Converting mission from left to right

[whynot]

[quote name='alexclaber' post='438318' date='Mar 18 2009, 02:59 PM']I personally believe that left handed guitars and basses should not exist - how many left handed violins, pianos, saxophones etc are out there?
Alex[/quote]
Thus depriving many left handed bassists (and guitarists) a career as a pro/semi pro musician or simply enjoying the instrument.
I would guess the % of left handed Violin players are a lot lower to left handed bassists, simply because the lefty option was not readily available.
Piano and sax are very different by nature of the instrument layout. I can play a little piano no problem.
Ask me to pluck strings with my right hand and it simply does not come naturally, and I know I would never have been as good as I am now if the headstock was to my left.

[josh3184]

i agree, some lefties can play right handed through practise, but I know some that tried to start playing right handed from the beginning and just couldn't get their heads round it and had to get a left handed instrument

[Josh]

[quote name='josh3184' post='438631' date='Mar 18 2009, 08:26 PM']i agree, some lefties can play right handed through practise, but I know some that tried to start playing right handed from the beginning and just couldn't get their heads round it and had to get a left handed instrument[/quote]

Try a little harder son and one day you'll be like me .

I think all lefties should try it, the world would become a less confusing place.

[josh3184]

like i say, did try it and I lost all drive to play the instrument as my timing just disappeared up its own wazoo

[Josh]

[quote name='josh3184' post='438635' date='Mar 18 2009, 08:32 PM']like i say, did try it and I lost all drive to play the instrument as my timing just disappeared up its own wazoo[/quote]

Wuss.

[josh3184]

[quote name='Josh' post='438638' date='Mar 18 2009, 08:35 PM']Wuss.[/quote]

i will gatt you up boy

[Josh]

[quote name='josh3184' post='438646' date='Mar 18 2009, 08:40 PM']i will gatt you up boy[/quote]

Make sure you get a left handed knife.

[josh3184]

oh snap

[EssentialTension]

[quote name='queenofthedepths' post='438619' date='Mar 18 2009, 08:12 PM']What's the neck dive like on an upside down Thunderbird??[/quote]

No idea, but probably less than on a correct way up Thunderbird.

[steve-soar]

[quote name='coasterbass' post='438253' date='Mar 18 2009, 01:44 PM']I think you select your lefty/rightyness at a sublimal level.
Like many here I play cricket/gold righty. I hold my knife and fork righty. Yet I never considered playing bass righty.
I've thought about this before and i attribute it back to those prepubescent days of playing air-guitar in my bedroom. I played air-guitar lefty - no rhyme nor reason for it. I was a lefty air-guitarist and it stuck from there.
To really make the point, my first bass was righty (borrowed from the bands old bassist who wanted to play lead guitar) and he taught me the basics righthanded. Yet I still flipped it over and played 'the wrong way'.[/quote]PLUS ONE BILLION!!!!!
See you, that's me, that is.

[rjb]

Jamesk86,

[Goes and tries to play left handed, being a right handed player..]

Good lordy that was really hard. Seems like an awful lot of effort. I'd rather save up and buy a custom if I were you....

Edited March 19, 2009 by rjb

[tauzero]

[quote name='rjb' post='438882' date='Mar 19 2009, 07:19 AM'][Goes and tries to play left handed, being a right handed player..]

Good lordy that was really hard. Seems like an awful lot of effort. I'd rather save up and buy a custom if I were you....[/quote]
I tried it too, on Moody's LH bass, and was completely unable to (possibly due to getting on for 40 years of conditioning). Although one guitarist I knew, a lefty who'd learnt righty, decided that he really should play lefty (he'd been playing righty for many years and was a good guitarist) so went out and bought a lefty and learnt to play it that way round too.

[The Funk]

Why learn to play the other way round? You'd have to sell your Warwick Thumb.

You've got a Warwick Thumb and a Fender Jazz. You don't need any other basses. You've got way too much spare time on your hands if you're even considering this (and worrying about buying more basses).

If you're not busy enough in the band you're in, start playing in a couple more bands as well.

[EdwardMarlowe]

[quote name='benwhiteuk' post='438426' date='Mar 18 2009, 05:31 PM']Good luck with this. Sounds like a whole lot a hassle for not a lot of point though...[/quote]

Agreed. I've also heard of the righty 'Pauls' in tribute acts switching to playing lefty - that makes some sort of sense to me as it's part of completing the illusion that you're watching the Beatles. Otherwise, it's a pointless exercise.

