Thinking of Taking up Guitar - Any tips ?

[Grant Fondo]

I play with two right thumbs anyway, whats the problem?

 

[winjim]

I knew someone once with five fingers on each hand, and no thumbs. I expect he would have been more suited to the piano than to the guitar.

 

[ColinJ]

replace the guitar with a knife and fork. You either use them one way or the other... unless you're ambidextrous, you'll only be able to do it 'your' way.

I have a vague memory of my mum telling me which hand to hold which in when I was very young. I reckon it wouldn't have bothered me if she had told me the other way round, so I think that is not a great example.

I also cannot write with my right hand. Many more people cannot write with their left hand

That one is a better example because writing is a complex skill which is obviously going to be easier with the favoured hand. (I was actually going to use that as an example the other way though, in that people who have lost the use of their favoured hand often do learn how to write with their remaining one.)

I just don't see complex fretboard fingering to be easier than strumming/picking so I think I might have been better off trying to learn on a left-handed guitar despite being right-handed!

Anyway, enough of this... I must get back into trying to learn because I never really got very far and if I leave it much longer I won't be around to practise!

 

[bluenotebob]

Four pages into this thread - and still no-one has suggested Bert Weedon's "Play In A Day" ...

Is he no longer fashionable?

 

[MontyVeda]

...
Anyway, enough of this...

yes... please! You've no idea how many RH players have the same POV as you... and it really does get tiresome

 

[GuyBoden]

There has been a lot of research by Troy Grady into the mechanics of picking.

Watch this preview.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVfQTWZ4wWM

 

[stephec]

I’d start with air guitar and progress from there.

I'm left handed and when I learnt to play the air guitar I did it left handed, then I bought a banjo ukulele and learnt right handed as that's what all the tutorials were showing.

Now when I play air guitar I play right handed, crazy. 😂

 

[GuyBoden]

You can fret with both hands simultaneously, players using a Chapman stick instrument do this all the time.

I have a similar instrument too.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvdwTdsjhGs

Edit: I'd say that this proves that you can fret with either hand.

 

[kingrollo]

You can fret with both hands simultaneously, players using a Chapman stick instrument do this all the time.

I have a similar instrument too.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvdwTdsjhGs

I'll settle for getting anything resembling a tune out of one first

 

[Salad Dodger]

To add to all the discussion about right v left handed playing ...

A (right handed) friend of mine, who already played guitar, badly busted up his left hand, his fretting hand, in a motorbike accident. Subsequently, he bought a left handed guitar and retrained himself to play it. Now fretting with his right hand. He strums chords well, but doesn't have enough dexterity in his left hand for fingerpicking.

I am just boggled to think he can play "backwards" at all.....

 

[GuyBoden]

To add to all the discussion about right v left handed playing ...

A (right handed) friend of mine, who already played guitar, badly busted up his left hand, his fretting hand, in a motorbike accident. Subsequently, he bought a left handed guitar and retrained himself to play it. Now fretting with his right hand. He strums chords well, but doesn't have enough dexterity in his left hand for fingerpicking.

I am just boggled to think he can play "backwards" at all.....

Do pianists have a dominant hand?

 

[kingrollo]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/27554113...hMctdRJSoe&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY.

Any good ?

 

[ColinJ]

Do pianists have a dominant hand?

I have already had my (right) wrist slapped earlier in the thread for going on about that subject!

 

[icowden]

Do pianists have a dominant hand?

Yes. Definitely. Either the right or the left :-)

In *most* piano pieces the right hand tends to do more intricate stuff than the left. Some styles however, favour the leftie a bit more. Anything that has a complex bass (Ragtime, Boogiewoogie, stride piano , walking blues etc) might be easier for someone left handed. Generally speaking once you are good at piano there is a strong element of ambidexterity - particularly for a concert pianist - but it's all about the level you play at.

I can sit at a piano and play you anything I have heard. I can accompany most things. I'm not great at long intricate scales and suchlike, so classical music tends to be a bit beyond me. My right hand is great at playing tunes, forming chords etc. My left hand is good, but my bass lines tend toward octaves and single notes with very little intricate detail. I have got to the point after 43 years of playing that I can set my left hand going in a pattern and concentrate on the right hand but I do find a Jerry Lee Lewis boogie difficult.

You can now get left handed pianos:
This guy had one made:-
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/piano/lefthand-piano-christopher-seed/
But Kawai have started a range...
https://www.sheargoldmusic.co.uk/kawai-announce-new-left-handed-piano/

 

[ColinJ]

But Kawai have started a range...
https://www.sheargoldmusic.co.uk/kawai-announce-new-left-handed-piano/

Which coincidentally was announced on April 1st!