left-handed people can't play in orchestras. That left-handed people should "shut up and learn to play the right way". That left-handed people have to settle for less than what you can have.

I agree with many of the comments above from builders and dealers - they are the ones stuck in the middle. Guitar companies make (as I've mentioned before) the one or two models (usually only in black). Every LH player sees them in every shop, and we don't want them. Many left-hand players refuse to ever buy another black instrument as long as they live. So there they sit, gathering dust. Dealer tells the manufacturer "It's not selling", manufacturer says, "See? They don't sell! Why should we make more?", and the circle continues. Ironically, the manufacturers do make the problem worse for themselves with their 'lone black' model - if cost per model is so important, it must be crippling to make just the one or two they do produce. So why do they bother at all? Why not just drop all the LH models and be done with it? Because they know there is money to be made, but when so much business is righty, why bother? If you can pick fruit off the ground, why bother reaching up? With all the parts there for the taking, they could easily make every model in a LH version. Even if it was done on a 'by-demand' basis, it could drastically lower overall production costs. It's very probable that as online shopping finally chokes off the small retailers (as it's doing with every other business), this could turn out to be a way to crack the nut.

[quote name='Woodinblack' timestamp='1397587102' post='2425475'] I think the first people who came up with a left handed guitar did a large group of people a disservice. [/quote] [quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1397599877' post='2425634'] n my opinion whoever got you your first bass should have got you a right handed one and you would have been none the wiser. [/quote] And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the issue in miniature: "Why didn't you just learn to play right-handed in the first place?" I wish there was a way to count all the people who picked up a guitar or bass and tried earnestly to learn to play it in the wrong direction, then gave up and decided they weren't 'musical'. This kind of narrowminded thinking ranks up there with "Why don't gay people just stop being gay?", "Why doesn't everyone like [blank] like [i][b]I [/b][/i]do?" You think it easy, you pick up a left-handed instrument and teach yourself to play. Discrimination, pure and simple. [quote name='leftybassman392' timestamp='1397634849' post='2425777'] Many instruments are right-handed. For example:-[list=1] [*]All keyboard instruments (yes, really) - hint... Google is your friend ; [*]All orchestral stringed instruments. [/list] [/quote] Pianos are not right-handed. There are instruments in which 'handedness' does not matter; many brass instruments, for example. In my mind, pianos are geared more towards left-hand play - you 'pluck' the bass notes with the left, and 'finger' the melody with the right. But I know this is an illusion. The myth of the left/right handed piano is just that - a myth. And every stringed instrument you can name is available left-handed. Violins, basses, cellos, etc. (as you say - Google is your friend). The discrimination against LH orchestral players is purely for visual sake - it looks "wrong" to have players bow in the "wrong" direction. As if that really makes a difference. It was probably a struggle to get women or people of colour into orchestras at first. Does that mean that it was "okay" to have just all-white, male, right-handed orchestras? Why is it "okay" now to have women? What changed? Why can't it change again?

The market will [u]only[/u] expand when they know we're out here. How will they know? We have to [i]let[/i] them know. Economic disparity is not something we have to put up with. Only if we allow it to go on will it continue. I hate to see people make excuses for guitar companies. I honestly don't care about their problems. If they cannot make equipment for everyone, they're probably in the wrong business. As I've said, it's not like left-handed people suddenly appeared out of nowhere. If they can't be bothered, let 'em go out of business. Write and complain. Complain and write. The situation simply will not improve if we go around making excuses for them. Tough s**t in my book.

