Do we play bass guitars the wrong way round?

[mcnach]

[quote name='northstreet' timestamp='1475443602' post='3146003']
I'm right handed. I do all the complicated things with my right hand - writing, using tools, using a mouse, texting (and you've got a dirty mind!) etc etc. So why, when I play bass, do I do the complicated bit ie fretting with my left hand? Wouldn't it make more sense to play it 'left-handed'? (I've tried but I've been playing it 'right-handed' for 40 something years and my brain just melts). Any ideas out there?
[/quote]

I think the right hand does the job that requires more dexterity, so it seems the right way round for me...

[SubsonicSimpleton]

The more you use a part of your body, the more control you will develope - when you start off playing an instrument like guitar, holding down basic chord shapes and changing smoothly between them is really challenging, but after you've been doing it a while it becomes second nature, and the fine control you have gained makes learning new things easier. If you've been using one hand predominantly since birth, it will be much better educated in fine motor tasks than the hand you don't use as much, this doesn't mean that there is a difference between the potential of either hand to perform complex tasks IMHO, it simply indicates that you've been using one hand more than the other and then consistently favouring the better educated hand so the other doesn't catch up. Spend several years playing a lot of guitar/bass/piano and the gap between the control in both hands will be much smaller.

Most people probably don't remember how big a challenge learning to write is - we spend years in school learning to hold the pen/pencil and refining our ability to draw the letters, by the time we are adults it is second nature.

As a thought experiment, take off your shoes and socks, grab a pencil and paper and try drawing or writing with each foot - it's quite possible to develope a similar level of fine motor control with the feet as it is with the hands, but the only people who do this notably tend to be disabled people who can't use their arms (or don't have arms) and have no other option.

[Silvia Bluejay]

As someone who was taught to write with her right hand by mistake despite being left-handed, I can assure you that learning to do something in a way that you feel is 'unnatural' or 'reversed' is a lot harder and, judging by my near-illegible handwriting for instance, the results are poor. I am so glad for the era of computer keyboards (even if they are right-handed too!), and grateful to have started playing bass in times when left-handed instruments were already available and relatively common.