Lefty makes it right | Fab Forum

Duke_of_Kirkaldy said
I don't know about drums, but as a lefty myself who learned to play the guitar right-handed, I just never saw the point of me playing the instrument the other way.  How is strumming with your dominant hand and fingering with your less dominant hand more advantageous?  Of course, there are a lot of items that are generally southpaw-modified that I call into question -- like the can opener.  Does it really make a difference which hand you turn the crank with and which you hold the clamp? 

 

simple.  strumming and picking speed.  It IS advantageous to use your dominant hand as the picking hand.

I too am a natural lefty who has learned to play the guitar as a righty and i can totally 'feel' that i have limited myself in this regard.  I actually have an easier time playing the lead on All My Loving over John's rhythm because of the strumming speed.  I actually learned how i did because i was young and didn't know any better (didn't know you could get left handed guitars and never even thought about stringing one backwards).

Now obviously some people may be in the minority and not notice a real difference, but most people would.

I'm not a drummer, but i assume the same problem exists with the hand that's hitting the high hat as opposed to the one playing the snare.  Clearly Ringo didn't find it difficult to play a righty setup, but again, i'd say that many drummers would.

Duke_of_Kirkaldy said  BTW, I always thought that, unless it's totally symmetrical, restringing a righty guitar so a lefty can play it looked rather retarded.  For one, the pick guard's purpose is completely defeated.  And I could never figure out why Jimi Hendrix never went and bought an actual lefty guitar once he had more than enough funds to do so.

Personally everytime i see a photo or a clip of Jimi playing, i think of how cool he and his whole setup looks.

I'll tell you why people did it.  It's a guess on my part, but i can't imagine i'm far off.  I'm assuming money (and even availability)  had a big part to do with it back in those days.  Take a guy like Jimi.  he was pretty poor before he got his big break via Chaz Chandler.  So he probably got used to his setup because that's what he had and he couldn't exactly be picky about it. 

Then there's a guy like Paul who pretty much only ever played reverse strung guitars during his beatles days.  Some guitars look stranger with that setup than others (namely a telecaster), but whatever they still sounded the same.  And quite honestly that's all that really mattered.  I never really thought he looked 'retarded' playing those instruments.