I do often wonder how many lefty kids never get beyond trying to start because some idiot in a guitar shop has told them that they really should play the "proper" right handed way - the very worst of this being the old bullshit lie "but it's better for you, you'll have your dominant hand doing all the hard work on the fretboard." (Right, Einstein - they why don't [i]you[/i] play the other way round? Ignoramus.)


[quote name='Golchen' post='438447' date='Mar 18 2009, 05:45 PM']I always thought that the human race had it the wrong way around??? Right handed musicians have their left hand doing all the hard work fretting etc???? Where's the logic in that?[/quote]

IMO, it makes a lot of sense to have the dominant hand doing the plucking - of course that way must "work" better, or surely the right handed majority would have evolved towards playing what we now think of as lefty, not the other way round.


[quote name='whynot' post='438627' date='Mar 18 2009, 09:21 PM']Thus depriving many left handed bassists (and guitarists) a career as a pro/semi pro musician or simply enjoying the instrument.
I would guess the % of left handed Violin players are a lot lower to left handed bassists, simply because the lefty option was not readily available.
Piano and sax are very different by nature of the instrument layout. I can play a little piano no problem.
Ask me to pluck strings with my right hand and it simply does not come naturally, and I know I would never have been as good as I am now if the headstock was to my left.[/quote]

Exactly - it's another strawman argument that doesn't work. Usually coming from guitar shops that want to sell you a right handed instrument. Funnily enough, thy seem to 'see the light' if they have a left handed version in stock..... which just happens to be 15% more expensive, as lefties cost more to build, you know.....


Ultimately, they "left handed instruments shouldn't exist" is simply an attitudinal handover from the old days when many folks didn't think being left handed was acceptable at all. I had a preschool teacher in 1979 who thought she was being terribly clever rapping me over the knuckles anytime I lifted a crayon or whatever with my left hand. Granda had it much worse at school in the 20s, of course - he had it thrashed into him to write with his right hand. It's simply a pointless prejudice, a hangover from the days when we 'sinister' types were regarded as witches.

Oh, don't even get me started on this sh*t.....

[EntropicLqd]

I never bothered with a left-handed bass. I just flipped the righty over and learnt to play it "upside down". I didn't even bother re-stringing it. I've got a custom built bass that has righty strings on a lefty body now, and it's great.

The thought of learning to play a proper lefty or a proper righty leaves me cold. There must be better things you can do with your time.

[Leftbass]

Stay true to the cause brother

[sdgrsr400]

If you've got that much time, I'd suggest learning another instrument, in particular keyboards if you don't know that already: you'd improve reading skills and learn about harmony, etc.

[BigRedX]

Well as someone who left to their own devices, would have been a left-handed player, I'm really grateful that learned to play right handed. When I started it was so difficult that it doubt playing the other way round would have made any difference, and now that I'm reasonably good I have a far, far wider choice of instruments than I ever would have as a lefty.

[EdwardMarlowe]

[quote name='EntropicLqd' post='595923' date='Sep 11 2009, 06:32 PM']I never bothered with a left-handed bass. I just flipped the righty over and learnt to play it "upside down". I didn't even bother re-stringing it. I've got a custom built bass that has righty strings on a lefty body now, and it's great.

The thought of learning to play a proper lefty or a proper righty leaves me cold. There must be better things you can do with your time.[/quote]

Sometimes I wish I'd learned that way, simply as I could have lifted any right handed instrument and flipped it over and been able to hammer something out. Out of habit, I can play a fair few things on guitar and (more easily) on bass upside down, but it'd never make sense for me to do that with bass all the time as one of the big advantages I had in picking it up as a guitar player is already having a fair idea of the fretboard. Despite the frustration relating to instruments (though, oddly enough, I actually find it easier to find basses I like than guitars - maybe my bass tastes are just simpler?), I'm very glad I learned properly as a lefty - had I gone for the right handed approach I wouldn't have lasted six months.

[Russ]

I'm a lefty who plays righty, and, most of the time it's fine, but I do have a theory that it's easier to sing and play at the same time if you pluck with your dominant hand. The major challenge of singing and playing at the same time is keeping the rhythms together, and keeping my left hand in sync with the vocals seems a lot easier than keeping my right hand in sync. I've considered getting a cheapo lefty bass to see if I can learn to play it for that very reason, but haven't quite got around to it yet. I'm very interested to hear how you get on with it.