No, I wouldn't say that about cars, since so much of the roadway is set up to accommodate one side or the other; so that's not a comparable analogy. My point is that even if more is involved in making LH instruments, [i]that's an inherent part of the business of making instruments.[/i] The last time I looked, it's not the "Gibson Right-handed Guitar Corp." or "Fender - We make guitars for 96% of the available market!" As I've stated, it should be easy enough to pad the cost of right-handed instruments by a small amount to more than make up the difference in production costs required to make LH instruments. It should be a no-brainer - "Hmm, I"m going to start my own guitar/bass company. That means I'll have to make right and left-handed instruments in some ratio. But if I want to [u]sell[/u] guitars, [b]that's what I have to do[/b]." The idea that they don't [i]have[/i] to make LH instruments is due more to inertia than anything else. "We never had to before, so we're not going to now". Once we didn't have to have handicapped ramps and parking spaces, or parental leave for men, or equal pay for women. Now we do. And guess what - that can be expensive. But the costs can be absorbed or made up in other ways. Why did those things change? Because it was discrimination, and it was fueled by inertia "We never had handicapped parking before". But that didn't make it right. Now I'm not comparing the needs of handicapped people or underpaid women, etc. in the same way as buying a bass. But the basic principles are exactly the same. We as left-handed players are discriminated against, not because of economic malarkey, but simply because we can be, and most of the people who make the instruments don't care and don't want to change. How many people bother to write to a guitar company and say, "Hey, just to let you know, I'm not buying any of your stuff because the two LH models you make are crap, and you can't be bothered to make more. So kiss my money goodbye!". What would happen if 1,000 people did that? 10,000? If enough people wanted it and made their feelings known, the 'economic' reasons would vanish like so much smoke and mirrors. So you'll forgive me if I don't go for the same old soap story. There are certainly more choices available to us today than in decades past. And in the future there will be even more. Not because Hofner & Gibson are 'nice guys', but because they finally woke up to the real economic reasons to do the correct thing. But we may have to complain until we're blue in the face, then complain some more.

