Southpaw
Solutions
by Jeff Foster
What's a left-handed
person to do when it comes to buying and learning how to
play a guitar? Should one force adaptation to right-handed
instruments, or should a left-handed guitar be sought out?
This is an issue which has come up many times for me over
the years. When I am confronted by a *southpaw* (as I
unabashedly and affectionately refer to left-handed folk)
who wishes to play guitar, wondering what to do regarding
the instrument's orientation, there is no pat answer: I find
I have to take a holistic view of the player.
On one hand (so to speak
;), simple logic would dictate for the prospective
left-handed player the <mirror-image> format: strings
reversed in the saddle, fretted with the right hand. This
places the low strings of the instrument nearer the thumb of
the fretting hand, mirroring the standard orientation used
by *northpaws*. Add to the equation (on the other -- um --
hand) major retrofits for standard guitars, or premium
prices for factory-southpaw models.
Let's examine this. Just
how left-handed are you? I have seen, on several occasions,
first-time players who write left-handed but would
*naturally* hold a guitar right-handed, because it <feels
better> that way. Others are decidedly left-handed, but
relatively ambidextrous as well, and report no particular
affinity for one position over the other. Still other guitar
players, hard-core southpaw fledglings that they are, simply
must reverse their strings to operate at all.
I even know one southpaw
jazz guitarist who played 25 years or more right-handed,
then decided to switch, reteaching his hands *everything*!
Now he's a switch-hitter. Carries two guitars to the gig! He
finds he plays rhythm better left-handed, but plays lead
better right-handed! Ever try this?!! Paul's a
trip!
Then there's:
The Theory of
Lateral Manual Orientation as Applied to Guitar
Playing!
Follow closely
here:
- * Left-brain
(analytical, rational) controls the right
hand
- * Right-brain
(emotional, creative) controls the left hand
- * Fretting-hand
controls harmonic structure (reason)
- * Strumming-hand
controls articulation (emotion).
Ergo, a person playing in
a left-handed manner (left-hand strumming/right-hand
fretting) is more psycho-physiologically attuned to the
instrument than a right-hander! In the case of the southpaw,
the rational left side of the brain is controlling the
rational right fretting hand, and the emotional right side
of the brain is controlling the emotional left strumming
hand. Northpaw orientation is then actually a reversal of
the preferred connections. I thus propose that southpaws
playing left-handedly intrinsically have -- yes -- * the
upper hand *! ... [Any psychologists out there want a
piece of this pie?]
In any event, most people
who *can* be right-handed are soon-enough oriented as
children to be so. Only hard-core southpaws (or those
sufficiently to the left in the ambi-spectrum to render
ineffective society's pressure for them to < learn to
be> northpaws) utimately find a way to embrace their
unique quality: to actually _want_ to drive in
England!
So, *feel* where you are
in the laterality spectrum. When you first pick up a guitar,
even not knowing how to play, does it <feel better> in
one orientation or the other? Try right-handed for awhile,
then switch. Bear in mind that you can only get the feel of
the body of the guitar this way! To judge the string
orientation, you would need to get on a southpaw guitar.
Anyway, which feels better to you? Noone can tell you these
things. You must tune into your own natural orientation,
then choose.
<
Can
you play a standard guitar left-handedly, without reversing
the strings?
>
Yes, and many great
southpaw players have done just that. However, there are
advantages to having the low strings near the thumb and the
high strings under the fingers of the fretting hand (muting
techniques, chord flow and melodic flexibility, and a host
of other equally obscure issues), which is why the northpaw
orientation is such as it is in the first place. My opinion
is that it is preferable to maintain the relative
orientation of the strings to the hand, so if you play
left-handedly, you should get the guitar retro-fitted for
southpaw operation. Otherwise, you just trade one set of
problems (involving merely money) for another (involving a
complex and unintuitive approach to learning the
guitar).
If you choose to go
left-handed, then bear in mind these things;
1) All the guitars you buy
will need to be custom lefties, or a standard guitar made
southpaw. The latter involves at the least cutting a new
nut, and adjusting, possibly even replacing, the bridge. The
bridge saddle must be properly adjusted to fine tune the
intonation of the instrument. If out of adjustment, the
guitar will play out of tune. On classic guitars it is
generally fairly easy to do a southpaw retrofit, as the
bridge saddle is basically perpendicular to the
strings.
Most electrics and
acoustic instruments, on the other hand (couldn't resist
doing that again ;), require a slight angle of the saddle to
the strings (this is due to the much wider range of string
diameters which steel-strings have in comparison to
nylon-strings, and the consistant gradation of these
diameters from low to high across the bridge saddle). Then
there is also the issue of acoustic guitars often being
braced to accomodate the difference in tension between the
heavy low strings and the lighter high strings.
The adjustable bridges
found on most electrics can *sometimes* allow for the
necessary adjustments. Retrofitting an acoustic guitar for
southpaw use can be expensive, as generally the entire
bridge assembly must be replaced to accomodate adjustment.
And for various reasons this is not always easily done (ever
try to replace a bridge on an Ovation?); and
2) Most of the graphic
learning materials, such as scale and chord charts, which
you encounter will have to be mentally reversed before
they're of use to you.
My advice? OK, here
goes:
* If you write, bat, dial,
wipe and caress with your left hand, give it up...you're a
hardcore southpaw, and you're going to be tweaking bridges
for a long time to come. Find a good guitar tech and make
them your dear friend. Revel in your relative rarity! <
Let your Freak Flag fly! >
* If you *can* play
right-handed, your guitar life will be considerably simpler.
It thus becomes an issue of trading-off aspects of your
natural southpaw advantage by virtue of the Theory of
Lateral Manual Orientation as Applied to Guitar Playing (see
above) in exchange for easy access to guitars.
* And if you're a
beginning guitarist from among the northpaw masses who
wishes to test my Theory (see above, again) by learning to
play as do the lucky southpaws, by all means try it! Just
don't send me the bill.
As in most things in life,
find your balance.
- 'Tis God gives
skill, but not without men's hands:
- He could not
make Antonio Stadivari's violins without
Antonio.
- George
Eliot
Copyright 1996 Jeff Foster. All Rights
Reserved.
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