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Thread: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting ?

  1. #26
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    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    Quote Originally Posted by bigskygirl View Post
    Lefty who plays righty here and I think you should try lefty. There are inexpensive left handed mandos now that you can give a go and see how it feels, then if you don’t jive with it sell it.

    Alot of us lefty’s learned righty because we HAD to. When I took up golf, used scissors, sat at the desks in grade school, used a soup ladle, can opener, took up guitar, etc the lefty options were next to none so I made do…now we don’t have to.

    You mentioned trouble with speed, in bluegrass it comes from the picking hand, many times the freting hand is doing next to nothing.

    If I had it to do over again I’d go lefty, when I flip my mando over and just pick with my left hand along with metronome it’s effortless and I get to speeds I only dream of with my right hand. I’ve decided to live with it as I don't want to go thru changing at this point.

    Be prepared, as mentioned above this thread will get heated. It doesn’t matter than Thile and O’Brien play right handed and are great it matters what you are and you said you’re not happy with your right hand.

    Google left handed mando and check them out. You can always string a righty mando lefty and try it…I recently met a guitar player who turned a righty guitar over without restringing it and is a fantastic bluegrass picker (no-one can follow the chords though).
    Lefty here that tried righty and got nowhere so I swaped bridge redid nut and of I went
    with My first mando and been going every since. Had a custom lefty made and looking
    for another Lefty F

    Keoith

  2. #27
    Adrian Minarovic
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    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    I think I posted this in one of teh previous lefty/righty threads but here it is again...
    One VERY good banjo player (normal right handed guy) started showing at local jam sessions with left handed banjo while he played gigs right handed. I heard the he had some problems with his left or right hand (carpal tunnel or such) and tried to use other hand. It took him something like a year or so to completely go from righty to lefty and his playing is just as goo as ever, and he is really good.
    Adrian

  3. #28
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    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    Am a lefty, and have been playing righty mandolin for decades. Never thought of it as a problem. I feel quite comfortable with my lefthanded fretboard dexterity, and my righthanded tremolo is pretty decent. Couldn't imagine tremolo-ing with my left hand. I also bat righty and swing a golf club with my right hand. I guess it's what you're used to.

    Servus

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  5. #29
    Registered User Charlie Bernstein's Avatar
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    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    Lefty guit-picker here! (A Guild guy, as you know.)

    Played guitar right-handed for over 45 years before trying mando. I play mando right-handed, too. It just feels more natural.

    My right hand is stupid, so I treat it like a special ed student and give it lots of attention. The challenges I've encountered on mandolin mostly have to do with learning to play scales that are seven frets wide. The reach is easy because the frets are space closely, but thinking seven-wide and remembering not to use guitar patterns is murder.

    The good news is that mando scales are very logical — mando is to guitar as Latin is to English.

    And I can't hold a pick the way Mike Marshall says to. So I either hold it like a guitar pick or use finger picks. To sort of answer your speed question, finger picks are faster for me than flat picks, both on guitar and mandolin, because my hand doesn't have to move as much.

    For tremolo, the pick isn't supposed to hit the string flat, like you'd hit a guitar string. Angling it reduced friction, so it increases speed. (They say. I don't think about picks or grips or posture when I'm playing. Not a pro!)

    Most mandolinistas seem to be obsessed with picks. Go figure.
    Gibson A-Junior snakehead (Keep on pluckin'!)

  6. #30

    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    " remembering not to use guitar patterns is murder. "

    That's something I was wondering about.

  7. #31

    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    I claim to be left handed but not severely so. It saves battles with people that think I'm denying some inner predestination. In fact the more instruments I play the less dominant either hand becomes, in my case. I play righty guitar, banjer, fiddle, bass, mandolin, more recently piano. ( there really are a few left-handed pianos, believe it or not)
    Another believe it or not: I worked in an assembly department, where I would often have to thread nuts onto bolts, in situations where one could never visually see one or the other, or both. One learns to see with one's fingertips. This type of synesthesia can really help one's playing. Did for me.

  8. #32
    Lurkist dhergert's Avatar
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    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    We have a close musician friend -- a fine musician -- who is left handed and plays left handed with standard right handed instruments. He plays mandolin, guitar and double bass. All standard instruments, standard tuning, played upside-down or backwards. It's amazing to watch him play.

    I'd say it all depends on what you get used to.

    Question: Are you typing right handed or left handed on your computer keyboard??? Interesting to think about.
    (Pads and phones don't count! )
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  10. #33
    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    Lefty playing right handed for my entire life, I shoot lefty go figure?
    I’m an ambidextrous drinker though.
    And I’ve never seen a left handed piano, or pretty much any keyboard.
    The touch pad on my iPad is standard oriented as well.
    Timothy F. Lewis
    "If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett

  11. #34

    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    Quote Originally Posted by Timbofood View Post
    And I’ve never seen a left handed piano, or pretty much any keyboard.
    https://youtu.be/uIgO4LqvU-0

    Not as rare as one would think.

  12. #35

    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    I find this discussion interesting, and probably something I'm going to need to think about with my daughter if she pursues music. I think assuredly everyone is a little bit different, but I guess my thought is... the whole process of playing an instrument is so foreign when you start-- both hands are kind of helpless-- I don't guess I see where teaching them both from scratch would make much of a difference. But this is where memory fails us-- I'm sure many of us don't remember exactly what it's like when we first started playing. I think my advice to a lefty would be to see how it feels playing a right handed instrument and stick with it unless you absolutely feel you can't progress that way. There is such a limitation on instrument choice to lefties-- and the inability to just trade instruments at a jam-- etc etc.

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  14. #36

    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    Quote Originally Posted by JohnW63 View Post
    " remembering not to use guitar patterns is murder. "

    That's something I was wondering about.
    Use it to your benefit. A mandolin is an upside-down guitar. Think of it that way and the patterns carry over, except for the high B and E.
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  16. #37

    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    I am also a lefty playing righty. But I'm not ambidextrous--I'm ambiclumsy.

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  18. #38
    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    Quote Originally Posted by farmerjones View Post
    https://youtu.be/uIgO4LqvU-0

    Not as rare as one would think.
    Well, there are exceptions to just about every rule, I still say that it limits the ability for people to play commonly available instruments. You need both hands, you are learning something new, I’m absolutely don’t with this subject. I’m just tired of it. Play music, enjoy it. That’s fine.
    Timothy F. Lewis
    "If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett

  19. #39
    Registered User Eric Platt's Avatar
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    Default Re: Will being a lefty, but playing right handed be more limiting

    Quote Originally Posted by dhergert View Post
    We have a close musician friend -- a fine musician -- who is left handed and plays left handed with standard right handed instruments. He plays mandolin, guitar and double bass. All standard instruments, standard tuning, played upside-down or backwards. It's amazing to watch him play.

    I'd say it all depends on what you get used to.

    Question: Are you typing right handed or left handed on your computer keyboard??? Interesting to think about.
    (Pads and phones don't count! )
    Spent a couple days watching and learning music from Dwight Lamb from Iowa recently. He plays a right handed fiddle left handed. It is very interesting to watch. But he plays his Hohner diatonic accordion right handed.

    I may have initially tried the bass left handed, but was quickly switched over. Most orchestras don't easily accept a left handed player.
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