[quote name='throwoff' timestamp='1397522474' post='2424849'] As someone that has worked in industry for many years an upcharge is about as friendly as it gets, they do need to switch the jigs to make them which takes time away from far easier to sell right handed instruments being made, there is also an amount that needs to be added simply for the length of time said instrument is likely to sit in a warehouse opposed to a righty when it comes to bulk manufacturers. I am a lefty but having worked for guitar companies for yonks I completely 'get it' when it comes to left handers not being made, when you check stock reports and sales numbers the money just isn't there for most companies to bother, sad for us as players sure but this is a business with firms who need to make money. [/quote] This is a quote from another post that I'd like to discuss in depth. As it might turn out to be a lively subject, I thought it would be better to break it out into its own thread. To cut to the chase, my opinion is that this is complete and utter BS. It's all part of the lie that many companies use to justify their anti-left bias. Part of this bias stems from the idea that left-handers are a marginal market, and therefore it's easy enough to dismiss us. While it's true that the economy and tight markets, increased competition, etc. all make the guitar biz a cutthroat one, I would like to point out that guitar manufacturers exist for one reason: to make instruments. If you're going to commit to the idea of making musical instruments, then that would entail the concept of making them for both right- and left-handers. It's not like left-handed people appeared in 1955 and Gibson was caught unawares. We've always been here. So the idea of making RH and LH guitars/basses should not be news. Instead, LH models are seen as irrelevant, like changing the specs on pots or wiring or cheaper wood you can cover with paint. If Fender changes the source of their 'included' straps from Korea to China or Indonesia in order to save a few cents per unit, no one cares. Dropping X number of LH instruments next year elicits (they hope) the same response. In many cases, what happens is that the idea that "We don't have to make LH instruments" becomes a self-fulling prophesy, and one that's repeated over and over until it has the ring of truth about it. People take it as an axiom that there's no money in LH gear, and it's difficult to do, and all the other horses**t, without really knowing if it's true or not. And thus it becomes easier to not bother, or not ask. As for jigs, reprogramming the machines, etc., that's all part of doing business. Doesn't all this need done if you move from making say, Precisions one day to Jazzes the next? Does it cost money to make left handed instruments? Sure it does. But it does for right handed instruments as well. Whatever you manufacture, you have to spend the money. I can't take crying about the cost of jigs or reprogramming CNC machines when I see abominations like this: Was this [i]really[/i] cheaper to make than a left-hand bass? Besides, the problem of crying about cost for LH instruments could probably be solved very easily: make the rightys pay for it. When a guitar or bass is priced out at the factory level, don't break out the cost of a small number of LH versions separately. Add it in and adjust the MSRP accordingly. If you need to raise the list price of a new bass by £10-20 to cover a small (maybe 2-3%) of LH copies, fine. I don't mind if the larger market pays to allow the smaller market more access. And as for instruments sitting around in warehouses for extended times, perhaps they could try making something different. We've all seen the black instrument gathering dust in our local music stores. Why do they keep making the same model, in the same colour, year after year, then complain when nobody buys them? For years with Fender (again), it's been that you can't get a Jazz with a maple neck. The two models they make every year are always rosewood. Would it kill them to make maple? Would it really divert precious resources away from things like the item above? You make one or two depressingly humdrum models year in and year out. They don't sell of course, so you can then point to your sales reports and justify not doing anything to improve the market. For some companies, their solution is to upcharge. It's an unfair tax upon being left-handed, and even so, you still can't get any model you want. Most places only allow for certain models to be "upcharged". What other industry can get away with doing things like this? So the bottom line is, it does take money to make money. Guitar manufacturers should have always considered doing a certain percentage of ALL their models in a left-hand version. If I have money and want to buy a particular guitar or bass, I should be able to do so. If not, they are discriminating against me (or people like me). Some people don't like that ugly word, "discrimination", but that's exactly what it is. Many companies would like to just make righty instruments all day and not have to deal with people like "us". We didn't just drop out of the sky yesterday, however. So they come up with one excuse after another to justify their ability to discriminate against "us". You and me. So what can we do about it? Don't pay for an upcharge, for one thing. Support left-hand friendly companies. The biggest thing is to contact the manufacturers and complain. I've had the marketing manager of Hofner send me a very abusive letter when I wanted to know why a company who's single biggest endorsee is left-handed only features five LH models in their entire catalog (minus that famous bass). When I bought my Gaskell T-bass, I wrote to Gibson and sent them a photo of the bass and told them that was well over a grand of my money they weren't getting. They are not mind-readers. If we want more left-hand instruments, we need to contact them and let them know we're out here, with plenty of money. As I've said on several forums, if they can't be bothered to make guitars and basses for people to purchase, they should give it up and make toasters instead.

My understanding is that Ric is actually pretty poor at making most of their models LH. And as for Gibson, the 'entire' 2014 range has failed to materialize. Their own customer service reps have no idea what's in the works. And I can't take the idea of 'upcharging' as a 'friendly' idea.

Well, I wondered myself if I should have said "all models" or "most models". Using "some models" isn't much help at all, since even the overtly un-left-friendly companies can knock out one or two cheapo models in LH versions. In a perfect world, a list wouldn't be needed at all, but I'll settle for companies that at least try to make as many LH models as possible. The goal is, like you suggested, a way for someone who wants something other than the usual black & rosewood Jazz.

We're all familiar with those guitar/bass manufacturers that produce few or zero LH models. What about companies that go the other way, and make [u][b]all[/b][/u] their available models left-handed (at no extra charge)? Give them a shout out here so we can support the people who support us. I'll start the ball rolling by mentioning [url="http://www.gaskellguitars.com"]Gaskell Guitars[/url] in Australia. As far as I know, they are the only company that makes left-handed guitars and basses exclusively - [u][i]no[/i][/u] right-handed instruments! You can read my review of their Thunderbass (in the left-hand review section, natch). The owner, Kevin Gaskell, is a dedicated supporter of the left-hand cause, and I'd urge everyone to consider them. Kev's not paying me to mention him, but anyone that makes only LH instruments deserves at least a look from every left-hand player on the planet.